Band 8+: You should spend about 20 minutes on this task. The table describes the changes of people who went for international travel in 1990, 1995, 2000 and 2005. (million). Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features and make comparisons where relevant.

The table compares the figures of international passengers from five regions from 1990 to 2005.

It is clear that most of the areas witnessed a steady increase. More specifically, Asia and the Pacific saw the most remarkable shift in the number, whereas America was the only continent that did not have a consistent upward trend.

In 1990, a total of 448.9 million people travelled internationally. There was then a sharp rise to 615.2 million in 1995, followed by less dramatic increases to reach 693.7 million in 2005.

Europe started out at a significant number of 280.2 million passengers in 1990 which is approximately three times and four times as large as America and Asia and the Pacific, respectively. Over the period of 15 years, Europe notably climbed up to 400 million travellers; moreover, Asia and the Pacific surprisingly surpassed America in the figures of international passengers.

The Middle East and Africa only accounted for a small portion of the total figures in comparison with three other areas. Regarding the Middle East, it stood at a marginal number of 9.8 million in 1990, and rocketed to 15.8 million passengers throughout the period. Similarly, the figure of people travelling internationally in Africa began at 18.2 million and soared to 28.7 million.