The Legal Impacts of COVID-19 in the Travel, Tourism and Hospitality Industry

What Effect Does the Coronavirus Pandemic Have on African Countries? An Overview on the Aviation, Tourism and Hospitality Sectors Antonio Osorio 1 1. What Effects Does the Coronavirus Pandemic Have on Global Aviation?; 2. What Effect Does the Coronavirus Pandemic Have on African Aviation?; 2.1. Disruption in African Aviation; 2.2. Why Will African Aviation Suffer?; 3. What Effect Does the Coronavirus Pandemic Have in Cape Verde?; 3.1. In the Aviation Sector; 3.2. In the Tourism and Hospitality Sector. 1. What Effect Does the Coronavirus Pandemic Have on Global Aviation? Coronavirus is grounding the world’s airlines, and the aviation industry may not fully recover from the effects of the pandemic. It is not surprising that the industry clobbered the hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic is the one responsible for helping spread it to the four corners of the Earth. However, the speed and depth of the nosedive which airlines have taken are breathtaking. In a memo to staff on 13 March, entitled “The Survival of British Airways”, the carrier’s boss, Alex Cruz, spoke of “a crisis of global proportions like no other we have known”. Most of the industry should pull through if the situation lasts one or two quarters; any longer and the future of air travel could be altered permanently. The immediate pain is evident. European and American carriers’ share prices have declined faster even than the globe’s COVID-19-struck stock markets (see chart 1). Revenues are in free fall as travel restrictions mount and as fear of infection puts people off spending hours with others in enclosed spaces. On 5 March, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) projected a possible hit to worldwide revenues of up to 113 billion dollors this year, one-fifth of last year’s overall revenues and four times higher than IATA had estimated in February, when the coronavirus was still believed to be a Chinese problem rather than a global one. 1 Lawyer | Legal, Finance & Investment Consulting; Praia, Cape Verde; Tel: +238 260 13 57; e-mail: aosorio@demiing.com