Official-ESTA.com, a third-party visa application website for the United States Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA), crunched numbers from the World Travel and Tourism Council and The World Bank to determine the countries with the greatest loss of tourism revenue in the first ten months of 2020. They are as follows:
United States: $147.245 billion
- Spain: $46.707 billion
- France: $42.036 billion
- Thailand: $37.504 billion
- Germany: $34.641 billion
- Italy: $29.664 billion
- United Kingdom: $27.889 billion
- Australia: $27.206 billion
- Japan: $26.027 billion
- Hong Kong: $24.069 billion
Wow, ten countries, $400 billion!
But it gets worse:
Official-ESTA.com has also crunched the numbers for the countries that have lost the highest percentage of their GDP due to the pandemic’s effect on tourism. They are as follows:
- Macao (a special administrative region of China): 43.1%
- Aruba: 38.1%
- Turks and Caicos: 37.8%
- Antigua and Barbuda: 33.6%
- Maldives: 31.1%
- Northern Mariana Islands: 28.5%
- St. Lucia: 26.8%
- Palau: 26.3%
- Grenada: 26.0%
- Seychelles: 20.6%
Out of all of these places, I have only been to Macao. And it seemed to me that gambling and casino related $$ are the focus here. I know people who are from Macao, so I do sympathize, despite the opulent casinos.
So, when is recovery likely?
golfkat Travel Blog 