Gloria Guevara (WTTC) on Coronavirus

Don’t cancel flights yet, don’t close your airports. This is the message by Travel and Tourism leaders like Gloria Guevara, President and CEO of the World Travel and Tourism Council.

Gloria Guevara is considered the most influential leader in the global travel and tourism industry. Her organization represents the 200 largest companies in travel. It means big money and big interests.

Gloria today talked to eTurboNews from her native Mexico. She said: “According to the previous director of the World Health Organization, 90 percent of the economic-financial impact of epidemic outbreaks in the past has been related not to a virus.”

“10 percent of the economic impact when a virus breaks out is related to it, but 90 percent is related to the over-reaction and to irrational panic decisions.”

“Such decisions include canceling international flights, closing airports – all that have the greatest negative economic impact. We also learned from the World Health Organization that more people die from the impacts of Ebola compared to the virus itself. I know it’s not a good comparison but a tragic example.”

“The report that we at WTTC produced on crises last year has a lot of data, and it’s a good source of information on the financial impact for the past 11 crises.”

“So my point here is it’s important to protect travel and tourism that accounts for 10.4 percent of the global GDP and one of 10 jobs in the world. I wanted to make sure over-reaction will not be the cause of the unnecessary suffering of our sector.”

WTTC is showing leadership as it is one of the first global travel and tourism organization reacting to the coronavirus scare.

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