Portuguese tourism is set to lose almost €12.4 billion whatever happens with the question over a ‘UK air bridge’ or the arrival (or not) of Spanish tourists now that the borders have reopened.
This is the bottom line today of an article in Expresso that says data from the United Nations indicates that all Europe’s popular destinations – as well as those in north America . are at risk of losing ‘billions of dollars due to the drastic fall in international tourism’.
UNCTAD, the UN agency for commerce and development, puts Portugal’s losses at 13,922 billion dollars (almost €12.4 billion), with countries like the US and China obviously dropping a great deal more.
On a global level, the tourism sector seems set for losses of at least 1.2 trillion (the equivalent of 1.5% of GDP), and that’s a ‘best case scenario’.
With some countries reintroducing lockdowns, and travel restrictions still in place, the most pessimistic calculation, says Expresso, points to a global tourism slump taking 3.3 trillion out of the world’s economy.
Levels of confidence – ie do people even WANT to travel – are pivotal in all these equations,
Meantime, Portugal has started to bring in ‘travel restrictions’ on flyers from the US and PALOP (Portuguese-speaking) countries.
From today, anyone entering Portugal from any of these destinations will have to prove that they tested negative for Covid-19 in the previous 72-hours.
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