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Coronavirus situation may lead to reduction in jobs in tourism industry - experts

Approximate losses of the Russian outbound tourism due to the coronavirus amounted to 27 bln rubles ($402.2 mln)

MOSCOW, February 13. /TASS/. Declining sales of tours due to coronavirus and weakening ruble exchange rate may force tour operators to optimize the number of staff, Vice President of the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR) Dmitry Gorin told TAS.

The decline in sales of tours from Russia abroad fell by 40-60% depending on the destination, Gorin said, while there are destinations, for example, Italy, where sales have completely stopped.

"When a number of countries are closed for quarantine, we need to go through a transition period for the tourism industry. The volatility of the exchange rate, not only the coronavirus, complicates the situation. There is a difficult path ahead - job cuts in the tourism industry. There is no talk of bankruptcy, now we need to think, first of all, about people who will be underutilized," he said.

According to him, this is a necessary measure amid a 50% decline in sales. Also, to save money, tour operators can begin to reduce the area rented for offices, he said.

Press service of the Russian tourism authority Rosturizm told TASS earlier it would support tourist business support measures in the challenging epidemiological environment because of the new coronavirus. "Rosturizm will develop tourist business support measures. The authority will act as the initiator of changes in operating regulations of industry players in the challenging epidemiological environment," the agency said.

Approximate losses of the Russian outbound tourism due to the coronavirus amounted to 27 bln rubles ($402.2 mln) net of losses for the Italian destination, executive director of the Russian association of tour operators Maya Lomidze said earlier.

COVID-19 Global Spread

On December 31, 2019, the Chinese authorities reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) about an outbreak of pneumonia of unknown etiology in Wuhan, an economic and industrial megalopolis with a population of 11 million.

The virus was identified on January 7 as 2019-nCoV. The World Health Organization declared in January that the new coronavirus outbreak was a public health emergency of international concern, characterizing it as an epidemic with multiple locations.

On February 11, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated that the organization gave the novel coronavirus an official name of COVID-19. On March 11, the World Health Organization officially stated that the continuously spreading novel coronavirus was a global pandemic.

As of today, 133 countries and territories reported confirmed coronavirus cases. According to the latest reports, over 139,000 cases of patients infected with the novel coronavirus have been confirmed worldwide. The virus’ death toll has reached 5,116, yet more than 70,720 patients have recovered from the disease.

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