Hong Kong’s tourism industry is struggling to recover the most. 24 million tourists in 2019 dropped to approximately 100,000 in 2021, 0.4% of its pre-covid popularity.
As countries across the world remove travel limitations and relax their borders, the global tourism industry is on track to fully recover after two years of restrictions. With this in mind, the experts at money.co.uk were curious to find which countries are returning to their pre-covid levels of tourism the quickest?
To do this, money.co.uk analysed each country’s tourism levels in 2019 before the pandemic, and compared this with 2021, to measure how well their tourism industry has recovered.
Countries where tourism is struggling to recover post-pandemic
Country: |
2019 Tourist Numbers (million) |
2020 Tourist Numbers (million) |
2021 Tourist Numbers (million) |
2021 Volume Compared To 2019 (%) |
Hong Kong |
23.8 |
1.4 |
0.1 |
0.4% |
Japan |
31.9 |
4.1 |
0.2 |
0.6% |
Taiwan |
11.9 |
1.4 |
0.1 |
0.8% |
Thailand |
39.9 |
6.7 |
0.4 |
1.0% |
Vietnam |
18.0 |
3.8 |
0.2 |
1.1% |
Singapore |
19.1 |
2.1 |
0.3 |
1.6% |
Philippines |
8.3 |
1.5 |
0.2 |
2.4% |
Cambodia |
6.6 |
1.3 |
0.2 |
3.0% |
Argentina |
7.4 |
2.1 |
0.3 |
4.1% |
Chile |
4.5 |
1.1 |
0.2 |
4.4% |
Hong Kong’s tourism industry is struggling to recover the most. 24 million tourists in 2019 dropped to approximately 100,000 in 2021, 0.4% of its pre-covid popularity.
The second slowest return to normality is fellow Asian powerhouse Japan. Its 2021 tourist volume of around 200,000 is only 0.6% of its 2019 total (31.9 million).
Taiwan completes the top three with roughly 100,000 visitors in 2021, which is a large drop from its 2019 total of 11.9 million (0.8%).
Countries where tourism is recovering the quickest
# |
Country |
2019 tourist numbers (million) |
2020 tourist numbers (million) |
2021 tourist numbers (million) |
2021 volume compared to 2019 (%) |
1. |
Bahrain |
3.8 |
1.9 |
3.6 |
94.7% |
2. |
Albania |
5.9 |
2.5 |
5.3 |
89.8% |
3. |
Dominican Republic |
6.4 |
2.4 |
5.0 |
78.1% |
4. |
Maldives |
1.7 |
0.6 |
1.3 |
76.5% |
5 |
Aruba |
1.1 |
0.4 |
0.8 |
72.7% |
6. |
Mexico |
45 |
24.3 |
31.9 |
70.9% |
7. |
Luxembourg |
1.0 |
0.5 |
0.7 |
70.0% |
8. |
El Salvador |
1.8 |
0.5 |
1.2 |
66.7% |
9. |
Iceland |
2.0 |
0.5 |
1.3 |
65.0% |
10. |
Montenegro |
2.5 |
0.4 |
1.6 |
64.0% |
11. |
Andorra |
3.1 |
1.9 |
1.9 |
61.3% |
12. |
Croatia |
17.4 |
5.5 |
Tatiana is the news coordinator for TravelDailyNews Media Network (traveldailynews.gr, traveldailynews.com and traveldailynews.asia). Her role includes monitoring the hundreds of news sources of TravelDailyNews Media Network and skimming the most important according to our strategy.
She holds a Bachelor's degree in Communication & Mass Media from Panteion University of Political & Social Studies of Athens and she has been editor and editor-in-chief in various economic magazines and newspapers.