The global tourism industry has been hit hard by the coronavirus crisis resulting in a loss of $1.3 trillion in revenue last year. As the number of people travelling plunged, the tourism industry also suffered, the UN said on Thursday, calling it “the worst year in tourism history”

Revenue lost last year amounted to “more than 11 times the loss recorded during the 2009 global economic crisis,” the Madrid-based World Tourism Organization said in a statement. It issued a warning that 100-120 million jobs under direct tourism are at risk.

The tourism industry accounts for about 10% of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) and jobs.

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International tourism suffered as revenue fell by one billion, or 74%, in 2020. Asia, the first region to feel the impact of COVID-19, also saw the steepest decline, the organisation added.

“While much has been made in making safe international travel a possibility, we are aware that the crisis is far from over,” WTO head Zurab Pololikashvili said in the statement.

Although the vaccination drive was supposed to normalise travel in 2021, the emergence of newer strains of the virus has reintroduced travel restrictions such as quarantines, mandatory testing, and border closures, it noted.

An 84% drop in arrivals has been recorded in Asia and the Pacific. A 75% drop was observed in Africa and the Middle East, and in Europe, the figures fell by 70% “despite a small and short-lived revival in the summer”. In the US, arrivals fell by 69%.

In 2019, France was the most visited country, followed by Spain and the United States. International tourism in that year had also increased by 4% to 1.5 billion.

The last time a drop in international tourist arrivals was recorded was during the global economic crisis in 2009 that had resulted in a 4% drop.

Experts have estimated that tourism will not return to normalcy before 2023, the WTO said.

Domestic tourism is expected to grow in popularity first.

The outbreak of diseases affecting international tourism is not new but due to the unprecedented geographical spread of the coronavirus, this is the first time that the tourism industry has been hit so badly.

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In 2003, when Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) had emerged, which killed 774 people all over the world, international tourism had fallen by just 0.4%.

At least 2,176,000 people have died due to coronavirus since December 2019, AFP reported.