sexta-feira, 10 de abril de 2015

Tourism demand in the happiest countries in the world



The World Happiness Report - 2013 is a study to evaluate which countries have the best level of happiness in the world. It was written by John Helliwell, Richard Layard and Jeffrey Sachs.

         
In this investigation the perception of happiness was researched in 149 countries, using the variables of higher life expectancy, gross domestic product per capita, social support, generosity, freedom to make life choices and lower perceptions of corruption (1). The states that demonstrated the best results in this report were Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, Netherlands, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Austria, Iceland, Australia.       
         
One question arises when analyzing this study: Are there connections between happiest countries and tourism demand? This article will explore whether a happy community can attract more tourists.
            
According to UNWTO (2), most of the time, tourism has shown virtually uninterrupted growth from 25 million in 1950 to 278 million in 1980, 528 million in 1995. However, the key question is how global travel motivation works.

Considering the chart 1 below, it’s possible conclude that countries high levels of happiness don’t necessarily attract more tourists. That’s evident when we analyze that the top 4 of international tourist arrivals (France, United States, Spain and China) don’t even make the list of the top 15 happiest countries, also on the same list, Italy stayed in 45 position, Russia took 68 positions and China 93 position.


Chart 1 - HAPPIEST COUNTRIES AND WORLD TOURISM DEMAND.
 The world's happiest countries - 2013

The world's happiest  countries and International Tourist Arrivals 2012 (million)
Top 10 - International Tourist Arrivals- UNWTO 2012 (million)
1 - Denmark
Denmark  - 8.068
1 - France  83.0
2 - Norway
Norway - 4.375
2 - United States  - 66.7
3 - Switzerland
Switzerland - 8.566
3 - Spain 57.5
4 - Netherlands
Netherlands - 12.205
4 - China 57.7
5 - Sweden
Sweden - 10.914
5 - Italy 46.4
6 - Canada
Canada - 16.344
6 - Turkey 35.7
7 - Finland
Finland - 4.226
7 - Germany 30.4
8 - Austria
Austria - 24.151
8 - United Kingdom  29.3
9 - Iceland
Iceland - 673 (Thousand)
9 - Russian Federation 25.7
10 - Australia
Australia - 6.032
10 -  Thailand 22.4
11 -  Israel
Israel - 2.803
-
12 - Costa Rica
Costa Rica - 2.100
-
13 -  New Zealand
New Zealand - 2.435
-
14 - United Arab Emirates
United Arab Emirates     -
-
15 - Panama
Panama -  1.324
-

Finally, it’s important emphasize the Top 10 of International Tourist Arrivals - UNWTO 2012 has world icons of tourism, are countries with rich historical and natural attractions. These two points seem be until now the main travel motivation in the world.

1-  http://unsdsn.org/wpcontent/uploads/2014/02/WorldHappinessReport2013_online.pdf

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