This should have been a good year for global tourism, with trade tensions gradually easing, certain economies growing and banner events like the Summer Olympics taking place in Tokyo, AP reports.
Yet, the viral outbreak in China has thrown the travel industry into chaos, threatening billions in losses and keeping millions of would-be travelers at home.
Thirty airlines have suspended service to China and 25,000 flights were canceled this week alone, according to OAG, a travel data company. Hotel rooms in China are largely empty; Chinese hotel occupancy plummeted 75% in the last two weeks of January, according to STR, a hotel research firm. More than 7,000 passengers are quarantined on two cruise ships in Japan and Hong Kong.
Before the outbreak, the United Nations World Tourism Organization was forecasting growth of 3-4% in global tourism this year, a rise over the 1.5 billion tourist arrivals in 2019. Upsides, like economic improvement in the Middle East and Latin America, outweighed some potential downsides, like the uncertainty of Brexit or any lingering U.S.-China trade disputes.
Central to those numbers was the promise of an ever-growing number of travelers from China, where rapidly growing incomes have led to a global tourism boom. In 2018, Chinese tourists made almost 150 million trips abroad and spent $277 billion, according to IHS Markit. That’s up from just $15.4 billion in 2002.
The loss of those tourists is being felt most strongly in Asia, which usually attracts 75% of Lunar New Year travelers, says ForwardKeys, a travel consulting company. The new year, which began Jan. 25, is one of China’s major travel periods.
Read more at thenationalherald.com
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