WEF: Japan still friendliest

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has just released their biennial report on travel and tourism competitiveness, assessing 140 economies worldwide based on the extent to which they are putting in place the factors and policies to make it attractive to develop the travel and tourism sector.

With Switzerland, Germany, and Austria as the most competitive travel destinations, Japan comes in 14th in the overall ranking Here are the top ten:

France fell four places from third in 2011 to seventh, while Spain climbed to fourth from eighth. Also showing strong improvement were the United Kingdom – up two places to fifth – and Canada, up one place to eighth.

Alongside Switzerland and Germany, the United States and Singapore maintained their positions, in sixth and 10th places, respectively. Sweden, the only other country in the top 10 to fall, dropped from fifth to ninth.

Among developed economies, New Zealand and Japan improved strongly; the former climbing to 12th from 19th and the latter moving up eight positions to 14th. Emerging market economies reported mixed levels of progress, with Brazil and India being the only BRIC nations to move up in the rankings. In this category, rising stars include Panama, climbing from 56th to 37th, and the Philippines, which climbed from 94th to 82nd on the back of policy improvements supporting the industry.

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Japan is, no wonder, global leader in customer service, followed by Switzerland, Austria, and Sweden.

The overall ranking is based on a mind-boggling multitude of factors.

Japan scores high in

- Access to improved sanitation (1, being best)
- Access to improved drinking water (1)
- Hospital beds/10,000 (1)
- Life expectancy (1)
- Degree of customer orientation (1)
- Quality of railroad infrastructure (2)
- Primary education enrollment (2)
- Mobile broadband subscriptions (3)
- Quality of ground transport network (6)

Japan doesn not score too good in

- Visa requirements (96)
- Carbon dioxide emission (115)
- Threatened species(130)
- Price competitiveness (130)
- Ticket taxes and airport charges (113)
- Purchasing power parity (134)
- Hiring and firing practices (130)
- Ease of hiring foreign labor (118)
- Tourism openness (137)

Original report here

=> The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2013 | World Economic Forum - The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2013

Interesting article, thanks, Thomas-san!

The one thing I am puzzled with is the number of hospital beds per 10,000? Having been a regular visitor to hospitals here and there for the past year, what I saw was the acute shortage of beds. If Japan rates as No. 1, I shudder at the thought of being in other countries...

thomas said:

- Hospital beds/10,000 (1)

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I wonder what they measured here, because ANYTHING that has to do with medical care / hospitals in Japan just CAN'T be number 1 in the world!!

- Quality of railroad infrastructure (2)

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What? Not number 1? I wonder who's number 1 then.

- Visa requirements (96)

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I guess Germany is number 1 there seeing how many people from poor countries have flooded the country since I left many years ago and it's just getting worse and worse. I fear that at some point there's not enough space for all the people anymore or Germany is just going to be ruined and then everybody leaves again. (T__T) ....

- Tourism openness (137)

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Again I wonder what exactly they measured there. I don't have the feeling that Japan isn't open or welcoming to tourists.



Thank you for the link! I'm going to read the full report to see if some of my questions will be answered there.