The World Tourism Organization revealed that global tourism losses due to the emerging "Corona" virus reached $ 460 billion in the first half of this year. The number of tourists in the world decreased by an average of 65 percent during the first half of the year due to the closure of borders and the imposition of restrictions on travelers, which caused losses to the sector five times more than those recorded during the economic and financial crisis in 2009.
In this context, the Secretary-General of the World Tourism Organization, Zurab Pololikashvili, affirmed that "the tourism sector is dependent on millions of individuals for their livelihood."
The organization indicated that the development of tourism last August predicts a decline in demand of about 70 percent over the course of 2020, while some regions of the world, such as Europe, since this summer, a new outbreak of the "COVID 19" epidemic has been witnessing, leading to new restrictions on travelers. Revealing that the return to the level of 2019 in terms of tourist arrivals will take between two and 4 years.
In 2019, global tourism traffic grew by 4 percent in terms of access, France was the first tourist destination, followed by Spain and the United States.
Source (Al-Arabiya.net, Edited)
