Travelers line up at a check-in counter at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg on November 27, 2021, after several countries banned flights from South Africa following the discovery of a new COVID-19 variant Omicron. Photo: VCG
The coronavirus pandemic will cost the global tourism sector $2 trillion in lost revenue in 2021, the UN’s tourism body said Monday, calling the sector’s recovery “fragile” and “slow.”
The forecast from the Madrid-based World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) comes as Europe is grappling with a surge in infections and as a new heavily mutated COVID-19 variant, dubbed Omicron, spreads across the globe.
International tourist arrivals will in 2021 remain 70-75 percent below the 1.5 billion arrivals recorded in 2019 before the pandemic, a similar decline as in 2020, according to the body.
The global tourism sector already lost $2 trillion in revenues in 2020 due to the pandemic, according to the UNWTO, making it one of sectors hit hardest by the health…