July 2017 World Tourism Organization Data...

The UN World Tourism Organization announced that the number of international visitors in the first half of 2017 increased by 6.4% compared to the same period of the previous year.
According to data released by the United Nations World Tourism Organization, the number of international visitors increased by 6.4% in the first half of 2017 compared to the same period of the previous year.

This increase in the first half of 2017 was the best first-half performance achieved by world tourism since 2010.

The most important driver of this increase was cited as the double-digit growth in demand for Mediterranean destinations.

In the January-July period of 2017, the number of international visitors rose by 36 million compared to the same period of the previous year, reaching 598 million.

Another factor behind this rise in demand was noted to be the trend of "increased economic confidence" and "rising demand for traveling abroad" in major markets such as the United Kingdom, China, France and the USA.

The statement particularly drew attention to the role played in this development by the high growth in demand recorded this year in Mediterranean destinations such as Egypt, Tunisia and Turkey, which had registered significant declines last year due to terrorist attacks.

In the first half of the year, the number of visitors to Southern Europe and Mediterranean destinations rose by 12%.

While the number of visitors to North African destinations increased by 16%, the number of visitors to Middle Eastern countries also rose by 8.9%.

Europe, the most visited region in the world, also recorded a 7.7% increase.