Beijing is expected to suffer 16 billion yuan (US$1.9 billion) in losses to the tourism sector alone due to the impact of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
According to the latest survey conducted by the Beijing municipal statistics bureau, in the first five months of this year, overseas and domestic tourist arrivals in Beijing dropped by 480,000 and 8.7 million, respectively, generating losses as high as 11billion yuan (US$1.3 billion).
The losses are expected to slow down the city's economic growth by 1.4 percentage points.
Optimistic estimates based on the precondition that SARS is completely under control by the end of June, indicate that overseas tourist arrivals in Beijing will fall by 47 percent year-on-year in the first half of this year, leading to US$650 million in losses.
The number of domestic tourists is expected to drop by 20 percent year-on-year in the first half of this year, generating an additional 10.6 billion yuan (US$1.3 billion) in losses.
(Xinhua News Agency June 18, 2003)
