Havana, June 30 (ACN) The fall in international tourism caused by the COVID-19 pandemic could cause an over-four-billion-dollar loss to the global Gross Domestic Product in the period 2020-2021.
The most recent report by the UN Conference on Commerce and Development reads that the estimated loss is due to the direct impact by the pandemic on tourism and to its domino effect in other sectors closely linked to tourism.
The damage inflicted on tourism in 2020 was calculated at 2.4 billion dollars and although the sector is expected to gradually recover by the second half of this year along the vaccination process in several countries, the loss will continue to near two billion dollars.
The world needs a global vaccination effort that protects workers, mitigates the adverse social effects, while decisions must be taken in relation to tourism, said Isabelle Durant, interim general secretary of the UN Conference.
The inequality in the access to vaccines and the inequity as to vaccine distribution will be a crucial factor to directly affect the opening of tourist destinations around the world, so countries like France, Germany, Switzerland, the U.K., The USA could be the first to recover to the detriment of developing nations whose economies largely depend on international tourism.
Tourism was the object for special consideration in a resolution adopted this month by the delegates to the International Labor Conference on a World Call for Action to a recovery focused on the people after the crisis caused by COVID-19.
The Call by the International Labor Organization stresses the need to favor fast recovery that boosts sustainability in the sector of tourism, having in mind its intensive nature in terms of labor and its key role in countries so dependent on tourism, including developing small island nations.
