By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Nigeria has reopened its airspace for local travel, but the global picture remains bleak for another four years, says the International Air Transport Association (IATA), as key players remain handicapped by coronavirus lockdown.
Americans are barred from travelling to a European Union (EU) scared of getting additional infections from across the Atlantic, with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warning of a second phase of the pandemic.
Travellers from several other countries are also barred from visiting the EU for now.
In the EU itself, Germany has followed the United Kingdom in advising against travel to Spain, a hot spot for tourists from across the world, still hit hard by the pandemic.
Global air travel will not recover from the Covid-19 crisis until 2024, the IATA announced Tuesday. That is a year later than its previous projection, according to CNN.
The IATA, which represents 290 airlines, blamed the sluggish recovery on a number of factors, including a lack of consumer confidence, the decline in business travel, and fresh coronavirus spikes in the United States and elsewhere.
The revised baseline forecast is that international passenger traffic will drop 55 per cent in 2020, compared to 2019. Back in April, the IATA had predicted the drop to be just 46 per cent.
Uptick in domestic flying
Passenger numbers are expected to rise 62 per cent next year, but will still be down almost 30 per cent compared to pre-Covid times, with a full recovery to pre-pandemic levels not on the cards until four years from now.
“Passenger traffic hit bottom in April, but the strength of the upturn has been very weak,” said Alexandre de Juniac, IATA director general and CEO in a statement.
“What improvement we have seen has been domestic flying.”
Short-haul travel is expected to recover faster than long-haul – due to passenger comfort levels, but also because international markets remain largely closed.
“Consumer confidence is depressed and not helped by the UK’s weekend decision to impose a blanket quarantine on all travellers returning from Spain,” said de Juniac.
London made a surprise U-turn on its UK-Spain travel corridor on Saturday, reinstating with immediate effect its 14-day quarantine for all travellers arriving from the popular tourist destination, where there is a rise in coronavirus cases.
Many British holidaymakers – who had jetted off shortly after schools broke up for summer – were caught out by the decision.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab defended the move, telling Sky News that it “took the decision as swiftly as we could, and we can’t apologise for doing so.”
In terms of countries’ domestic traffic, China’s airlines are leading the recovery, with traffic down 35.5 per cent in June compared to the 2019 period, up from a 46.3 per cent decline in May.
The IATA says that scientific advances in fighting Covid-19, including the development of a successful vaccine, could allow for a speedier recovery. But for now, the future is looking bleak.
“In many parts of the world infections are still rising,” said de Juniac. “All of this points to a longer recovery period and more pain for the industry and the global economy.”
With airlines struggling financially, governments will need to continue relief measures to stop carriers going under, said the airline body.
“Summer – our industry’s busiest season – is passing by rapidly,” de Juniac said.
In his view, there is “little chance for an upswing in international air travel unless governments move quickly and decisively to find alternatives to border closures, confidence-destroying stop-start re-openings and demand-killing quarantine.”
Mexico, Spain, Italy in for greatest impact on tourism
CNN adds that while popular destinations are slowly reopening and tourism is beginning to pick up in some spots, the impact of the pandemic on the industry has been nothing short of devastating.
Many countries that heavily rely on the revenue from tourism lost one of their main sources of wealth almost overnight back in March, but which are likely to be the hardest hit?
According to Statista, Mexico is the most vulnerable of the world’s largest economies, as 15.5 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) relies on the travel and tourism industry.
The online portal, which provides data on the global digital economy, has compiled a list of those likely to be worst affected based on 2019 figures from the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC).
Mexico features at the top of Statista’s list, closely followed by Spain and Italy.
Already among the countries with the highest coronavirus death tolls, the European destinations are also likely to be among the most affected by declining tourism due to their dependence on revenue from visitors.
Tourism contributed 14.3 per cent to Spain’s GDP last year and 13 per cent to that of Italy, according to WTTC.
After issuing one of the strictest lockdowns in Europe – at one point adults were only allowed to leave their home to buy food, medicine or take their dog for a walk – Spain has been keen to revive its struggling tourism industry.
It reopened its borders in the past month to all EU countries and approved third-party countries.
Italy reopened to travellers from the EU, along with the UK and the microstates and principalities of Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, and the Vatican, in a move the government described as a “calculated risk.”
Top destinations pulling out all the stops
However, coronavirus cases have risen significantly in Spain since restrictions were lifted, with some sections being issued with a second lockdown.
Italy has also experienced a slight rise in cases since easing restrictions, indicating the recovery process is likely to be slow with potential stops and starts.
The impact on the U.S., the world’s largest economy, has been less significant, with tourism only accounting for 8.6 per cent of its GDP, which is based on various contributions, including revenue from hotels, travel agents, airlines and restaurants.
However, WTTC indicates the total contribution from travel and tourism accounts for around 16.8 million jobs.
The U.S. has the world’s highest Covid-19 death rate, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
France sits just below the U.S. on the list, with tourism making up 8.5 per cent of its GDP in 2019, followed by Brazil at 7.7 per cent.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, declining tourism is likely to have few financial ramifications for South Korea, with the tourism sector only accounting for 4.2 per cent of its GDP last year.
While top destinations have been pulling out all the stops to tempt travellers back, it seems it is going to take time for the industry to rebound, and experts have suggested things may never return to the way they were previously.
It took almost three years for the airline industry to rebound from the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.
“I’m not sure it [the travel sector] will ever be identical to the way it was [pre-Covid 19],” says Lori Pennington-Gray, professor and director of the Tourism Crisis Management Initiative at the University of Florida, told CNN Travel earlier this month.
“As far as operating at full capacities and with the same volumes, it may take years to get to that. But we know from previous crises that the travel industry is very resilient.”
“The travel industry will rebound, it just isn’t going to happen tomorrow.”
