Wednesday 8th May 2024
According to the report titled ‘Holidays in hell’ by ING, Asian economies could witness a loss of USD 105-115 billion in GDP in 2020 due to the impact of coronavirus pandemic on tourism.
“If we assume that tourism to and from China basically grinds to a halt in 2020, and extra-regional tourism also diminishes, then the cost to the region from lost tourism revenues alone is approximately USD 105-115 billion,” said Robert Carnell, ING’s chief economist for Asia-Pacific.
The alarming rise in coronavirus outbreak in China has led to literal lockdown in many parts of the country. Even other countries have imposed travel restrictions to and from China in order to restrict the spread of coronavirus.
As a result, Asia’s main tourism destinations, from Bali to Bangkok, have suffered thousands of cancellations.
Chinese tourists are an important source of income for Asian countries including Thailand, Nepal, Japan and India, among others.
It was reported that Chinese tourists spent nearly USD 128 billion in 149 million overseas trips in 2018. They made more than 53 million visits to Asia countries.
So, the very little travel between China and other parts of Asia has started showing enormous impact on Asian economies.
Even Nepal, despite promoting ‘Visit Nepal Year 2020’ campaign on global stage, has witnessed 2% drop in the tourist arrivals in the first month of the tourism year 2020.
The coronavirus outbreak in China, the second largest source market for Nepal, has directly impacted the tourism arrivals in Nepal.
So far, China has reported 77,658 cases and 2,663 deaths from coronavirus.
At least 30 other countries have reported coronavirus infection cases. There are 35 death cases and around 3000 confirmed cases outside China.
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