Opportunities for Growth
Global tourism has seen unprecedented and virtually uninterrupted growth since the 1950’s. In fact today, travel and tourism is the world’s largest service industry, contributing trillions to world GDP. Competition for travelers and tourism dollars, as a result, is fierce!
At the Great Lakes Economic Forum, which took place from April 25-26 in Detroit, Michigan at the Cobo Center, the Council of the Great Lakes Region (the “Council”), in partnership with Deloitte LLP, released a report that looks at tourism trends and statistics in the cross-border Great Lakes region, which spans eight U.S. states and two Canadian provinces, and opportunities for growing the tourism sector.
Against this backdrop, North America is the fastest growing geographical region in the tourism industry, thanks in large part to the high-quality destinations and visitor experiences offered by the United States and Canada.
A key finding from the Council’s study, however, is that while the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Region represents a significant market for tourism and punches above its weight in visitors and jobs, it only drives 15% of tourism related revenues and 19% of tourism related GDP in North America.
Therefore, by encouraging greater collaboration within the sector and across the border through the Council of the Great Lakes Region, there’s an opportunity to develop a Regional travel and tourism vision and strategy in order set the stage for sizeable and sustainable growth in this sector in the years ahead.
Release Date
April 26, 2017
