This too shall pass - but travel will need to adjust
Just over a month ago, many of us sat in our offices, surrounded by colleagues, engaged in deep discussions about how best to leverage the increasing demand in travel this year.
As per the World Tourism Organization's (UNWTO) forecasts from earlier this year, international tourist arrivals were expected to grow by 4% in 2020, which is not as great as the growth seen in 2017 (7%) and 2018 (6%), but it was still enough to continue fueling the tourism industry, which contributes to about 10.4% of the global GDP and approximately 319 million jobs.
We were blissfully unaware of the looming threat of the COVID-19 global pandemic.
In fact, several parts of the world failed to take notice of this crown-shaped virus that was about to bring everything to a grinding halt, until March 11, when the World Health Organization officially announced it as a pandemic.
