FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF THE OBVIOUS- Tourist arrivals to Egypt dropped 62.3% y-o-y in 1H2020 as covid-19 travel restrictions and border closures vaporized international travel, according to the World Tourism Organization’s latest World Tourism Barometer (pdf). Egypt closed its airspace to most inbound and outbound commercial flights between March and July. Tourism receipts also dropped 11.4% y-o-y in 1Q2020 before tumbling further in 2Q2020, when they fell 90.4% y-o-y, the report says. Egypt’s tourist arrivals reached a record 13 mn last year before the covid-19 pandemic brought the industry to a halt.

Globally, the tourist arrivals figure didn’t do much better, dropping 65.5% y-o-y during the first six months of the year. Despite a slight pickup in July and August, the organization said it expects global numbers to fall 70% y-o-y in 2020, saying “the outlook is still highly uncertain and volatile as new cases of covid-19 continue to be reported worldwide,” leading some countries to re-impose lockdown measures and border closures. The majority of analysts polled in the report don’t expect to see international tourism rebounding in earnest before 3Q2021, and a return to pre-pandemic levels is unlikely before 2023.