New Delhi: The World Tourism Organization on Tuesday said that “Tourism arrivals around the world – not expected to return to their pre-pandemic levels until 2024 at the earliest.”
According to World Travel & Tourism Council, The pandemic severely impacted travel and tourism globally, causing the industry a loss of almost US$ 4.5 trillion. Domestic visitor spending decreased by 45 percent while international visitor spending decreased by 69.4 percent compared to 2019.
The Madrid-based UN agency’s World Tourism Barometer said that the highly contagious Omicron variant, though mild, will “disrupt the recovery” in early 2022 after last year saw four percent growth over 2020.
In Europe and the Americas, foreign visitor arrivals surged by 19 percent and 17 percent, respectively, last year over 2020. In the Middle East, however, arrivals declined by 24 percent in 2021, while in the Asia-Pacific region they were 65 percent below 2020 levels, and 94 percent down on pre-pandemic levels.
Many countries are highly dependent on tourism and are eagerly awaiting a return to normal.
However, The Indian economy contracted by 8.0 percent – while The Economies of Sri Lanka, Maldives, Malaysia, Bhutan, and Nepal contracted by 3.6 percent, 32.2 percent, 5.6 percent, 0.8 percent, and 1.9 percent respectively. China was the only large economy to register a 2.3 percent growth in 2020.
(_Vinayak Barot)
