The Future Is Now! UNWTO Recognizes World’s Best Innovators Facing Up To COVID-19

All Regions
7 May 2020

The top solutions for accelerating the recovery of tourism have been celebrated in the ‘Healing Solutions for Tourism’ Challenge. Launched by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) with the support of the World Health Organization (WHO) and with the aim of identifying start-ups with ready-to-implement ideas for mitigating the impact of COVID-19 on the sector, the initiative attracted more than 1,000 applicants from 100 countries.

Tourism has been among the hardest hit of all major economic sectors. To rebuild confidence in travelling and to enhance tourism’s contribution to wider societal recovery, UNWTO called on innovators to share their ideas for positive change. Entrepreneurs pitched in three categories: Healing for People, Healing for Prosperity and Healing for Destinations. Over 1,100 applications were received and from the 30 shortlisted projects, nine were selected by a panel of sector leaders, including UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili.

In the category of Healing for People, the four finalists were CleanScan /Chameleon Welcome Back (Canada/USA), Outpost Healthy Destinations (Canada), SeeTrue (Israel) and Smart Occupancy (Spain). In Healing for Prosperity, the two finalists were MyStay (Czech Republic) and WAAM (Poland). The three finalists in Healing for Destinations were Airside (United States of America), Beautiful destinations (United States of America) and iBonus COVID19 Digital Prevention System (Hong Kong, China).

“Solutions for all”

Tourism faces the biggest challenge of a generation. But, as this event shows, tourism can deliver solutions for all.

Mr Pololikashvili said: “Tourism faces the biggest challenge of a generation. But, as this event shows, tourism can deliver solutions for all. We now have an opportunity to rethink tourism and do things better. Virtual reality, artificial intelligence and big data will all have a part to play in our joint response to COVID-19, and in building resilience for the future. As such, I thank all those who took part in the Healing Solutions initiative and look forward to the winning ideas being scaled up to make a real difference in the challenging times ahead.”

The Challenge enjoyed strong support, both within and outside of the tourism sector. Addressing the finalists during the virtual event hosted by UNWTO were Dr. Gaudenz Silberschmidt, Director, Health and Multilateral Partnerships (WHO), and Hannah R. Messerli, Senior Specialist, Trade, Investment and Competitiveness at the World Bank Group.

From Madrid to the world

This event was made possible thanks to the support of the city of Madrid, UNWTO’s home base and the capital of one of the worst-hit of all European countries.

Secretary-General Pololikashvili extended his gratitude to Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida for providing the ‘La Nave’ space from which to host the Challenge and for agreeing to run pilot implementations of the winning Healing Solutions. “Your support generates trust, and trust is the new distinctive asset of sustainable tourism development and our overall recovery”, Mr Pololikashvili concluded.

A full list of the shortlisted start-ups can be found on the Healing Solutions for Tourism Challenge webpage.

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International Tourist Numbers Could Fall 60-80% in 2020, UNWTO Reports

All Regions
7 May 2020

International tourism down 22% in Q1 and could decline by 60-80% over the whole year
67 million fewer international tourists up to March translates into US$80 billion in lost exports
UNWTO has outlined three possible future scenarios depending on how the crisis unfolds

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a 22% fall in international tourist arrivals during the first quarter of 2020, the latest data from the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) shows. According to the United Nations specialized agency, the crisis could lead to an annual decline of between 60% and 80% when compared with 2019 figures. This places millions of livelihoods at risk and threatens to roll back progress made in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili said: “The world is facing an unprecedented health and economic crisis. Tourism has been hit hard, with millions of jobs at risk in one of the most labour-intensive sectors of the economy.

Tourism has been hit hard, with millions of jobs at risk in one of the most labour-intensive sectors of the economy

Available data reported by destinations point to a 22% decline in arrivals in the first three months of the year, according to the latest UNWTO World Tourism Barometer. Arrivals in March dropped sharply by 57% following the start of a lockdown in many countries, as well as the widespread introduction of travel restrictions and the closure of airports and national borders. This translates into a loss of 67 million international arrivals and about US$80 billion in receipts (exports from tourism).

Although Asia and the Pacific shows the highest impact in relative and absolute terms (-33 million arrivals), the impact in Europe, though lower in percentage, is quite high in volume (-22 million).

International tourist arrivals, 2019 and Q1 2020 (% change)

^{Source: UNWTO}

International Tourism 2020 Scenarios

Prospects for the year have been downgraded several times since the outbreak and uncertainty continues to dominate. Current scenarios point to possible declines in arrivals of 58% to 78% for the year. These depend on the speed of containment and the duration of travel restrictions and shutdown of borders. The following scenarios for 2020 are based on three possible dates for the gradual opening up of international borders.

Scenario 1 (-58%) based on the gradual opening of international borders and easing of travel restrictions in early July
Scenario 2 (-70%) based on the gradual opening of international borders and easing of travel restrictions in early September
Scenario 3 (-78%) based on the gradual opening of international borders and easing of travel restrictions only in early December.

International tourist arrivals in 2020: three scenarios (YoY monthly change, %)

* Actual data through March includes estimates for countries which have not yet reported data.
Source: UNWTO
Note: The scenarios presented in this graph are not forecasts. They represent alternative monthly change in arrivals based on the gradual opening of national borders and lifting of travel restrictions on different dates, still subject to high uncertainty.

Under these scenarios, the impact of the loss of demand in international travel could translate into:

Loss of 850 million to 1.1 billion international tourists
Loss of US$910 billion to US$1.2 trillion in export revenues from tourism
100 to 120 million direct tourism jobs at risk

This is by far the worst crisis that international tourism has faced since records began (1950). The impact will be felt to varying degrees in the different global regions and at overlapping times, with Asia and the Pacific expected to rebound first.

Experts see recovery in 2021

Domestic demand is expected to recover faster than international demand according to the UNWTO Panel of Experts survey. The majority expects to see signs of recovery by the final quarter of 2020 but mostly in 2021. Based on previous crises, leisure travel is expected to recover quicker, particularly travel for visiting friends and relatives, than business travel.

The estimates regarding the recovery of international travel is more positive in Africa and the Middle East with most experts foreseeing recovery still in 2020. Experts in the Americas are the least optimistic and least likely to believe in recovery in 2020, while in Europe and Asia the outlook is mixed, with half of the experts expecting to see recovery within this year.