The COVID-19 emerges as one of the greatest challenges facing the world today and threatening the achievements made in the travel and tourism industry. Tourism is currently one of the most affected sectors worldwide. The UNWTO has emphasized the need to ‘putting people and their wellbeing first’ through the slogan;
‘By staying home today, we can travel tomorrow’. The WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic on 11th March 2020. Since then, the COVID-19 virus has spread to over 200 countries globally
International Tourism Performance – January -October 2020
International Tourism Performance – January -October 2020
Impact of COVID-19 on Global Tourism
According to UNWTO (2020), the COVID-19 Pandemic has further resulted to the following:
Closure of destinations
- -96% of all worldwide destinations have introduced travel restrictions
- -Around 90 destinations have completely or partially closed their borders to tourists.
- -44 destinations are closed to certain tourists depending on country of origin.
- Restriction of movements in and out of destinations (as of 6th April, 2020):
- -Africa, Asia and the Pacific and the Middle East – 100%
- -America – 92%Europe – 93%.
Impact of COVID-19 on the Kenyan Economy
According to World Bank (2020), although Kenya entered the crisis with considerable resilience, the
pandemic will have a huge negative impact on its growth