Tourism set to see 30% dip

Madrid, March 27

The number of international tourist arrivals will fall by 20-30 per cent in 2020 due to the novel coronavirus, putting millions of jobs at risk, the World Tourism Organization said on Friday. This revises sharply lower a forecast made earlier this month of a decline of just 1.0-3.0 per cent.

The drop in arrivals will lead to an estimated loss of $300-450 billion in international tourism receipts, almost one third of the $1.5 trillion generated in 2019, the Madrid-based UN body said in a statement.

“Tourism is among the hardest hit of all economic sectors,” the body’s secretary general, Zurab Pololikashvili, said in the statement, adding “it is clear” that millions of jobs within the sector are at risk of being lost.

The UNWTO noted that international tourism arrivals declined by 4.0 per cent in 2009 during the global economic crisis and by just 0.4 per cent in 2003 after the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) which killed 774 persons worldwide.

The body had predicted at the beginning of the year that international tourism would grow by 3.0-4.0 percent, but on March 6 it revised its forecast due to the growing spread of Covid and instead predicted the decline of 1.0-3.0 per cent.

Since that revised forecast even more nations have imposed travel restrictions and more flights have been cut as governments around the world scramble to contain the spread of the disease which has claimed over 23,000 lives worldwide.

More than 539,360 declared cases have been registered in 183 countries and territories since the epidemic first emerged in China in December. Of these cases, at least 112,200 are now considered recovered.

Many countries are now only testing cases that require hospitalisation. —AFP

Top UK tourist spots offer virtual tours

London: The UK’s most famous tourist attractions, ranging from palaces and castles to galleries and zoos, have started virtual tours to millions of people who were currently under a lockdown in the. In a report, the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA) said millions of people were discovering the breadth, depth and diversity of Britain’s visitor attractions through websites and digital galleries, science podcasts, virtual tours of the Houses of Parliament, web-cams of zoos and safari parks, as well as being able to take part in church and Cathedral services and also watching the opera and theatre. IANS

OZ researchers developing pandemic drones

• A team from the University of South Australia (UniSA), led by an Indian-origin researcher, have begun developing a drone to monitor patients with infectious respiratory conditions including the novel coronavirus.
• The “pandemic drones” will be fitted with a sensor capable of remotely monitoring a person’s temperature as well as heart and respiratory rates.

Tourist pub now free kitchen

The pandemic has turned a pub in Thailand’s famed seaside resort town of Pattaya into a community kitchen serving free food for workers who have lost jobs when the global tourism industry ground to a halt.

Couple runs to beat covid blues

A South African couple are to run a marathon on their Dubai balcony to be streamed online as an example of how to beat Covid blues.

Join Whatsapp Channel of The Tribune for latest updates.