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Hospitality Net
15 hours ago
- Business
- Hospitality Net
Travel & Tourism in Egypt Reaches Historic Milestones
London, UK - The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) has revealed record-breaking data for Egypt's Travel & Tourism sector, with 2024 marking the highest-ever contribution to the national economy, and 2025 forecast to surpass that record once again. According to WTTC's latest Economic Impact Research (EIR), developed in collaboration with Oxford Economics, the sector contributed EGP 1.4TN to Egypt's GDP in 2024, accounting for 8.5% of the national economy. Looking ahead, 2025 is projected to set a new all-time high with a forecast annual growth of 4.9% and increase in the sector's share to 8.6% of national GDP. This underlines the central role of Travel & Tourism in Egypt's continued economic development. Visitor Spending Surpasses Pre-Pandemic Records 2024 also marked the strongest year on record for visitor spending. International visitor expenditure reached EGP 726.9BN, up 36.1% compared to 2019, while domestic visitor spending rose to EGP 449.9BN, 31.8% above pre-pandemic levels. This upward trend is set to continue. In 2025, international visitor spending is projected to increase to EGP 768.2BN, and domestic spending is expected to reach EGP 460.6BN, maintaining the country's strong recovery and sustained demand across both international and local travel. Employment Growth Exceeds 2019 Levels In addition to record-breaking economic contribution and visitor spending, in 2024, the sector supported 2.7 million jobs, exceeding the 2019 peak. This growth is set to continue, with 2025 employment forecast to rise to 2.9 million, marking a 22.3% increase compared to 2019. Egypt's Travel & Tourism sector is experiencing a powerful resurgence, with record-breaking economic contribution and a sustained surge in visitor spending. These numbers reflect a sector on the rise: dynamic, resilient, and vital to the country's growth. With its rich cultural heritage, world-class attractions, and growing connectivity, Egypt continues to captivate travellers from around the globe. The government's focus on investment, infrastructure, and sustainable tourism is clearly paying off. Julia Simpson, WTTC President & CEO A Decade of Growth WTTC forecasts a decade of sustained expansion for Egypt's Travel & Tourism sector. By 2035, the sector is expected to contribute EGP 2.1TN to the national economy, accounting for 8.4% of GDP. Employment is projected to reach 3.8 million jobs, representing 10.5% of total employment, and highlighting the sector's critical role in job creation. Over the same period, international visitor spending is expected to rise to EGP 1.1TN, while domestic spending is forecast to reach EGP 627BN, reflecting Egypt's potential to become one of the region's most vibrant and sustainable tourism economies. For more information and to access the full factsheet, including WTTC's latest Environmental Social Research (ESR), please visit WTTC's Research Hub. Editors Notes All figures given in EGP About WTTC The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) represents the global travel & tourism private sector. Members include 200 CEOs, Chairs and Presidents of the world's leading travel & tourism companies from all geographies covering all industries. For more than 30 years, WTTC has been committed to raising the awareness of governments and the public of the economic and social significance of the travel & tourism sector. WTTC Press Office WTTC View source
Miami Herald
a day ago
- Business
- Miami Herald
To employers, AI skills aren't just for tech majors anymore
By the time Christian Vivas enrolled in a new artificial intelligence program at Miami Dade College, he had already experimented with using ChatGPT to help him write emails to clients of the creative media studio he owns. Vivas said most of his classmates were like him - adults well into their careers looking to learn how to use AI, or use it better. Thanks to his classes, Vivas, who is 37 and has a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, has gone way beyond using ChatGPT. He now employs AI in nearly every aspect of his work: generating images, videos, marketing plans, social media captions. "It's integrated very deeply into our business now," Vivas said. Generative AI technology is rapidly changing the labor market. Employers are increasingly posting job listings that include AI skills for positions even outside of the technology sector, such as in health care, hospitality and media. To keep up, students are increasingly looking for ways to boost their AI skills and make themselves more marketable at a time when there's growing fear that AI will replace humans in the workforce. And their concerns are justified: There's evidence to suggest artificial intelligence may have already replaced some jobs. Entry-level positions are particularly at risk of being replaced by AI, a report from Oxford Economics shows, and the unemployment rate for recent college graduates jumped to nearly 6 percent in March, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. A global survey of more than 1,000 large businesses showed 41 percent expect to reduce their workforces within five years because of AI. But most companies - 77 percent - also plan to train their employees to "better work alongside AI," according to the World Economic Forum's January Future of Jobs report. Last year, the number of online job postings that included generative AI as a desired skill grew 323 percent, from fewer than 16,000 to more than 