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, says the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad).
In a report published this week, the agency said that the world is unlikely to reach pre-Covid-19 international tourist arrival levels until 2023 or later.
As part of its report, Unctad developed three different scenarios on what international travel recovery could look like in the coming years. Based on all three scenarios, South Africa is forecast to be one of the countries hardest hit when looking at estimated losses in GDP from a reduction in tourism. The country was consistently ranked third – behind Turkey and Ecuador – in all three scenarios.
