Bruges Mayor Dirk De fauw first realized that something was very much wrong with European tourism when on a brisk March morning he crossed the Burg square in front of the Gothic city hall and there was absolute silence!
“There are always people. Always,” De fauw said. That morning? “Nothing. Nobody is on that large square” at the heart of one of Europe’s most picturesque cities, De fauw said.
Six months later, with Europe’s worst tourist summer season in history starting to come to an end, COVID-19 is yet to ease its suffocating grip on the continent.
Losses resulting from the pandemic are piling up in tens of billions of Euros across the 27-nation European Union. Revenue losses during the first half of 2020 for hotels, restaurants, tour operators, long distance train operators and airlines were approximately 85-90 per cent.
Even now, the European Commission said that the “bookings for September and October remain abnormally low,” as dismal as 10% of capacity in Bruges.
It was quite apparent on a late summer’s day in Bruges, when usually loads of American and Asian tourists should have been mingling with Europeans along the cobblestone streets below gabled houses for boosting annual visit numbers to over 8 million in the city of 110,000.
“Every month we see the numbers declining,” said Jonathan Nowakowski, the business director of Bruges Museums.
Hotels, restaurants, shops and the survival of families have all become very important now.
Not sure about how long the pandemic will last, Bruges has already decided to give up blockbuster exhibits. Instead, it will focus on local artists who have been hit hard monetarily by the pandemic.
Tags: European tourism, Bruges
