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Over the past 62 years, the number of people crossing international borders has grown from 25 million to 1,035 million , according to Taleb Rifai, secretary general of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation's (UNWTO).
Addressing the inaugural session of the UNWTO conference on Sustainable Tourism Development being held here by the Union government from Friday, Rifai said the year 2012 saw 1,035 million crossing the international borders. While the global tourism sector witnessed a growth of 4 per cent, Asian region saw a growth of 7 per cent and accounted for 25 per cent of the world traffic last year.
He predicted a growth of 3.5-4 per cent for the tourism sector worldwide and 5-6 per cent for the Asian region this year.
The three-day conference being attended by 97 delegates from 24 countries was inaugurated by Union minister of state for tourism, K Chiranjeevi.
Chief minister, N Kiran Kumar Reddy, who was chief guest at the inaugural ceremony, said 153 million domestic tourists and 260,000 international tourists visited the state in 2011.
