World tourism won’t return to pre-pandemic levels until 2024: UN

According to the World Tourism Organization, international tourism will not return to pre-pandemic standards until 2024 at the earliest.

With the Omicron variant being highly contagious, there will be a disruption in the recovery for 2022 after a four percent growth seen in 2020. Overall, tourism revenue in 2020 was 72 percent down as compared to the previous year. However, there is hope for 2021 despite the upset caused by the Omicron wave. The agency predicts a 30 to 78 percent increase in international arrivals for 2021 while still being lower than 2019 levels.

In a press release, UNWTO claimed that the recovery pace remains slow and uneven due to the range of mobility restrictions, vaccination rates and traveler confidence. This can be observed among the different continents with Europe and America having a surge of foreign visitors while Middle East and Asia-Pacific regions dropping. Many countries are reliant on tourism and are looking forward to the days where tourism can go back to normal. The economic contribution of tourism in 2021 is put at an estimate of 1.9 trillion USD which is slightly higher than 1.6 trillion USD generated in 2020 but still far from the pre-pandemic value of 3.5 trillion USD.

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