by Xinhua writers Chen Wenxian, Chen Zhanjie
VALLETTA, May 8 (Xinhua) -- With the speedy rollout of vaccinations, Europe has witnessed an improved COVID-19 pandemic situation and called for reopening its tourism sector.
The Digital Green Certificate, introduced by the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union (EU), and expected to be implemented from June, will help ease restrictions on non-essential travels to the EU.
Industry insiders and observers said that those measures will give a boost to the gloomy tourism sector though there is a long way to go before the sector reaches the pre-pandemic levels.
EAGER TO REOPEN
Earlier this month, ministers of tourism from the Group of 20, comprising 19 countries and the EU, pledged support for "safe international mobility initiatives" as a way to help relaunch the world's tourism industry.
The Portuguese presidency of the EU urged member states to "act without delay" to save European tourism from the COVID-19 crisis by speeding up a digital health passport scheme.
The European Commission also called on its member states to grant entry to travelers fully vaccinated and those coming from countries with low infection rates.
At the end of April, French President Emmanuel Macron announced a four-stage plan to allow foreign tourists back to France with a "health pass" by June 9.
Greece, whose tourism accounts for about one-fifth of its GDP and employment, announced the reopening of its tourism on May 14.
The EU aims to vaccinate 70 percent of its adults by July, and some European countries plan to stimulate the recovery of tourism by injecting large amounts of money into the sector.
The Spanish government presented a "recovery, transformation and resilience plan (2021-2023)" to the EU on April 29, which will allocate about 3.4 billion euros (4.1 billion U.S. dollars) to the tourism sector in the coming three years.
In the Mediterranean island country of Malta, the government is planning to welcome tourists from June 1. It will also inject 20 million euros (24.3 million dollars) through an aid package to kickstart the tourism industry.
HEAVY LOSSES
The tourism sector has been fragmented and damaged seriously by the pandemic. According to data from the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), global tourist arrivals dropped by 73 percent in 2020, with a loss of nearly 62 million travel-and tourist-related jobs.
WTTC's figures also indicated that the travel and tourism industries suffered a loss of 4.5 trillion dollars by the end of 2020, with its contribution to the GDP dropping by 49.1 percent year-on-year.
France received some 90 million foreign tourists in a normal year, but lost two-thirds of tourist arrivals in 2020. The tourism revenue plunged to 89 billion euros (108.3 billion dollars), down by 41 percent from a year earlier.
Half of the country's hotels stayed open with occupancy rates below 20 percent, compared with an average of 75 percent in previous years, Corinne Menegaux, director of the Paris Convention and Visitors Bureau, told Xinhua.
Spain's tourism industry suffered a loss of around 76.6 billion euros (93.2 billion dollars), with visitor arrivals falling by around 68.3 million between January 2020 and January 2021, according to data released by the Spanish Statistical Office.
In Italy, the pandemic caused a loss of at least 70 billion euros (85.1 billion dollars) in the tourism industry last year, and the damage is likely to continue this year, according to Marina Lalli, president of Federturismo, the arm of the Italian industrial association Confindustria.
Portuguese hotels' revenues fell by 74 percent year-on-year to 1.1 billion euros (1.3 billion dollars), with the numbers of domestic and foreign tourists slumping by 71 percent year-on-year between the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020 and February this year, according to data released by the National Statistics Institute.
"The COVID-19 crisis put the sector under strong economic pressure and had a particularly serious impact on small- and medium-sized companies," Portugal's Secretary of State for European Affairs Ana Paula Zacarias said.
Business owners in Etar, famous for producing handicrafts in Gabrovo, Bulgaria, are worried about their business due to the sharp decline in tourist arrivals.
"The number of tourists has not recovered to the level before the pandemic, and sales are even worse -- sometimes only a few pieces are sold each day," Kirisov, the operator of a wood products workshop, told Xinhua.
LONG WAY TO RECOVERY
Experts estimated that it would take at least two more years to bring European tourism back to its pre-pandemic levels.
France may have to wait at least two years before tourism and leisure businesses recover from a global standstill triggered by the pandemic, Menegaux said, adding that "it is difficult to know when the sector will find its dynamism again."
Britain's national tourism agency VisitBritain forecasts that some European markets may see signs of recovery starting in May, but it does not expect inbound tourism to return to, or even get close to, normal levels by the end of 2021.
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said the country would reopen to international tourists later this month, but industry analysts said the tourism sector would not fully recover before 2023.
"The pandemic won't be over until it is under control everywhere. That is one of the reasons why the tourism sector's recovery will take so long," Gianfranco Lorenzo, head of research at the Center for Touristic Studies in Florence, Italy, told Xinhua.
Nevertheless, many people across Europe have expressed confidence in the future of the tourism industry.
The rollout of vaccines and the certificate have restored confidence among holidaymakers, Didrik von Seth, director general of the Association of Swedish Travel Agents and Tour Operators, told Xinhua.
"It's been disastrous, but now there's a budding optimism," he said, voicing his expectation for a massive demand in the summer of 2022.
Insiders of Spain's tourism industry are looking to China, a strategic market that is expected to be the lever in reviving tourism in Spain when the pandemic ends, said Rafael Cascales Sisniega, president of the Spain China Tourism Association (ATEC).
"We are looking towards the rest of 2021 as being a good period for tourism to Malta," said Anthony Zahra, president of the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association, adding that Malta is waiting for large crowds of tourists from China.
Martin, a silver jewelry storeowner in Etar, is also optimistic about the future.
"Things are getting better and life is recovering. I trust my business will be as good as before," he said. Enditem
(Xinhua reporters Wen Xinnian in Lisbon, Yu Shuaishuai in Athens, Liu Fang in Paris, Feng Junwei in Madrid, Patrick Ekstrand and Fu Yiming in Stockholm, Chen Jing in Copenhagen, Sun Yifei and Lin Hao in Sofia, Sun Xiaoling in London also contributed to the story.)
