Tourism arrivals around the world are not expected to return to their pre-pandemic levels until 2024 at the earliest, the World Tourism Organization said Tuesday.
The highly contagious Omicron variant, though mild, will “disrupt the recovery” in early 2022 after last year saw four percent growth over 2020, according to the Madrid-based UN agency’s World Tourism Barometer.
Tourism revenue in 2020 was 72 percent down on the previous year — which closed with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, AFP reported.
“The pace of recovery remains slow and uneven across world regions due to varying degrees of mobility restrictions, vaccination rates and traveler confidence,” the UNWTO said in a press release.
In Europe and the Americas, foreign visitor arrivals surged by 19 percent and 17 percent, respectively, last year over 2020.
In the Middle East, however, arrivals declined by 24 percent in 2021, while in the Asia-Pacific region they were 65 percent below 2020 levels, and 94…