The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic is an “un­prece­dent­ed op­por­tu­ni­ty to trans­form the re­la­tion­ship of tourism with na­ture, cli­mate and the econ­o­my”, the Unit­ed Na­tions has stat­ed in its new­ly re­leased pol­i­cy brief ti­tled “COVID-19 and Trans­form­ing Tourism”.

The pol­i­cy brief which was re­leased yes­ter­day as­sessed the im­pact of the pan­dem­ic on the third-largest ex­port sec­tor of the glob­al econ­o­my.

The pol­i­cy brief stressed the ur­gency of sus­tain­ing the mil­lions of liveli­hoods threat­ened by the pan­dem­ic but al­so recog­nised in this cri­sis an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the trans­for­ma­tion of tourism, and it rec­om­mend­ed five ac­tion pri­or­i­ties to re­build a more re­silient, sus­tain­able sec­tor.

It is es­ti­mat­ed that glob­al­ly, 100 to 120 mil­lion di­rect tourism jobs are at risk as tourist ar­rivals are ex­pect­ed to fall this year by as much as 78 per cent.

Women and youth work­ers, and small busi­ness­es - all high­ly rep­re­sent­ed across this sec­tor - have been par­tic­u­lar­ly af­fect­ed by the COVID-19 cri­sis, it stat­ed.

The dis­rup­tions to em­ploy­ment and liveli­hoods have been most pro­nounced in Less De­vel­oped Coun­tries (LD­Cs) and Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States (SIDS) like those of the Caribbean, where more than 80 per cent of to­tal ex­port rev­enues can de­pend on tourism, and the link­ages be­tween this and oth­er sec­tors are strong.

UN sec­re­tary-gen­er­al An­tónio Guter­res said tourism al­lows peo­ple to ex­pe­ri­ence some of the world’s cul­tur­al and nat­ur­al rich­es and brings peo­ple clos­er to each oth­er, high­light­ing our com­mon hu­man­i­ty.

“In­deed, one might say that tourism is it­self one of the won­ders of the world. That is why it has been so painful to see how tourism has been dev­as­tat­ed by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic,” Guter­res said.

He said that in the first five months of this year, in­ter­na­tion­al tourist ar­rivals de­creased by more than half and some US$320 bil­lion in ex­ports from tourism were lost.

“It is im­per­a­tive that we re­build the tourism sec­tor,” he said.

“But it must be in a way that is safe, eq­ui­table and cli­mate friend­ly. Trans­port-re­lat­ed green­house gas emis­sions could re­bound sharply if re­cov­ery is not aligned with cli­mate goals. Sup­port­ing the mil­lions of liveli­hoods that de­pend on tourism means build­ing a sus­tain­able and re­spon­si­ble trav­el ex­pe­ri­ence that is safe for host com­mu­ni­ties, work­ers and trav­ellers,” Guter­res said.

Guter­res said the five pri­or­i­ties are: “First, mit­i­gate the so­cio-eco­nom­ic im­pacts of the cri­sis. Sec­ond, build re­silience across the en­tire tourism val­ue chain. Third, max­i­mize the use of tech­nol­o­gy in the tourism sec­tor. Fourth, pro­mote sus­tain­abil­i­ty and green growth. And fifth, fos­ter part­ner­ships to en­able tourism to fur­ther sup­port the Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals.”