The global tourism industry continues to suffer due to lockdowns and other restrictions on international travel.
The pandemic has hampered travel for the past 10 months and countries all over the world are feeling the impact. The country who has lost the most in revenue is the United States, which reportedly has missed out on more than 147 billion dollars. Economists say that’s has had a direct impact on other businesses.
“It impacts the oil and gas industry, the bars and restaurants when people are traveling less, utility industry has been suffering as a result of some of the slow downs,” Texas Economist Dr. Ray Perryman told KTRH.
Perryman says confidence will rise once a large population of Americans get vaccinated, but that could take at least 7 months.
“There’s a lot of pent up demand for travel right now, but it’s simply not going to be brought to fruition until people feel safe,” He said. “Hopefully some of that begins to happen later in the year, but I suspect it will take longer [for the economy to fully recover].”
Other countries’ tourism industries hit the hardest: Spain, France, Germany, and Thailand.