NEW DELHI: Tourism economy fell by nearly 43 per cent and an estimated 14.5 million jobs were lost in the first quarter of 2020-21 as the COVID-19 pandemic and resultant lockdown decimated the sector which directly employed 34.8 million people in the country the year before, according to details provided by the government in Parliament.
The situation improved slightly in the second and third quarters of 2020-21. In a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, Tourism Minister G Kishan Reddy said, "As per the results of the study conducted by National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), due to the overall economic slowdown during 2020-21, tourism economy or tourism direct gross value added (TDGVA) saw a fall of 42.8 % in Q1; 15.5 % in Q2 and fall of 1.1 % in Q3."
He also said that due to a significant drop in tourist arrivals and hence tourism expenditure during the pandemic, it is estimated that TDGVA plummeted by as much as 93.3 per cent in Q1 of 2020-21 over its level in the same quarter of previous year.
"It picked up slightly to post a fall of 79.5 per cent in Q2 and that of 64.3 per cent in Q3. A significant number of jobs were lost in the tourism sector once the lockdown was implemented. 14.5 million Jobs during Q1, 5.2 million during Q2 and 1.8 million jobs during Q3 are expected to have been lost as compared to estimated 34.8 million jobs in the pre-pandemic period of 2019-20 (direct jobs)," Reddy informed the House.