MENA a robust destination: Suman Billa

The MENA region has world class infrastructure and a very strong aviation sector, stated Suman Billa, Director, Technical Cooperation and Silk Road Development, UNWTO in his opening remarks. “In 2003 we had the SARS crisis which dropped tourism by 0.4% then in 2009 the global economic crisis which resulted the tourism industry to drop by 4% but today we are looking at a drop from 58% to 78% now this is unprecedented and there is no experience for us to cope with this. To my mind there is no business contingency plan or a government support programme that can handover to tourism sector to come out of it without any pain. At the same time we must understand that tourism all over the world are in difficult position and in order to sustain that we do not have the luxury to wait for a vaccine to come. MENA region has been very robust that their global share is 6% and by 2030 we thought it would move up to 8%. There is nothing to suggest that the robustness of growth and development in this region is going to slow down. One of the most important in this region is that most oil economies are looking at tourism to see as to how they can diversify from their overhead reliance on oil. And they have got some extremely strong products such as culture, fantastic shopping and MICE are some of the products they are strong.” It was his opinion that the best way forward as we are still to find a vaccine or even a cure for the pandemic that it is better to look at localised bubbles to be promoted where you could look at targeted market segments to work with first and then go on.