Tourism Paralysis in Light of the Corona Virus
To conduct an initial assessment, the World Tourism Organization takes the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) scenario as a criterion for calculating how things will turn out, taking into account the amount of current disturbances and the potential economic impact as well as the geographical spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. The World Tourism Organization estimates a 20-30% decrease in the number of tourists in the world in 2020 instead of a 3% to 4% growth in the number of international tourists as expected in early January of the same year. Iraq was not far from these events and their repercussions that swept most countries of the world and cast their shadows on the tourism sector in the country. Since the beginning of the demonstrations that swept the cities of Iraq in October of last year, followed by the sanctions imposed by America on Iran, these events led to a decrease in the number of tourists to Iraq, especially religious tourism, as it is no secret to anyone that most tourists come from the Islamic Republic of Iran, who represent 85% of all foreign tourists, in addition to tourists from the Gulf countries, intending to visit the religious shrines in Najaf, Karbala and Kadhimiya in Baghdad, but the emergence of the first cases of the COVID-19 epidemic dealt the final blow to this sector, as the borders were completely closed with neighboring countries, flights between Iraq and the rest of the countries were stopped, tourism and travel companies were closed throughout the country, and a comprehensive curfew was declared as precautionary measures to prevent the spread of the virus, which subsequently led to a complete halt to tourism in the country. These events were followed by a significant decrease in the value of global crude oil prices, which negatively affected the economic situation of the country, noting that That our country is considered a rentier country that depends primarily on oil. It is too early at the present time to prepare estimates for the countries of the world and Iraq due to the rapid developments that the world is going through and despite the shocks that international tourism has witnessed, whether in 2003 due to SARS or during the Iraq war or due to the global economic and financial crisis of 2008-2009, the tourism sector quickly returned to a great recovery in the years following these events, which indicates the strength and flexibility of the tourism sector.
