Question

The coronavirus epidemic is putting up to 50 million jobs in the global travel and tourism sector at risk, with travel likely to slump by a quarter this year, Asia being the most affected continent, the World Travel and Tourism Council has said. How is the coronavirus affecting travel? Discuss the impact of the diseases outbreak towards all travel and tourism sectors in Malaysia.

Answer 1

Affect of coronavirus on travel industry -

1. COVID-19 has resulted in a serious slump in the travel industry all around the globe. The current protocol is to stay at home to stay safe which has not just hit the commercial travelling but also affected the business travelling around the world. Airlines, Trains and Road transportation has gotten seriously affected from COVID-19.

2. Places where guests come from and the places where guests arrive, both have taken serious decisions for not letting anyone travel from any other place so as both places stay safe.

3. In the current scenario when millions of confirmed cases are identified around the globe and Lakhs of deaths are reported from the pandemic. People around the globe are fearing the results of contracting the virus, probability of which more than doubles in public places. Hence, people are trying not to travel and stay where they are.

4. Travel industry includes hotels, cruise ships as well as air and road travel. None of these have remain unaffected with COVID 19 outbreak.

5. The travel and tourism industry accounts for approximately 10% of the global GDP. According to the predictions, it will take more than 10 months to recover from the impact of the outbreak once it is over. Hence, it is inevitable for the travel industry to face the shock for next one year at least.

6. Global travel and tourism accounts for more than 50 million jobs at risk across the globe. All these jobs have been identified at risk due to the outbreak. This will affect the employment adversaly.

Impact on Malaysia -

1. As of now, Malaysia has identified more than 5,000 cases of COVID -19 in the country. Approximately 100 of these have been converted to death nad many are recovered from the disease.

2. Malaysia is one of the favorite tourist destination in Asia. Kuala Lumpur, George town, Langkawi, and Malacca are the most famous tourist destinations in Malaysia.

3. Tourism is the third biggest contributor to Malaysia's GDP.

4. Total inbound tourism expenditure in Malaysia accounted for 87.7 Billion Malaysian Ringgit in the year 2018. This expenditure led to Billions of revenues in the country. This will be hugely impacted.

5. 23.6 Million people arrived in Malaysia for tourism purposes from just the ASEAN countries in the year 2019. For the next one year, the expected amount of people for tourism in Malaysia is zero. This will be a huge impact on tourism and travel businesses.

6. More than 3.5 million people are employed with Malaysian tourism sector and due to the outbreak many of these jobs will suffer, this will impact the employment in the country and hence, the economy.