The World Travel & Tourism Council forecasts Europe's Travel & Tourism sector to grow 3.1% in 2026. The council recorded 2.6% growth for the region in 2025. WTTC released the outlook at the opening press conference of its 26th Global Summit in Valletta.
The same outlook puts global Travel & Tourism growth at 2.5% for 2026. The council published no rate, occupancy, revenue or arrival figure alongside it.
The summit behind the numbers
WTTC held the 26th Global Summit from 7 to 9 October 2026 at the Mediterranean Conference Centre in Valletta. The release counts more than 1,000 delegates, more than 200 chief executives and government leaders, and more than 100 speakers across the programme.
Four participants are named. They are Justin Trudeau, former Prime Minister of Canada; José María Aznar, former Prime Minister of Spain; Apostolos Tzitzikostas, European Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism; and Nick Adams, the first US Presidential Envoy for Tourism. The programme runs under the title FUTU[RE]SET.
Three spending lines
WTTC forecasts international visitor spending in Europe up 5.8% in 2026. Business travel spending is forecast up 4.2% and leisure travel spending up 3.1%.
Two gaps follow. The international visitor spending line runs 2.7 percentage points above the regional growth forecast. The business travel line runs 1.1 points above the leisure line.
Those are the only forward spending lines in the release. It carries no country split, no source-market split and no month of compilation for the underlying data.
The 2025 base the forecasts sit on
WTTC's Economic Impact Research page carries the 2025 outturn. The sector contributed US$11.6 trillion to global GDP, equal to 9.8% of the global economy. It grew 4.1% year on year against 2.8% for the wider global economy, and supported 366 million jobs, roughly one in nine worldwide.
The same page records international visitor spending of US$2.02 trillion in 2025, up 3.2%, and domestic visitor spending of US$5.63 trillion, up 3.7%. The release counts Europe's Travel & Tourism employment at around one in ten jobs across the region.
Malta, the host country
The council forecasts Travel & Tourism contributing US$4.9 billion to Malta's economy in 2026. That equals 16.9% of the country's GDP and supports more than one in five jobs.
For 2025 the release records a 16.8% increase in Malta's Travel & Tourism contribution to GDP, the highest annual increase among European economies. The European average that year was 2.6%. Malta's increase runs 6.5 times that average.
Gloria Guevara, president and chief executive of WTTC, states the regional forecast directly. "In Europe, the outlook is even stronger, with Travel & Tourism forecast to grow 3.1% in 2026," she says. She names seamless travel, connectivity, talent and sustainable growth as the four conditions the council asks of governments.
What the two Maltese speakers ask for
Carlo Micallef, chief executive of the Malta Tourism Authority, puts social and environmental value beside the economic line. "We want to create greater value, not only economic, but also social and environmental," he says.
Charles Mangion, chairman of the same authority, writes of welcoming more than 200 of the world's leading voices in Travel and Tourism. He frames the summit as recognition of Malta's position as a destination.
The release runs twelve days after the event
The eHotelier copy carries a 21 October 2026 publication stamp. The summit closed on 9 October. The text keeps its "released today at the opening press conference" wording from the first issue.
A reader who takes the piece as current dates the forecast to this week. The forecast was issued at the start of October.
The reading for a revenue desk
Three figures are usable as a 2026 backdrop. Regional growth of 3.1% against 2.6% for 2025 is a half-point acceleration. International visitor spending of 5.8% is the highest figure the council publishes for the region. Business spending of 4.2% sits above leisure spending of 3.1%.
All three are GDP-contribution and spending series. The release carries no per-market room rate, occupancy or RevPAR to convert any of it into revenue.
The Malta set is the one place the release goes narrow enough to act on. A single economy at 16.9% of GDP and more than one in five jobs is a concentration figure. The council prints 16.9% as a 2026 forecast. The 16.8% increase it prints for 2025 is the outturn that forecast follows.