Tourism recovering, but not back to pre-pandemic levels

International tourist arrivals worldwide have more than doubled, up 130 percent in January 2022 on the same period last year, according to the latest UN World Tourism Organization figures.

Travellers are regaining confidence, and Europe and the Americas are leading the resurgence.

Worldwide, there have been 18 million additional visitors, the UNWTO said, "equivalent to the total increase recorded over the whole of 2021".

In 2019, global tourism revenues reached $1.48 trillion. That figure dropped by almost two thirds due to the pandemic the following year.

While January confirms the recovery trend that began in 2021, the UNWTO highlighted how the Omicron Covid variant recently put the brakes on the rise. International arrivals in January 2022 were still 67 percent lower than before the pandemic.

Most regions have seen travellers return and rebound from the low levels of early 2021, with Europe faring three times better and the Americas twice as well.

That's still some way off pre-pandemic numbers, but Larry Cuculic, general manager of the Best Western hotel company, is optimistic.

The Middle East is also experiencing a boom, with arrivals up 89 percent on 2021, and so is Africa, with numbers up 51 percent -- but these two regions are still very far from their 2019 totals, according to the UNWTO.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the number of travellers is falling in the Asia-Pacific region, where several destinations remain closed. In January, international tourist arrivals were down 93 percent from pre-pandemic levels.

Travel by Chinese tourists, the world's biggest spenders before the pandemic, is also severely affected by China's zero-Covid policy.

The Caribbean and South America are drawing tourists looking for sea and sunshine in the northern hemisphere summer. Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Aruba and Jamaica are among the 20 most popular destinations, even exceeding pre-pandemic levels.

In Europe, tourists are flocking to France, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Iceland, but not in the same numbers as before Covid.

France is doing well enough, though. In February, international tourism revenues in the country "came close to those of 2019", according to France's tourism minister Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne.

At 2.7 billion euros ($2.8 billion), revenues were up 1.5 billion compared to last year and down eight percent compared to 2019,  he told reporters.