World Tourism Won’t Normalize Untill 2024: UN

Web Desk — According to World Tourism Organization, tourism around the world is not expected to return to pre-pandemic levels until 2024 at the earliest.

Though mild, the highly contagious Omicron variant will “disrupt the recovery” in early 2022 after last year saw four percent growth over 2020, according to the Madrid-based UN agency’s World Tourism Barometer.

The UNWTO said in a press release that recovery remained slow and uneven across world regions due to varying degrees of mobility restrictions, vaccination rates and traveller confidence.

Foreign visitor arrivals surged by 19 percent and 17 percent, respectively, last year over 2020 in Europe and the Americas.

However, in the Middle East, arrivals declined by 24 percent in 2021, while in the Asia-Pacific region they were 65 percent below 2020 levels, and 94 percent down on pre-pandemic levels.

According to the statement tourism professionals “see better prospects” for this year after turbulence in the early months because of the Omicron wave.

The agency has predicted that there will be a rise of 30-78 percent in international arrivals this year over 2021 while remaining far below 2019 levels.

Most experts say they do not foresee a return to pre-pandemic levels until at least 2024 though many countries are highly dependent on tourism and are eagerly awaiting a return to normal.

“The economic contribution of tourism in 2021 (measured in tourism direct gross domestic product) is estimated at $1.9 trillion (1.68 trillion euros), above the $1.6 trillion in 2020, but still well below the pre-pandemic value of $3.5 trillion,” according to UNWTO.