The Secretary-General of the United Nations said that the novel coronavirus has destroyed the tourism industry in the world, with a loss of 320 billion dollars in exports in the first five months of the year, and there are more than 120 million jobs at risk.
Tourism is the third largest export sector after fuels and chemicals, and it accounted for 7 percent of trade last year, Antonio Guterres added in a videoconferencing today.
He added, "It employs one out of every ten people on earth, and provides livelihoods for hundreds of millions of others. It strengthens economies, allows people to experience some of the cultural and natural wealth in the world, and brings people closer to each other, which highlights our common humanity."
But the Secretary-General emphasized that in the first five months of 2020, and due to the virus pandemic, the number of international tourist arrivals decreased by more than half, and stated that the tourism impact of the virus was a "big shock to the wealthier developed countries."
He said, "But developing countries are in a state of emergency, especially many small island developing states and African countries. Tourism in some of these countries represents more than 20% of their GDP."
And a study conducted by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development "UNCTAD" predicted last July that global tourism losses due to the outbreak of the new Corona virus and the measures imposed 12 months after the outbreak of the epidemic amounted to about $ 3.3 trillion, stressing that the United States of America would be the biggest loser.
The study, called "Covid-19 and Tourism", is based on three scenarios, with expectations that the closure measures will continue for 4 months, 8 months or 12 months.
In those scenarios, revenues will decline by $ 1.17 trillion, $ 2.22 trillion and $ 3.3 trillion, respectively, or between 1.5-4.2 percent of the world's GDP, and the study did not mention which scenario is the most likely, although an official in UNCTAD said that the middle scenario "may be realistic".
