Europe's tourism industry seeks EU support to help revive businesses hit by pandemic

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the tourism sector is still discovering new ways to boost tourist footfall since several countries opened their boundaries to revive the reeling sector. In order to promote and encourage tourism, leaders of the tourist industry organised a Summit in which they discussed the ways to revive the industry. According to the reports of China-based news agency, Xinhua, the leaders of the tourism industry appealed to the government to provide easy access to COVID-19 vaccines in order to revive the "crawling industry." 

Notably, a conference was organised on October 26-27 at Barcelona -- a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. Read the tweet of UNCTAD here:

While speaking at the Future of Tourism World Summit, secretary-general of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Rebeca Grynspan said that the crawling sector would not run unless and until all the developing countries would be fully vaccinated. 

Further, Grynspan said around 3% of the developing countries are fully vaccinated as compared to the developed nations which have vaccinated around 70% of their population. "This lack of vaccines and this inequality is part of the tourism problem, so we have to facilitate access to vaccines," Xinhua quoted Grynspan as saying in a statement released on October 26. 

"Tourism is very important for developing countries. Let’s make sure it recovers its dynamism although after the pandemic it will not be the same. We must prepare for change and not only build back better but build back differently and together," she added. Also, Grynspan stressed that “tourism needs political support and investment.” 

Tourism leaders stress collaborative effort to revive the industry

However, she said that the private sector investment "needs to be channelled by government." Further, Grynspan credited UNWTO for its work in promoting accreditation and certifications since the start of the crisis and added, "Tourism can be a very good energy and force to build back better, differently and together." Meanwhile speaking at the global event, UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili said, "This Summit makes clear the importance of collaboration, as well as the vital role funding tourism and harnessing the power of innovation, will play in building a more resilient and sustainable tourism.'       

Global economy could lose over $4 trillion: Report    

According to a report published by UNCTAD, the crash in international tourism due to the coronavirus pandemic could cause a loss of more than $4 trillion to the global GDP for the years 2020 and 2021. It said that international tourism and its closely linked sectors suffered an estimated loss of $2.4 trillion in 2020 due to direct and indirect impacts of a steep drop in international tourist arrivals. A similar loss may occur this year, the report warns, noting that the tourism sector’s recovery will largely depend on the uptake of COVID-19 vaccines globally.

Image: Twitter/UNCTAD