The United Nations World Tourism Organization said on November 29 that global tourism is expected to lose $2 trillion due to the coronavirus pandemic in 2021. Although tourism has rebounded in some areas, the overall recovery is still “slow and fragile”.
According to this forecast, the total number of international tourists worldwide in 2021 will decrease by 70% to 75% compared with 2019, which is roughly the same as in 2020. Before the impact of the epidemic, the total number of international tourists worldwide in 2019 was 15 billion.
According to the World Tourism Organization, global tourism lost $2 trillion due to the coronavirus epidemic in 2020, becoming one of the industries most affected by the epidemic.
In a statement, the World Tourism Organization expressed little optimism about the medium-term outlook for global tourism: “Although there have been signs of improvement recently (in tourism), factors such as uneven vaccination rates and the emergence of new strains around the world may impact the already slow and fragile recovery process.”
Except for people from all over the world who have difficulty traveling due to the epidemic, rising oil prices and unstable supply chains have all affected global tourism revenue.
Zurab Pololikasvili, Secretary-General of the World Tourism Organization, said: “Tourism is suffering from a historical crisis, but it also has the ability to recover rapidly. I sincerely hope that things will be better in 2022 than in 2021.”
In order to prevent and control the epidemic, various countries have issued various restrictions, making different regulations on the certification materials and quarantine period required for passengers to enter and exit the country. Pololi Kashvili called on countries to further clarify and optimize such measures, because tourists are often “confusing to be confused about what travel regulations are”.
From a regional perspective, the recent rebound in tourism in southern Asia, islands in the Caribbean and southern Europe has been relatively obvious. The number of tourists received in some areas in the third quarter of this year is approaching or even exceeding the pre-epidemic level; in many other regions, tourism has not improved at all, with the number of foreign tourists has decreased by 9 compared with 2019. 5%.
