The Regional Director of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) for the Middle East Basmah bint Abdulaziz Al-Mayman participated as a keynote speaker in the session organized by the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) virtually on rethinking tourism. Basma Al-Mayman said in a speech during her participation that tourism is one of the most affected sectors among all the major economic sectors due to the COVID-19 pandemic, that caused heavy losses to global tourism, national economies, people's livelihoods, and general efforts to achieve sustainable development goals in various countries of the world. She indicated that the international tourism declined by 70% in the first eight months of 2020, compared to the same period last year, due to global travel restrictions, to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. She pointed out that the Middle East region is the least affected compared to other regions in the world. She added that there is an expectation of improvement in the indicators of the tourism sector during the third quarter of 2021, while returning to pre-2019 levels in 2023, and these expectations may change according to the continuous evaluation of the health and economic situation.
