INTERNATIONAL. The UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) has reported that international tourism could fall by up to -80% in 2020 compared to 2019, under a worst case scenario (see below).
In the first quarter of 2020 alone, the COVID-19 global health crisis has caused a -22% slump in international tourist arrivals, according to the latest UNWTO World Tourism Barometer.
Following nationwide lockdown measures, travel bans and airport closures around the world, March arrivals fell by -57%. This is equivalent to a loss of 67 million international tourist arrivals, which translates to a loss of US$80 billion in exports from tourism.
According to UNWTO, the steep decline in tourism could put millions of livelihoods at risk and cause significant setbacks in advancing global Sustainability Development Goals (SDGS).
“The world is facing an unprecedented health and economic crisis,” said UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili. “Tourism has been hit hard, with millions of jobs at risk in one of the most labour-intensive sectors of the economy.”
Although Asia and the Pacific shows the highest impact in relative and absolute terms (-33 million arrivals), the impact in Europe, though lower in percentage, is high in volume (-22 million).
Prospects for the year have been downgraded several times since the outbreak. Current scenarios, said UNWTO, point to possible declines in arrivals of -58% to -78% for the year. These depend on the speed of containment and the duration of travel restrictions and shutdown of borders. The following scenarios for 2020 are based on three possible dates for the gradual opening up of international borders.
- Scenario 1 (-58%) based on the gradual opening of international borders and easing of travel restrictions in early July;
- Scenario 2 (-70%) based on the gradual opening of international borders and easing of travel restrictions in early September;
- Scenario 3 (-78%) based on the gradual opening of international borders and easing of travel restrictions only in early December.
Under these scenarios, the impact of the loss of demand in international travel could translate into:
- Loss of 850 million to 1.1 billion international tourists
- Loss of US$910 billion to US$1.2 trillion in export revenues from tourism
- 100 to 120 million direct tourism jobs at risk
UNWTO said: “This is by far the worst crisis that international tourism has faced since records began (1950). The impact will be felt to varying degrees in the different global regions and at overlapping times, with Asia and the Pacific expected to rebound first.”
