Although there had been numerous problems both men-made and natural, global outbound travel hit a record high in 2011. According to the IPK International World Travel Monitor released at the ITB Berlin 2012.

Foreign trips increased five per cent to 750 million, while overnigth stays climbed four percent to 6.2 billion (room nights). Spend rose even faster, up eight per cent to 828 billion euros and eclipsing the previous record set before the crisis in 2008.

"Tourism defied the continuing crisis and difficult situations which prevailed in many countries in 2011," said Rolf Freitag, founder and president of IPK International.

Looking ahead to 2012, he pointed out: "We are cautiously optimistic, although the economic outlook in many markets would seem to indicate recession."

Freitag anticipates distinct shifts in tourism source markets. Citizens of the southern EU countries that suffer mostly from the euro crisis are not able to travel in the manner to which they have been known for, he added.

Russia experienced the largest growth in outbound travel of all European markets last year: the number of outbound travellers uprised 13 per cent.

Switzerland is at rank 2 with a growth of about nine per cent, while Germany and Spain rose only one per cent. The UK even did delevelop none at all, there are a 0 per cent.