66,000, according to a report from the labor analytics company Lightcast. Related: Interested in more news about colleges and universities? Subscribe to our free biweekly higher education newsletter. Colleges are also motivated by these trends: They're adding AI to their course catalogs, and individual professors are altering lessons to include AI skill building. Miami Dade College, for example, debuted its artificial intelligence certificate program in 2023, just over a month after ChatGPT was unveiled. The program offers classes in machine learning, ethics and natural language programming, among other courses. Since rolling out the certificate program, the school has added associate and bachelor's degree programs in applied AI. "We started developing this idea around the application of AI - how you can apply AI, how can you learn AI at a community college - where it is open to everyone, not just to a few who can get a master's or Ph.D.," said Antonio Delgado, vice president of innovation and technology partnerships at Miami Dade College. In 2022, the college also created Miami Tech Works, an organization that helps tech companies find skilled workers. Recently, more businesses outside of tech have reached out to hire people who know how to use AI. "We didn't know there would be so many employers talking about AI and talking about implementing AI," said Terri-Ann Brown, director of Miami Tech Works. Brown said the owner of a high-end hotel in South Florida told her that a year ago, the hotel's executives were worried about AI taking their jobs. Now, each department at the hotel has been charged with researching AI tools and reporting ways they can use them. For example, one department created an online chatbot to recommend restaurants to hotel guests. Miami Dade College's programs have attracted students like Vicky Cheung, who decided to enroll in the college's artificial intelligence awareness certificate program in 2024, after she was let go from the Miami hospital where she had worked for more than two decades. Cheung, who already had a bachelor's in business and a master's in health management, was looking into courses that would give her skills she could add to her resume. She believes her AI courses, coupled with her years of work experience, helped her land her new job analyzing how to improve processes and workflow at a different in the program showed employers "that I'm trying to find a way to improve my skill sets," she said. Related: University students offload critical thinking, other hard work to AI Schools across the country have announced programs similar to the one at Miami Dade College: courses in artificial intelligence in business settings and minors in AI marketed to students who are not computer science majors. But higher education institutions are not inherently nimble - and the technology is evolving quickly. Because generative AI is changing so rapidly, there's no one curriculum or credential schools are using, or can look to, as a guidepost. What these lessons look like and the rules about how students should use AI vary by institution, or even classroom to classroom. "Institutions are really built to move slowly - there are committees, policies, there's accreditation. It's almost in their DNA to not move fast," said Josh Jones, CEO of QuantHub, a company that works with schools including the University of Alabama and Emory University to add artificial intelligence lessons. "The problem we have is that AI is changing industries so fast that the textbooks, the curriculum - by the time you get it approved, it's relevant, but it's outdated." There are ethical implications for using generative AI as well - from students using the technology to cheat on assignments to the demand that data centers are putting on the nation's water supply. Some studies indicate college students who use AI on assignments are less engaged with their lessons and use it to offload critical thinking. Higher education institutions across the country have issued nearly identical statements acknowledging the risks, but also the need, for students to learn how to use artificial intelligence to prepare for the working world. The challenge for colleges will be getting that balance right, producing graduates who know how to use artificial intelligence but are not wholly reliant on it. James Taylor, a philosophy professor at The College of New Jersey, changed his classroom setup about a year and a half ago to prevent students from using AI on his assignments. Now, when the class has to write an essay, they do it by hand while in the room. When students take a test, they do it with paper and pencil via blue books. Related: What aspects of teaching should remain human? Taylor doesn't have a problem with students using AI in other classrooms and believes students should learn how to use AI tools, to some degree. He doesn't want students using it to get around having to think critically, however, a skill they will need even if they use AI in their future jobs. "What we're trying to do is teach students how to think, how to identify arguments, analyze arguments, put together their own arguments," Taylor said. "When they just use AI to do this, they don't gain any of the critical thinking skills that they need." For Derrick Anderson, who teaches public affairs at Arizona State University and is senior vice president at the American Council on Education, it's simple: If AI is a tool students will use at jobs, they should learn how to use it in his classroom. "Because I'm preparing them for the job market, they need to know how to use generative AI ethically, but efficiently and