Özet:

In this article an attempt has been made to review the historic trends in foreign and domestic tourism in Pakistan with the aim to calculate expected loss due to ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. For this purpose grass domestic product (GDP) growth in relation to tourism activities and COVID-19 cases were analyzed. This review revealed that tourist activities in Pakistan are growing with high level of fluctuations. After a spill of war on terrorism, Pakistan re-initiated domestic tourism 2009. The 2010 flood destroyed the road network and tourism was waned again. In 2011 tourism department re-framed tourist activities again. As per estimate, during 2012-19, Pakistan invested more than 90 billion of rupees on motorways, hotels, parks and archaeological sites and was looking forward toward 2020 summer season for some betterment in tourism, but COVID-19 appeared on the world horizon and all sorts of economic activities, including tourism were brought to zero. During 1994-2019 tourism contributed 5.7 to 7.1 % to the gross domestic products (GDP) of Pakistan. The loss is equivalent to US$ 20.18 billion. Pakistan will suffer for another few years. Even if the vaccine for COVID-19 arrives in the market, the loss will be irreparable. We have to learn survival in the presence of coronavirus, and prepare standard operating procedure (SOPs) for each business including tourism.

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