RPT - Italian Tourism May Lose $72Bln Amid COVID-19, See Growth Only After 2023 - Association

GENOA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 09th May, 2020) ENOA, Italy, May 9 (Sputnik), Anastasia Levchenko - The Italian tourism industry may lose up to 66 billion Euros ($72 billion) this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and is unlikely to see any growth before 2023, Marina Lalli, vice-president of Federturismo Confindustria, the Italian travel and tourism federation, told Sputnik.

Tourism is one of the main industries in Italy and, according to the Statista Research Department, represented 13 percent of the country's GDP in 2019.

"For the tourism sector, 2020 will be remembered as the 'annus horribilis.' Already in March, at the beginning of the emergency, the overall losses were estimated at around 30 billion euros, but now there are fears that they may reach 66 billion euros. International arrivals have plummeted, so did the revenues and physical presences, and in order to talk about a possible return to the growth, we will have to wait at least for 2023," Lalli said.

She noted that even though "no destination will be spared from the effects of the coronavirus," places that are mostly linked to seasonality will be the most affected. Primarily, these are the Sicily and Sardinia islands.

Since the beginning of this week, Italy has entered a so-called Phase Two of coronavirus emergency, which means a gradual reopening and lifting of the lockdown limitations. Parks and villas have been reopened for visitors, but beaches still remain inaccessible.

The IMF projected the Italian GDP to fall by nine percent in 2020 amid the coronavirus emergency.

The EU tourism industry is estimated to lose around one billion of euros every month as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, European Commissioner for Internal Markets Thierry Breton announced in mid-March, soon after first lockdowns were imposed in Europe.