effectively," Anderson said. Now, instead of having students write an essay at the end of one of his public affairs courses, Anderson has them produce a video with the help of ChatGPT. One student in Anderson's class created a video about new technology that mimics the human brain. In the video, the student narrates as an AI-generated image of a model brain spins on the screen. When he starts talking about the electrical output of supercomputers, the video cuts to wind turbines spinning atop AI-generated grassy hills. Previously, one of Anderson's class assignments required students to write a memo; now, they have to write four different kinds of memos using ChatGPT and describe scenarios where they would be appropriate. "It's a fundamentally different exercise that involves a much larger volume of content because content is so much easier to create," Anderson said. The students in his classes have used their AI videos and projects in their portfolios when looking for jobs to show they have experience with these programs, even if they lack a specific degree or credential. Related: AI might disrupt math and computer science classes - in a good way Employers are looking for those kinds of demonstrable examples of AI skills from graduates, said Ken Finneran, vice president of human resources at the digital health care company eMed, since there is no industry-recognized credential for the AI skills needed in a certain profession. Instead, hundreds of varying credentials are offered by companies, including Google and IBM. Every department at eMed, from marketing to human resources to finance, uses generative artificial intelligence tools in some way, said Finneran, and the company expects all prospective employees to have some foundational knowledge of AI. The company's departments are about 20 to 30 percent more productive after using AI tools to complete tasks, Finneran said. And he believes doctors who use AI are better at diagnosing patients than either the doctor or an artificial intelligence program alone. "Those who are hesitant or even blockers around AI will not be the leaders, even if they have a tradition of being an industry leader, within the next two years," Finneran said. "They will be overtaken by those who are effectively leveraging AI." Vivas, the creative media studio owner, said some of the freelancers he works with have approached him with concerns about generative artificial intelligence: photography models worried about being replaced by AI generated images and contract marketers concerned it will make them irrelevant if people start using ChatGPT to spit out their own marketing plans. Vivas said he doesn't plan to use AI to fully replace humans, and he doesn't believe other employers will either. But he does think workers who ignore the technology do so at their own peril. "It's not that AI is going to replace them," he said, "but the person that is using AI is going to replace them." Contact reporter Ariel Gilreath on Signal at arielgilreath.46 or at gilreath@ This story about AI courses was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter. The post To employers, AI skills aren't just for tech majors anymore appeared first on The Hechinger Report.
Bloomberg
a day ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Windfall Levy Accounted for One Third of BP's 2024 UK Tax Bill
BP Plc paid £1.25 billion ($1.6 billion) in taxes to the UK government in 2024, with about a third of the payments a result of the country's windfall charge. The figure was disclosed in newly released tax report and accompanying UK economic impact report conducted by Oxford Economics, includes £411 million paid under the Energy Profits Levy. The surcharge was introduced in 2022 in response to surging oil and gas prices after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Federal deficit estimated to hit $46 billion in 2024-25: PBO
The Parliamentary Budget Officer estimates the federal deficit will hit $46 billion in the 2024-2025 fiscal year because of better-than-expected revenues. The PBO expects the deficit to be $4.3 billion lower than its estimate in its election-costing report and $2.3 billion lower than what was estimated in the fall economic statement, according to its updated economic and fiscal monitor report released Thursday. 'The revision to our estimated deficit reflects a $5.2-billion increase in our estimate for revenues in 2024-25, somewhat offset by a $1-billion increase in our estimate for expenses,' the PBO said. The higher revenues are mainly due to higher corporate income tax revenues and customs import duties from the retaliatory tariffs on goods from the United States. The federal government currently has tariffs on nearly $60-billion worth of U.S. goods. In April, the Liberal Party estimated the federal government could receive up to $20 billion in revenue from the retaliatory tariffs, according to its election-costed platform. But a recent report by Oxford Economics Ltd. this month said 58 per cent of the U.S. imports hit by levies are eligible for exemption. The PBO also said the average Canadian family will save $280 on their taxes next year because of the federal government's planned income tax cut to 14.5 per cent from 15 per cent on the first $57,375 of taxable income. Canadian economic growth came in higher than expected during the first quarter at 2.2 per cent, but the PBO expects it to be flat in the second quarter due to a slowdown in exports and business investment. The federal government has not committed to providing a spring federal budget. Instead, Prime Minister Mark Carney said the government will provide an update of Canada's finances in the fall. He has also said he will split operational and capital spending into two separate budgets, with a promise to balance the operational budget within three years. The PBO said the government has committed to new fiscal anchors in the operating budget by 'cutting waste, capping the public service, ending duplication and deploying technology to improve public sector productivity' and reducing the spending growth to two per cent each year from nine per cent. The Liberal Party platform has promised $130 billion in net new spending over the next four years, which will put the deficit at $62.3 billion for the 2025-2026 fiscal year. Economists estimate the deficit will be higher after taking into account the announcement last week to increase defence spending. 