The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) says nearly 200 million jobs are now at stake if governments don’t take swift action to ease travel restrictions around the world.
WTTC’s latest research reckons 197 million jobs in the travel and tourism sector could disappear and trillions of dollars would be lost in tourism-related spending.
It pegs this figure if global travel restrictions continued past summer and international visitor numbers would decline by 73%.
With prolonged restrictions domestic tourism may fall by 64%.
However if restrictions are eased earlier up to 99 million jobs could be saved.
"Under our worst-case scenario, prolonged travel restrictions could put more than 197 million jobs under threat and cause a loss of more than $5.5 trillion to global travel and tourism GDP," said Gloria Guevara, WTTC president and CEO.
"The sector’s recovery will be delayed by heavy-handed restrictions just as it emerges from one of the most punishing periods in its history."
This latest prediction is 96% higher than WTTC’s previous estimate in April.
"Hotels, destinations, travel agents and others will all be devastated by the economic domino effect of prolonged restrictions on movement."
The WTTC urged governments to start opening air corridors or ‘travel bubbles’ between countries that have contained the pandemic to kickstart travel as soon as possible.
