IDB spoke about the tourism landscape in Latin America

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) warned of the severe impact that the Covid-19 pandemic will have on tourism in Latin America and the Caribbean and recommended that governments in the region take “unprecedented” measures.

The report prepared by the IDB explains that the impact of this crisis in each of the countries will differ depending on the structure of the economy, as well as the spread of the disease and dependence on the sector.

The entity carried out a tourism dependency index that reveals that the different Caribbean islands are the most vulnerable economies to the crisis in the sector.

The ranking is led by the island of Aruba, with a level of 84.7, which makes it the world’s most dependent economy on tourism, followed by Antigua and Barbuda (61.4) and the Bahamas (59.4). The least dependent countries on tourism at the moment are Venezuela (5.5), Paraguay (3.7) and Suriname (3.2).

In the case of other countries, the sector has a significant weight over their economies. From 2014 to 2018, tourism contributed an average of almost 16% in production and employment in Mexico, and close to 10% of employment and GDP for Uruguay, Argentina and Chile. In Brazil, during this period, tourism was responsible for 8% of the country’s employment.

Our tourism dependency index and several related indicators suggest that countries in Latin America and the Caribbean will suffer more than others in terms of ‘shocks’ from Covid-19″, explains the economic adviser for the department. Caribbean IDB, Henry Mooney.

K. Tovar

Source: dpa