European tourism needs 375 billion euros to recover from pandemic crisis: ETC chief

European tourism sector will be needing 375 billion euros to recover from the fallout caused by the coronavirus outbreak, according to the European Travel Commission (ETC). ETC executive director Eduardo Santander while talking to the press said that the European Union had estimated the member states would be needing around 255 billion euros to recover the industry, while the corporates and entrepreneurs would be needing 120 billion euros to restart the operations after the economy opens again. 

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Eduardo said that everything is equally affected as they are all interconnected to each other. Eduardo explained that due to the restrictions imposed by member states keeping in the mind the coronavirus outbreak, tourism in the region has gone down from 100 per cent to zero. Eduardo said that cruise lines, air carriers, hotels, restaurants are all facing huge financial strain because of the lockdown, with a 45 per cent drop in the airline industry and 70 per cent in hotels. 

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Eduardo further added that the most affected countries due to the lockdown will be the countries whose GDPs are most dependent on the tourism sectors like Italy, Spain, Greece, and Portugal. European Travel Commission (ETC) is the non-profit organisation responsible for the promotion of Europe as a tourist destination in third markets. ETC membership comprises 33 National Tourism Organisations (NTOs) from 32 member countries in Europe.

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Coronavirus outbreak in Europe

Europe is the worst affected region in the world, where Italy, Spain, France and the United Kingdom are some of the badly affected countries. The combined death toll in these countries stands at 93,422 as of April 27, which is nearly half the casualties the world has reported so far. According to data by worldometer, over 2.99 million people have been infected by the disease globally, of which 2,07,020 have lost their lives. 

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(Image Credit: AP)