The tourism industry does not expect a complete recovery of the sector before 2024, informed this Tuesday (18), the World Tourism Organization (WTO).
Over the past two years, the industry has had all its indicators far below pre-pandemic levels, starting in 2020 with travel lockdowns and restrictions aimed at stemming the spread of the virus. Covid-19, which caused people across the world to limit their activities and lose their livelihoods.
Rising vaccination rates and easing travel restrictions allowed for a small recovery in the second half of 2021, a report from the UNWTO, based in Madrid, Spain said. Though the spread of the Omicron variant in December triggered another drop in travel bookings and industry optimism.
“The pace of recovery remains slow and uneven across regions of the world due to varying degrees of mobility restrictions, vaccination rates and traveler confidence,” the report said.
Southern Mediterranean Europe, Central America and the Caribbean saw the biggest increases in tourist arrivals compared to 2020, but were still 54%, 56% and 37% below 2019 figures respectively.
Meanwhile, tourist numbers in the Middle East and Asia-Pacific continued to decline in 2021, declining to 79% and 94% below pre-pandemic levels, respectively, as many destinations remained closed to non-essential travel.
Gross direct product from global tourism increased 19% in 2021 from 2020 to $1.9 trillion, according to the report, as each tourist spent more and stayed longer than in 2020. But revenue from the tourism industry is still barely surpassed half of 2019 levels.
Some 64% of tourism professionals surveyed by UNWTO in December did not expect a full recovery before 2024 or even later – well above the 45% surveyed in September, when the prospects for resuming travel had not yet been dented by Ômicron.
“The recent surge in Covid cases and the Omicron variant is expected to halt the recovery and affect confidence through early 2022 as some countries reintroduce travel bans and restrictions to certain markets,” the report said.
Reference: CNN Brasil
