After the outbreak of the coronaviruses COVID - 19 in Cairo, Egypt, August 25, 2020, Zurab Pololikashvili, Secretary General of the World Tourism Organization UNWTO, is seen visiting the Great Pyramid of Giza and the new Grand Egyptian MuseumEgyptian Museum. MADRID, Nov 26, Reuters -- Countries need to decide swiftly on applying travel restrictions linked to the new B. The head of the Madrid-based United Nations' tourism body said on Friday that 529 variant of COVID 19 and make such rules uniform.
UN World Tourism Organisation Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili spoke to the UN Health Organisation WHO shortly before the World Health Organisation warned against travel restrictions as it would take a few weeks to understand the variant's impact. It depends on WHO recommendations, but my recommendation will be to take decisions today, not after one week, because if it continues to spread as we are expecting, it will be late and will make no sense to apply restrictions, he said.
He pointed out that countries need to follow WHO recommendations in drawing up coordinated travel rules and harmonised safety and hygiene protocols, and stressed that Europe should set an example and impose uniform rules to avoid confusing tourists.
He said that the European Union's COVID green pass is a good example of a joint policy, because it is the most visited continent in the world and most ready with vaccine numbers and sanitary infrastructure.
According to UNWTO data, 74% of global tourism arrivals fell in 2020 due to fears of contagion and restrictions on movement, resulting in losses of $1.3 trillion in export revenues.
The industry had hoped that the roll out of vaccines would cause a quick recovery this year, but the recent surge in cases across Europe has prompted a number of nations to bring back tough restrictions, diminishing the optimism in the run-up to Christmas.
The damage is huge because we are talking about the period where there would be a big influx of tourists, Pololikashvili said.
A quarter of countries have travel restrictions in place, and some 21% of destinations are completely closed to tourism, according to the UNWTO.