UK govt says monthly air passenger arrivals fell by 98% at peak of the pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged the travel and tourism industry the most since the disease first emerged in December 2019 in China, forcing countries to shut down their borders and businesses to prevent the spread. The British government on Monday announced that monthly air passenger arrivals to the country fell by a whopping 98.3% between February and April last year, during the peak of the pandemic. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the monthly arrivals of international passengers plunged from 6,804,900 in February 2020 to 112,300 in April 2020. 

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'Sharpest decline in turnover of travel sector'

As far as the hospitality sector is concerned, Greater London dealt the strongest blow among all English regions by the COVID-induced lockdown, the numbers suggest. The room occupancy in Greater London dipped to just 20% in July 2020 as compared to more than 90% during the same period in 2019. The travel and accommodation businesses saw the sharpest decline in turnover during the first nationwide lockdown in the United Kingdom, falling by 9.3% of their February numbers in May 2020. 

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According to ONS, the travel and accommodation businesses recorded a surge in October 2020 before falling again in November after the country reimposed restrictions. The employment in the accommodation sector fell by 21.5% in June 2020 compared to the same period a year before. People aged 16 to 24 lost the most number of jobs in the travel and tourism industries between September 2019 to September 2020. 

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The travel and tourism sector contributed more than 6% to the United Kingdom's GDP in 2018. However, since February 2020, when the first COVID-19 case was detected in the UK, the travel and tourism industry has suffered the most because of the restrictions imposed by the government. The British government is currently running a vaccination programme, which is expected to bring much-needed relief to the sector as restrictions will slowly be lifted as more and more people are inoculated.  

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