nesses and schools close, people working from home and
self-isolating. Borders have closed, international and in
some cases local travel has been restricted or banned.
Borders closing and working from home has seen
consumer sentiment decline significantly, the ripples
quickly became a tsunami as economies reeled. In
human history, this is the first time that 100% percent
of world’s population has been affected by travel restrictions
(at the time of this article 89% of all countries had
had some sort of travel restrictions in place for over 8
weeks), according to the United Nations World Tourism
Organisation “Ninety destinations (countries) have completely
or partially closed their borders to tourists, while
a further 44 are closed to certain tourists depending on
country of origin.”
The UNTWO also stated that 10% of all jobs, worldwide,
are related to tourism and it is the world’s worst
affected sector. The immediate downturn in travel could
be as high as 30% with an immediate loss of US$450
billion, the flow on in to coming years will cost trillions,
with millions of jobs never recovered and tens of thousands
of businesses forced to close.
Zurab Pololikashvili, UNWTO Secretary General, has
forecasted that the effects will be greater than financial
as recent work to make tourism sustainable and inclusive
will be lost. The Georgian said, “Governments have
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