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Tourism was in the front line of the global pandemic and as it was first in it will be last out. Albania's tourist industry was just getting going but has been hit along with everyone else.
Tourism’s long road to recovery
In some countries, largely those in EM Asia, borders effectively remained closed beyond 2020 Q2 and visitor numbers stayed at or near zero for the rest of the year, reports IIF.
“At the same time, subsiding infections in Europe allowed for fewer restrictions and led to a temporary uptick in visitor numbers over the summer,” IIF said. “However, the second wave of the pan- demic and reintroduction of strict public health measures suppressed tourism again towards the end of the year.”
Destinations in Latin America benefited from fewer travel restrictions and a somewhat more laissez-faire attitude in the US. These dynamics are reflected in the full-year numbers, with Asian EMs seeing the largest declines.
Despite an end to the pandemic being in sight, this year is likely to remain very difficult for the industry. The first big holiday has already passed without bring much relief; over half a million Russians chose to holiday in Crimea over the long May holidays – this year extended to 10 full days by Russian President Vladimir Putin – which was more than even the peninsula’s Soviet- era heydays. Russians usually take the opportunity of the May holidays to visit
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The collapse of tourism in 2020 due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic was unprecedented. Several countries in New Europe are heavily dependent on tourism to earn foreign exchange, with Turkey and Croatia the most noticeable, and saw their industries battered by the travel bans starting at the beginning of the season last April.
Tourism began to recover towards
the end of last summer as lockdown restrictions started to be lifted, but then suffered a second blow as the second wave of the pandemic got under way.
Now the winter is over and the pandemic seems to be in retreat as more and more countries roll out mass vaccination programmes, there is hope that tourism will start to recover as the warmer weather arrives, but the virus’ persistence and the lack of adequate supplies of vaccine in many of the affected countries means the recovery will be slow, reports the Institute of International Finance (IIF) in a recent paper.
“While the situation remains difficult for the tourism industry at this point, there appears to be some hope of
recovery due to vaccination efforts gaining momentum and fewer (travel) restrictions being discussed for vaccinated individuals. However, we find that even a relatively fast rebound of tourism would leave many countries in a precarious position in 2021, both with respect to economic growth as
“While the situation remains difficult for the tourism industry at this point, there appears to be some hope of recovery due to vaccination efforts gaining momentum"
well as external vulnerabilities,” IIF economists Benjamin Hilgenstock and Elina Ribakova said in their note.
2020 was truly an annus horribilis for the hospitality industry that stood directly in the path of the pandemic’s juggernaut. Of the 38 countries for which IIF are able to collect visitor numbers, three quarters experienced declines of more than 95% compared to the second quarter of 2019, with
a median decrease of 98%.
popular tourist destinations around the world, but this year decided to remain inside the country due the ongoing travel restrictions.
“It is important to recognise that even
a relatively fast recovery of international travel in the coming months would leave many tourism destinations in
a precarious position,” IIF says before offering three scenarios for the possible recovery this year.
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