Sustainable tourism plays a key role in boosting livelihoods, poverty alleviation, and environmental conservation in mountainous areas, according to a new report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and UNWTO.

Tourism offers Tanzania the long-term potential to create good jobs, generate foreign exchange earnings, provide revenue to support the preservation and maintenance of natural and cultural heritage, and expand the tax base to finance development expenditures and poverty-reduction efforts.

The crash in international tourism due to the coronavirus pandemic could cause a loss of more than $4 trillion to the global GDP for the years 2020 and 2021, according to an UNCTAD report. The estimated loss has been caused by the pandemic’s direct impact on tourism and its ripple effect on other sectors closely linked to it.

Globally, biodiversity is imperiled.

United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and Google have partnered to develop an online Acceleration Program for UNWTO Member States’ tourism ministers, top travel associations and tourism boards to further develop innovation and digital transformation skills.

As the pandemic persists, developing Asia is projected to contract by 0.7% in 2020—the first regional GDP contraction since the early 1960s. Developing Asia excluding the newly industrialized economies will also contract by 0.5%.