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Published on : Monday, July 20, 2020
The emergency situation related to coronavirus has damaged tourism in
developing countries like Cambodia, the Dominican Republic, Turkey and
Vietnam, injuring a highly profitable sector key to several developing economies, high frequency data has recently illustrated.
As a result, economy got hampered in several countries world over and imposed travel restrictions in early 2020 to stop the spread of the virus which took lives of more than 578,000 people.
To quote Elina Ribakova, deputy chief economist at the Institute of International Finance, “COVID-19 and the lockdown measures introduced to address the public health crisis present an unprecedented challenge, as an almost complete collapse of international travel and tourism has taken place since late in 2020 Q1.” In May, tourist arrivals fell down by almost 100% in the Dominican Republic and Turkey.
As per the IIF report, in June, Vietnam suffered a similar wipe-out and Cambodia in April.
Countries like Cambodia, Georgia or Croatia underwent the hit intensely, as
international tourism receipts account for over a fifth of their GDP, the IIF said.
As many countries have slowly started coming out post lockdown in recent weeks, a tourism recovery might be some time off and slow as restrictions related to travel remain in place in more than 150 countries. Airline fleets are majorly grounded and cruises shut down. In addition, consumer behavior has changed in the wake of the pandemic, the IIF said.
By the end of 2020, it is being predicted that a gradual recovery with foreign
tourist arrivals reaching half of 2019’s total would still translate into a decline of two-thirds over the year.
“A full recovery will likely take more than two years, and a second wave of
lockdowns in tourist-generating countries could make matters worse,” Ribakova said.