Bar chart showing growth in worldwide tourism by region from 2015 to 2030

Growth in Worldwide Tourism

Outbound tourism is projected to grow by 53% worldwide from 2015-2030. Africa and the Middle East will see 157% and 125%  growth, respectively. In absolute numbers, these regions will make up less than 10% of total outbound person-visits.  Growth will be 40% in Europe, 87% in Asia-Pacific, and 33%% in the America.  The data from the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UN WTO) is summarized in the bar chart below:Growth in Worldwide Tourism, based on data from the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UN WTO)

I found this data in a table in a UN WTO publication. I thought that a stacked bar chart showing outbound tourism by region would be a better visualization of the data.  I added a data column that contains percentage growth.  The chart and data column drives home three messages:

  1. Most outbound tourism is currently from Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Americas and this will remain unchanged between now and 2030.
  2. There will be far greater growth in outbound tourism in Africa and the Middle East.
  3. Even after this growth is accounted for, Africa and the Middle East will account for under 10% of worldwide outbound tourism.

The chart was straightforward to make using Mekko Graphics. The data with rows for the regions and columns for 2015 and 2030 was retyped from the original source.  I then added a data column for percentage growth and used a formula to calculate it.  I created a second data column to hold the region names.  This allowed me to align the region names, last bar of the chart and percentage growth data so that the chart and data read from left to right.  I showed both the number and percentage values in each bar.  I also annotated the smaller labels in the 2015 bar so that they appear above the bar totals.

Here is the chart in SlideShare to download and edit using Mekko Graphics: