International tourist arrivals will stagnate this year, except in some Western markets, causing losses of up to $ 2.4 trillion, a United Nations study said on Wednesday, adding that it does not expect the sector to fully recover until 2023. .
Vaccination and COVID-19 certificates are key to restoring confidence in foreign tourism, which provides a lifeline for many countries, especially small island states that rely heavily on the sector to generate jobs, he said.
In 2020, international arrivals plummeted 73% from the previous levels of 2019, causing losses estimated at 2.4 trillion dollars in tourism and related sectors, according to the report of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD, for its acronym in English) and the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).
“The outlook for this year doesn’t look much better,” Ralf Peters of UNCTAD’s market analysis arm told a news conference. “The first three months were bad again, there were not many trips,” he added. “There is an expectation of some recovery in the second half of the year, at least for North America and Europe to some extent,” he told Reuters, giving the vaccines credit.
The report establishes three scenarios for 2021, showing a forecast of a drop of between 63 and 75% from pre-pandemic levels in international tourist arrivals, resulting in losses of between 1.7 billion and 2 billion. , 4 trillion dollars.
“In international tourism we are at levels of 30 years ago, so we are basically in the 1980s … Many livelihoods are really in danger,” said Zoritsa Urosevic, Geneva representative of the UNWTO, based in Madrid.
“What we are seeing in the long term is … reaching the 2019 figures after 2023,” he added.
Sandra Carvao, UNWTO’s head of market intelligence, said it would be a “very diverse recovery”, which will vary by region and country.
The European Union’s COVID-19 digital certificate, which will take effect on Thursday, represents the only regional harmonization to date, he said.
Carvao, referring to travel corridors, said: “We see for example that Asia-Pacific continues to be one of the most closed regions in the world at the moment. Most of the borders of the countries are either totally closed or with significant restrictions.”
