Worldwide Tourists Numbers Drop 1.3% in 2001

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 ◆ Worldwide Tourists Numbers Drop 1.3% in 2001

Tourists numbers around the world fell by 1.3 percent in 2001 due to the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States and the economic slump in major countries from where the bulk of overseas visitors came from,the World Tourism Organization (WTO) said in Madrid recently.

A total of 689 million people traveled abroad last year, down from 697 million in 2000, according to statistics issued by the Madrid-based world tourism body.

But China turned out to be a highlighted attraction for global sightseers amid the dire world tourism industry, claiming fifth place in tourist destinations after France, Spain, the United States and Italy.

The WTO report showed that 33.2 million people visited China's mainland in 2001, up 6.2 percent over the previous year and accounting for 4.8 percent of global visitors. Travelers to Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, also saw a year-on-year increase of 5 percent.

The four months after the September 11 attacks witnessed a heavy blow to the world's tourism industry with an 11 percent plunge in tourists numbers from the year before, the report said.

Even before the terrorist attacks, a slowdown in the growth of overseas visitors had occurred in the first eight months of the year, up only 3 percent from the same period the year before.

Visitors to East Asia and the Pacific region in 2001 increased 3 percent year on year while those to the Middle East dropped 9 percent. Africa saw an increase of 3 percent, but the Americas, central Asia and Europe suffered decreases of 7 percent, 6 percent and 0.7 percent respectively, according the WTO figures.