The World Tourism Organization predicted today, that the number of tourists in the world will decrease by 20 to 30% this year due to the new Corona virus, which threatens millions of jobs.
The United Nations previously expected that the decline would be 1 to 3% compared to last year.
And the specialized agency of the United Nations, based in Madrid, expected tourism revenues to decline by 300 to 450 billion dollars, or about a third of the revenues of 2019, which amounted to 1.5 trillion dollars.
"Tourism is among the most affected economic sectors," the agency's Secretary-General, Zurab Pololikashvili, said in a statement, adding "it is clear" that millions of jobs in the sector are threatened.
The agency noted that global tourism declined by 4% during the economic crisis in 2009 and only by 4% in 2003 in the wake of the outbreak of "SARS" syndrome that killed 774 people worldwide.