WTCF Releases Significant Research Report 'World Tourism Cities Development Report (2021)'

The World Conference on Tourism Cooperation and Development 2022, hosted by the World Tourism Cities Federation (WTCF), opened at the China National Convention Center in Beijing on 1 September. Du Yili, WTCF Expert and former Deputy Director-General of China National Tourism Administration, released World Tourism Cities Development Report (2021) (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") at the event. As an important research result of WTCF, the Report aims to present a more comprehensive and vivid picture of the development of the world's major tourism cities and tourism industry in 2021, and provide more experience sharing for the comprehensive recovery of the world tourism cities and tourism industry.

Du Yili, WTCF Expert and former Deputy Director-General of China National Tourism Administration

As the world's first city-based international tourism organization, WTCF has issued the annual World Tourism Cities Development Report for eight consecutive years since its establishment in 2012, creating a brand of academic reports that promotes and guides the sustainable development of world tourism cities.

The Report is composed of three sections, namely "2021 Comprehensive Evaluation of World Tourism Cities Development", "World Tourism Cities Development (2021 Comprehensive Rankings)" and "World Tourism Cities Development (2021 Individual Rankings)". The "2021 Comprehensive Evaluation of World Tourism Cities Development" section systematically analyzes the huge impact of COVID-19 on world tourism and the features of tourism policies' development of world tourism cities amidst the epidemic. The Report points out that the current development of tourism cities features new trends. It notably finds that public governance capability has become a key driver of recovery, strengthened internal circulation has created a more stable and balanced market structure, digitalization has extended the frontiers of city tourism, and city tourism puts more emphasis on cooperation and common development.

The section on "World Tourism Cities Development (2021 Comprehensive Rankings)" has, on the basis of maintaining the continuity of the basic framework and data of previous development reports, studied the adjustment of the index system and focused on the observation and analysis objects of 100 sample cities in the world, such as Beijing, Tokyo, Sydney, Madrid, Cairo and Dubai, in order to make the evaluation indicators more truthfully reflect the dramatic changes in the tourism industry. According to the Report, the top 10 cities in terms of comprehensive rankings are Paris, London, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Miami, Beijing, Sydney, Las Vegas and Chicago. By analyzing the comprehensive rankings of world tourism cities development, the Report summarizes the comprehensive index characteristics, such as the slow recovery of tourism industry, the new pattern of regional development, the new situation of city competition, the leapfrog development of smart tourism, and the visible weaknesses in tourism development.

The "World Tourism Cities Development (2021 Individual Rankings)" section presents the 2021 lists of city popularity, industry prosperity, city smartness, economic contribution and tourist satisfaction. Tokyo, Paris, Macao, Mexico City and Hong Kong ranked first in city popularity, industry prosperity, city smartness, economic contribution and tourist satisfaction respectively.

In addition, according to the comprehensive characteristics and analysis of the 2021 world tourism cities development, the Report also analyzes and summarizes seven solutions and suggestions to promote the comprehensive development of world tourism cities, including promoting epidemic prevention and control and tourism development, formulating policies for tourism recovery and development, focusing on product innovation and integrated development, advocating digital and smart tourism, improving public tourism services and the tourism security system, and implementing the concept of sustainable development.