Global tourism has moved beyond its post-pandemic recovery phase into a period in which destinations increasingly have to manage the consequences of growth.
International tourist arrivals reached a record 1.5 billion in 2025, while travel and tourism contributed an estimated $11.6 trillion to the global economy and supported 366 million jobs. But expanding demand is also placing greater pressure on infrastructure, labor markets, local communities and destination management systems.
The World Economic Forum’s 2026 Travel & Tourism Development Index attempts to measure how prepared individual economies are to manage those pressures while continuing to develop their tourism sectors.
Produced in collaboration with Zurich Insurance Group, the index evaluates 110 economies across 17 pillars covering the business environment, tourism policy, infrastructure and services, tourism resources and sustainability.
Rather than measuring which countries receive the most visitors, the index assesses the underlying conditions that allow tourism to operate and expand.
Japan moves into first place
Japan ranks first in the 2026 index with a score of 5.27, moving ahead of the United States and Spain.
The United States ranks second with a score of 5.23, followed by Spain at 5.22, Australia at 5.18 and France at 5.17. Germany, the United Kingdom, China, Switzerland and Italy complete the top 10.
Advanced economies account for nine of the 10 highest-ranked markets, with China the exception. Europe has six countries in the top 10.
Japan’s improvement reflects more than its established cultural and tourism resources. The country has expanded international access while pursuing strategies intended to distribute visitors across a broader range of destinations and travel periods.
Japan welcomed a record 42.7 million international visitors in 2025, according to the World Economic Forum, while international visitor spending reached approximately $59.7 billion.
The country’s experience also illustrates a broader theme emerging from the index: attracting visitors is increasingly only part of the destination-management challenge. Distributing those visitors geographically and throughout the year can become equally important as volumes increase.
Top 10 economies in the 2026 index
| Rank | Economy | TTDI score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Japan | 5.27 |
| 2 | United States | 5.23 |
| 3 | Spain | 5.22 |
| 4 | Australia | 5.18 |
| 5 | France | 5.17 |
| 6 | Germany | 5.09 |
| 7 | United Kingdom | 5.08 |
| 8 | China | 5.00 |
| 9 | Switzerland | 4.97 |
| 10 | Italy | 4.93 |
The ranking does not measure hotel performance, visitor satisfaction or tourism volumes. A high score instead indicates that an economy has relatively strong conditions for developing and sustaining its travel and tourism sector.
Emerging destinations are improving faster
The broader results show improvement extending well beyond the highest-ranked countries.
Some 92% of the 110 economies covered by the index improved their scores between 2024 and 2026. The average score increased by approximately 2%, the fastest improvement recorded since 2019.
Asia-Pacific recorded particularly strong gains.
Albania was the most improved economy overall, increasing its score by 7% from 2024. The World Economic Forum attributes the improvement partly to stronger tourism services and infrastructure, air transport, and ground and port infrastructure.
Viet Nam improved by 6.3% and Laos by 6.1%, while Malaysia and Thailand were also among the faster-improving markets. Seven of the 10 most improved economies were developing countries in Asia-Pacific.
The report finds that larger emerging tourism economies have improved their scores at more than twice the rate of the top 20 economies since 2019.
That could gradually change the competitive landscape for hotel owners, developers and tourism investors. Destinations that combine improving transport and tourism infrastructure with natural and cultural resources may become increasingly capable of absorbing international demand that has historically concentrated in established tourism markets.
Infrastructure and resilience become part of tourism competitiveness
The index also reflects a changing definition of destination competitiveness.
Tourism infrastructure has traditionally been evaluated largely on whether airports, roads, hotels and other facilities can accommodate additional travelers. Increasingly, those systems must also continue functioning during disruptions ranging from extreme weather and geopolitical events to technology failures and transportation interruptions.
This puts greater emphasis on redundancy, communications, transportation networks, digital systems and coordination between public authorities and private-sector operators.
The issue has become more important as travel volumes increase. More visitors can magnify the economic consequences when airports, transportation networks or other critical systems fail.
For hotels, resilience can extend beyond property-level emergency planning. Guests and employees may depend on systems outside the hotel’s direct control to reach a property, access reliable communications and get accurate information during a disruption.
Growth is creating new constraints
The industry’s economic scale makes these issues increasingly significant.
According to the World Travel & Tourism Council’s 2026 Economic Impact Research, travel and tourism contributed a record $11.6 trillion to global GDP in 2025, representing 9.8% of the global economy. The sector supported 366 million jobs worldwide.
WTTC expects the sector’s contribution to reach about $12 trillion in 2026, with employment rising to around 376 million jobs.
However, several constraints could make continued expansion more difficult.
Affordability is one. Tourism-related costs have risen quickly in many markets, potentially affecting travelers’ destination choices and length of stay.
Capacity is another. Visitor growth can place additional pressure on transportation, public services, housing and infrastructure, particularly in destinations where demand is concentrated within limited geographic areas or peak travel periods.
The result is a shift in the tourism debate from maximizing arrivals toward managing them more effectively.
That includes encouraging travel outside peak periods, developing secondary destinations, improving transportation links and ensuring that local communities see economic benefits from tourism growth.
Workforce shortages could become a major constraint
Labor availability presents another challenge, particularly for hospitality businesses.
Separate WTTC workforce research estimates that global demand for travel and tourism workers could exceed available supply by more than 43 million people by 2035. That would leave the industry’s labor supply approximately 16% below projected requirements.
Hospitality alone could face a gap of approximately 8.6 million workers.
The shortage has implications beyond recruitment. Hotels and other tourism businesses may need to increase productivity, redesign jobs, improve employee retention and make greater use of technology as demand continues expanding.
It also means that destinations investing heavily in hotels, airports and tourism infrastructure may eventually find that physical capacity alone is insufficient if the workforce required to operate those assets does not grow at a similar rate.
From attracting visitors to managing tourism
The 2026 index points to a broader change in the tourism industry’s development cycle.
For much of the post-pandemic period, the central question was how quickly international travel would recover. With global arrivals now above pre-pandemic levels and tourism’s economic contribution at a record high, the issue is increasingly how destinations accommodate further expansion.
That requires investment not only in hotels and attractions but also in transportation, digital infrastructure, workforce development and destination management.
It also places greater importance on spreading demand across different locations and seasons rather than concentrating additional visitors in already busy destinations.
The rapid improvement of emerging tourism economies adds another dimension. Better infrastructure and connectivity are giving travelers more destination choices while giving hotel developers and investors a wider range of markets to consider.
For established destinations, maintaining competitiveness may therefore depend less on generating additional demand and more on whether infrastructure, labor supply and local communities can accommodate it.
With 1.5 billion international arrivals already moving through the global tourism system each year, the next phase of growth is increasingly a question of capacity: not simply how many travelers a destination can attract, but how effectively it can accommodate them.
