The European Travel Commission (ETC) has just published its third quarterly report on European Tourism in 2011  - Trends & Prospects. The following gives a brief overview of the report for the third quarter of 2011.
 
- Signs of economic weakness have led us to revise down our global economic growth forecast to 2.8% in 2011 and 3.1% in 2012 (at market exchange rates).
- And risks to this forecast are skewed to the downside, coming from three different fronts: i) an escalation of the Eurozone debt crisis including financial contagion, ii) the possibility that the US falls back into recession, and iii) a hard landing in the emerging economies and China in particular. Each of these three scenarios could be sufficient to tip the world back into recession.
- On the whole, the travel recovery is continuing. However, the rate of expansion is slowing with few exceptions.
- European airlines have experience robust demand growth through September. With only one exception, weekly growth rates have been above 6% and have averaged a rate of nearly 8% over this period. And seat capacity has nearly kept pace with demand, producing stable load factors.
- Through August, room demand has grown nearly 4% and been especially strong in Eastern and Southern Europe, with occupancy rates up 7.3% and 5.2%, respectively. Although occupancy growth has been relatively weak in Western Europe (2.4% YTD), room rates have performed well above average, growing 4.8%.
- By the end of 2011, we expect international visits to Europe to have surpassed records set in 2008.
- However, the economic landscape presents a challenging environment for travel. We expect European inbound travel to slow markedly, to 2.3% in 2012 from 5.6% in 2011. The core Eurozone countries are most exposed to the downturn and are projected to experience.


ETC European Tourism Q3 2011