(TAN): The global travel industry could face a colossal blow, with up to 1.1 billion fewer people going on foreign trips in 2020, the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) said.
International tourist arrivals could plunge between 60% and 80% this year compared to 2019 numbers, translating to a loss of up to USD 1.2 trillion in export revenues earned from tourism, a report from the organisation predicted. It was caused by pandemic-induced travel restrictions that slowed travel demand across the world. Globally, COVID-19 could put up to 120 million jobs that are directly related to tourism at risk – in what is “by far the worst crisis that international tourism has faced since records began”.
The forecast for the entire year was built upon the figures for the first three months of the year, when foreign tourist arrivals sank 22% versus the same period last year. Export revenues worth USD 80 billion were lost in the first quarter as 67 million fewer tourists travelled abroad up to March, UNWTO said.
In fact, international traffic in March declined 57% after closure of airports and national borders, along with lockdown measures were introduced in several countries.
“The world is facing an unprecedented health and economic crisis. Tourism has been hit hard, with millions of jobs at risk in one of the most labour-intensive sectors of the economy,” UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili said.
Domestic demand for travel is likely to mend faster than that of international tourism, while leisure travel, especially travel involving visiting friends and family, could recover faster than business travel, according to UNWTO Panel of Experts survey. Experts said signs of recovery are expected to be noticed by the last quarter of this year, although most recovery will possibly be seen in 2021.
While different regions across the world will feel the impact of the ongoing crisis in different levels, international travel in Africa and the Middle East could start recovering in 2020 itself. Tourism in the Americas, on the other hand, is expected to start getting better in 2021. Experts had mixed outlook for Europe and Asia, with 50% of the experts predicting the continents will recover within 2020.
The World Travel & Tourism Council had recently said the tourism sector could suffer over 100 million travel-related job losses because of the pandemic, with 75% of them in the G20 countries. The 100.8 million job losses could cost the world economy up to USD 2.7 trillion of GDP, the organisation had said.
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