INTERNATIONAL TOURISM WILL TAKE TWO TO FOUR YEARS TO RECOVER, ACCORDING TO WTO

 in-cyprus 18 September 2020 - by Maria Bitar

The World Tourism Organisation said that the sector lost more than 460,000 million US dollars and that they are still far from the 2019 traveller figures.

Meanwhile, China maintains that it is possible to have the vaccine against the virus ready by the end of this year.

In the United States, most of the children who died from the coronavirus were minorities.

Tourism fell by 65% during the first half of 2020.

This was confirmed on Tuesday by the UN World Tourism Organisation when reporting how hit the sector is due to restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The crisis is such that only in June 2020 there was a 93% reduction in tourists when compared to the same month in 2019.

This translates into a loss of $460 billion, which is five times greater than the losses the same sector recorded during the financial crisis of 2009.

Of all the world, the region that was most affected was Asia-Pacific, as there, the arrival of tourists fell by 72%.

It was closely followed by Europe with a drop of 66%, Africa and the Middle East with 57% and America with 55%.

The UNWTO’s is hopeful since, since the beginning of September some countries have begun to reactivate international flights and, according to their calculations, 53% of destinations have eased restrictions.

But they are still sceptical of what is coming.

The agency predicts that only until next year will there be a change in trend, both in the increase in tourism and in the relaxation of travel restrictions. Even the UNWTO assures that the return to the levels of tourist arrivals that were in 2019 will take between two and four years.

(Reuters)