World Bank GDP at a glance: what 'economic context' tells you about a destination

The new row on every destination page

Every [/destinations/[id]](/destinations/kenya) page now carries a Country at a Glance card with World Bank GDP per capita (PPP) data, sourced via the World Bank Open Data API under CC-BY-4.0. The row reads "GDP per capita (PPP, 2024): ${value}" and links back to data.worldbank.org for verification.

What GDP per capita PPP actually means

It's a per-person economic-output measure adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP) — so $1,000 of Kenyan PPP-GDP buys roughly what $1,000 buys in the US, despite the official exchange rate. It's the cleanest cross-country comparison the World Bank publishes.

It is NOT cost of living. Numbeo and similar aggregators measure cost of living directly; Numbeo's data is paywalled and we can't republish it. GDP per capita PPP is a freely-available relative tier indicator.

How to read it for trip-planning

The number is a CONTEXT signal. Three rough tiers:

What it doesn't tell you

GDP per capita doesn't predict:

It's the equivalent of saying "this country has 50 million people" — useful background, not actionable advice.

What we use it for

We render it because it's a comparable, citable, free data point that anchors readers' mental models of a destination. A reader who clicks from Costa Rica to Madagascar can see at a glance that they're looking at very different economic contexts, even before they reach the cost calculator.

We refresh it annually. The script lives at `scripts/enrich-worldbank.mjs` — run `npm run enrich:worldbank` after each World Bank annual data release.

What's next

We're extending the same approach to World Bank Worldwide Governance Indicators (Voice & Accountability, Rule of Law, Control of Corruption) — same source, same license, additional cross-country comparable signals. Watch for those on the destination pages.