MOSCOW, August 29 (RIA Novosti) - Ignorance and misperceptions regarding the location of the ongoing Ebola epidemic in West Africa, will damage the entire continent’s economy and reputation among potential tourists.
“Many travelers see Africa as one big country,” Paz Casal, a Spain-based travel and tourism research analyst at Euromonitor was quoted as saying by Bloomberg on Friday. “Ebola can damage Africa’s economic revival of recent years, resurfacing the continent’s negative stereotypes as a place of disease, famine and poverty.”
While airlines have suspended routes to the West African countries infected with Ebola – Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea – flight bookings to sub-Saharan Africa may drop as much as 50 percent over the next four months, according to market research company Euromonitor International.
The widespread misunderstanding that all of Africa is battling the disease is costing the continent its recent three-year spike in tourism, Bloomberg reported.
“Putting a halt on flights or imposing unnecessary travel restrictions will not help contain the virus but it will surely dampen the economy of the region, namely its travel and tourism sector, and jeopardize millions of livelihoods,” Sandra Carvao, the World Tourism Organization’s (WHO) communications chief, said in an e-mailed response to Bloomberg’s questions.
Although African governments have increased preventive procedures in airports, British Airways and Kenya Airways have suspended all flights to West African countries battling the disease while Korean Air Lines redirected its Kenya route this month, adding to Kenya’s already sluggish year for tourism.
According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization, the most tourists visit Africa from Europe and frequently travel to sub-Saharan Africa's east and south including Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Nambia, Botswana and Mauritius.
The Ebola virus has claimed 1,552 lives from 3,069 cases since December, according to WHO. A separate outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed some 13 people.
