Coronavirus puts up to 50 million travel and tourism jobs at risk, says WTTC

The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) has said up to 50 million jobs in the travel and tourism sector are at risk due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.

The latest figures from WTTC, which represents the global travel and tourism private sector, found that global travel could be adversely impacted by up to 25% in 2020. This is the equivalent to a loss of three months of global travel, and could lead to a corresponding reduction in jobs of between 12 and 14%.

However, despite the concerns WTTC said the travel and tourism sector has a “proven track record of resilience” in the face of crises and its ability to bounce back has “improved significantly in recent years”.

Gloria Guevara, WTTC president and CEO, said: “WTTC figures show the stark impact on the travel and tourism sector of the present COVID-19 outbreak with analysis now suggesting that up to 50 million jobs are at risk in the sector globally.

“When the time is right, WTTC and the global private sector will be ready to help and support the government and countries to recover.”

She added: “Travel and tourism has the strength to overcome this challenge and will emerge stronger and more robust by taking all necessary measures to tackle COVID-19 and the understandable concern which surrounds it.”

Following “extensive” consultations with other travel and tourism organisations, WTTC said it is also calling for a series of measures to be taken, to enable the “swift recovery” of the sector once COVID-19 is under control.

WTTC said it will also offer its support to all governments, particularly those which are implementing strong policies for a prompt recovery such as:

1. Improve travel facilitation – remove or simplify visas wherever possible, reduce the cost and improve processing times where practical, accept other visas when appropriate and introduce more efficient technologies for seamless and secure travel.
2. Remove barriers – ensure that unnecessary barriers are removed or relaxed to alleviate pressure at ports and airports, including temporarily lifting of the 80-20 slot policy rule, ports assignments and implement flexible working visa for the industry in some countries with existing limitations, especially in hospitality and tour operation
3. Ease fiscal policies – reduce and remove travellers’ taxes which increases the cost of travel, e.g. Air Passenger Duty and similar airport, port and hospitality taxes around the world
4. Introduce incentives – introduce relief and incentives to support business continuity for companies which have been most negatively impacted by the virus. SMEs in particular will take longer to recover
5. Support destinations – increase budgets and assign resources for promotion, marketing and product development purposes in destinations when they are ready to welcome visitors again At this time, WTTC reinforces the importance of strong public-private partnerships and greater international cooperation in order to respond and overcome the challenges faced by the sector during the management and recovery from COVID-19