TripAdvisor, the world’s largest travel site from reviews to bookings today announced the results of the “Sizing the Worldwide Travel Economy” study, conducted by Oxford Economics in partnership with TripAdvisor to examine the size of the global travel economy and TripAdvisor’s contributions to it. The study found that the travel industry reached more than $5.29 trillion USD in spending in 2017, with international tourism spend growing for the last eight consecutive years.
By comparing world economic growth data with TripAdvisor’s own trends, the study was also able to show that TripAdvisor had an enormous estimated influence of $546 billion in 2017 alone. Globally, the popular travel site influenced more than 433 million trips last year.
“We launched this study not only because we wanted to better understand the true size and scope of the global travel economy, but also to better understand TripAdvisor’s scale and impact on tourism,” said Charlie Ballard,director of strategic insights, TripAdvisor. “The travel category is indeed enormous and outpacing other consumer spending worldwide, and TripAdvisor not only inspires travel, but also causes more travel – in particular by encouraging travellers to take longer trips by showing them how much more there is to see and do.”
“We are happy to see more data and studies that affirm TripAdvisor’s positive contribution to consumers, travel businesses and the broader economy is huge and undeniable,” said Martin Verdon-Roe, vice president of product &marketing, TripAdvisor hotels. “For hotels, rentals, attractions, experiences and restaurants across the globe, the key take away from the latest research is that there has never been a better time to market your business on TripAdvisor.”