January 26: Around 1.3 billion tourists travelled abroad in 2023, a 44 percent jump from the previous year, according to the latest report of the World Tourism Organization which recently changed its name to UN Tourism.
The report published last week states that the outbound tourists last year was still just 88 percent of the number of tourists who headed abroad in 2019, the last full year before global travel restrictions imposed to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic.

Meanwhile, the World Tourism Organization recently announced that it had changed its name to UN Tourism, to make clear that the Madrid-based agency is part of the United Nations.    
AFP reported that the new name, along with a new logo featuring a human figure in motion with the tagline "Bringing the world closer", was unveiled at the opening of Madrid's FITUR tourism congress on Wednesday.    
"By moving away from acronyms, UN Tourism adopts a more approachable stance," the body said in a statement.    
An intergovernmental body that promotes tourism and facilitates international trade between nations, the agency has been based in Madrid since it was founded in 1974, added AFP.    
The body, which groups 160 member states, also has regional offices in Japan, Saudi Arabia, Brazil and Morocco, and regularly publishes estimates and forecasts of tourist arrivals by region and country.