MANILA - The global tourism industry is expected to create almost 126 million jobs worldwide within 10 years, the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) said in a report released on Thursday in the Philippine capital.

The WTTC's latest Economic Impact Report (EIR) says the travel and tourism sector will be a driving force of the global economic recovery from the two-year pandemic.

The report forecasts that the travel and tourism sector's GDP will grow at an average rate of 5.8 percent annually between 2022 and 2032, outstripping the growth rate for the global economy, to reach 14.6 trillion U.S. dollars, equivalent to 11.3 percent of the total global economy.

WTTC president and CEO Julia Simpson said at the Global Tourism Summit in Manila that "one in three of every new job created will be related to the sector."

The report predicts that the travel and tourism sector across Asia and the Pacific region will rebound significantly and is estimated to create almost 77 million new jobs over the next decade.

At the same time, the sector's contribution to regional gross domestic product (GDP) is forecast to grow at an average annual rate of 8.5 percent between 2022 and 2032, faster than the region's overall economic growth.

The report also shows that global travel and tourism GDP could reach pre-pandemic levels by 2023, just 0.1 percent below 2019.

"This will be matched by a boost in travel and tourism employment, which is expected to approach 2019 levels in 2023, only 2.7 percent below," Simpson added.

According to the WTTC, the global tourism sector started recovering in 2021 when its contribution to GDP climbed by 21.7 percent year on year to reach more than $5.8 trillion.