A United Nations organization said that the Covid-19 pandemic will cost global tourism $2 trillion in losses in 2021, an amount similar to 2020, and described the sector's recovery as slow and fragile.
According to Arab Net, these forecasts issued by the Madrid-based World Tourism Organization come at a time when Europe is battling an increase in Covid infections and the world is facing a new mutant called Omicron.
The global tourism sector had already lost $2 trillion (1.78 trillion euros) last year due to the pandemic, according to the World Tourism Organization, making it one of the sectors hardest hit by the health crisis.
While this United Nations agency tasked with promoting tourism does not have an estimate of how the sector will perform in the coming year, its medium-term outlook is not encouraging.
"Despite recent improvements, varying vaccination rates around the world and new strains of COVID-19 such as the Delta mutant and Omicron can affect the already slow and fragile recovery," she said in a statement.
The Secretary-General of the World Tourism Organization, Zurab Pololikashvili, said that the recent developments, represented by the imposition of new restrictions against the background of the spread of the virus and the closure measures in several countries during the past weeks, show that it is a highly unpredictable situation.
He added, before the start of the annual General Assembly of the World Trade Organization, Tuesday, in Madrid, that it is a historic crisis in the tourism industry, but once again tourism has the potential to recover very quickly.
"I really hope 2022 will be much better than 2021."
The Corona virus has caused the death of at least 5,193,392 people in the world since the World Health Organization office in China reported the emergence of the disease at the end of December 2019.
At least 260,448,580 people have been confirmed infected with the virus since its appearance. The vast majority of those infected recovered, although some continued to experience symptoms weeks or even months later.
The figures are based on daily reports issued by each country's health authorities and exclude subsequent reviews by statistical agencies that indicate much higher death numbers.
The World Health Organization, taking into account the excess mortality rate directly or indirectly related to Covid-19, considers that the outcome of the epidemic may be two or three times greater than the officially announced outcome.
A large proportion of less serious cases or asymptomatic cases remain undetected despite the intensification of examinations in a large number of countries.