'Unlike the previous fiscal anchor, the government has not defined how the new operating budget targets will be measured,' the PBO's report said. 'Specifically, there is no commonly accepted definition of what is defined as 'operating' or 'non-operating/capital' spending.' GST break could cost Ottawa $2.7 billion Feds face loss if Trans Mountain pipeline sold: PBO The PBO said it will be difficult for it to assess whether the government is on track in meeting its fiscal objectives under this new budget set-up. 'PBO also notes that the government could fulfill its operating budget goals, and yet at the same time the federal debt-to-GDP ratio could grow because of additional borrowing for non-operating spending (for example, new acquisitions of weapons systems for the Canadian military),' it said. 'This means that the government could achieve its fiscal objective and yet be fiscally unsustainable.' • Email: jgowling@ Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Hospitality Net
a day ago
- Business
- Hospitality Net
France Set to Maintain Unmatched 2024 Growth in Travel & Tourism
London, UK - France's Travel & Tourism sector reached new historic heights in 2024 and is on track to exceed this exceptional performance throughout 2025, according to new data from the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC). The latest Economic Impact Research (EIR), produced in collaboration with Oxford Economics, confirms that in 2024, Travel & Tourism in France surpassed all previous records across economic contribution, employment, and visitor spending, solidifying the country's leadership as the world's most visited destination. The sector contributed €266.2BN to the French economy, 10.1% above 2019 levels and equivalent to 9.1% of the national GDP. Travel & Tourism also supported three million jobs, employing 300,000 more people than in 2019. International visitor spending reached €72.5BN, while domestic visitor spending climbed to €142.1BN, reflecting strong and balanced demand, seeing a hike of 7.1% and 5.7% on peak levels, respectively. 2025: Sustaining Record Momentum According to WTTC projections, 2025 is expected to continue this upward trajectory and improve on the previous year's historic peak across all analysed metrics. The sector is forecast to contribute €274.2BN to the GDP, increasing to 9.3% share of the economy, while employment is expected to reach 3.1 million jobs – nearly 1 in 10 people employed by Travel & Tourism in France. International visitor spending is projected to rise to €75.1BN, with domestic spend reaching €144.2BN. This enduring performance highlights France's strong tourism fundamentals, from world-class cultural and leisure assets to robust transport infrastructure and sustained government support. France continues to set the pace for Travel & Tourism worldwide. After a historic 2024, the sector is expected to maintain its growth into 2025 and beyond. The successful hosting of the Olympic and Paralympic Games showcased France on the global stage, reinforcing its reputation as a premier destination with the capacity to deliver exceptional experiences at scale. France remains a beacon for travellers globally. Julia Simpson, WTTC President & CEO Looking Ahead to 2035: A Decade of Opportunity WTTC forecasts that by 2035, Travel & Tourism in France could contribute €308.4BN to the national economy, equivalent to 9.4% of GDP, and support 3.5 million jobs — representing 11.2% of total employment. The sector is expected to remain a pillar of growth and opportunity, driven by evolving consumer trends, growing global demand, and investments in innovation and sustainability. A Glimpse into the European Union In 2024, the EU Travel & Tourism sector contributed almost €1.8TN to the region's GDP, representing more than 10% of the Bloc's economy, and above 2019 levels by almost 6%. The sector's employment grew by 4.7%, year-on-year, to 24.6 million jobs, accounting for one in nine jobs across the region. By 2025, WTTC forecasts that the EU Travel & Tourism sector will reach almost €1.9TN, representing 10.5% of the EU economy. Employment linked to the sector is estimated to total 25.7 million people, or 12% of the regional total. For more information and to access the full factsheet, including WTTC's latest Environmental Social Research (ESR), please visit WTTC's Research Hub. About WTTC The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) represents the global travel & tourism private sector. Members include 200 CEOs, Chairs and Presidents of the world's leading travel & tourism companies from all geographies covering all industries. For more than 30 years, WTTC has been committed to raising the awareness of governments and the public of the economic and social significance of the travel & tourism sector. WTTC Press Office WTTC View source
