11 TTW EuropeThe travel and tourism sector in Europe saw its biggest collapse during the COVID-19 pandemic. They suffered a decline of 51.4 per cent amounting to €987 billion. The most affected countries in Europe are Spain, Malta, Greece and Portugal. The Economic Trends Report showed that domestic spending in Europe marked a 48.4 per cent decrease. The international spending also declined by 63.8 %. While the WTC reports mark that Europe was the top global region for international visitor spending, still the country suffered a 9.3 per cent decline, leaving a total of 3.6 million people engaged in this industry jobless. International visitor spending in this region declined by 74.4% as most national governments sealed their borders to inbound tourists. During this time, the domestic spending declined by 48.1%. Virginia Messina, the Senior Vice President WTTC, in a recent statement said that their data shows the devastating impact the pandemic has had on travel and tourism around the world. 61% of EU tourists sought night accommodation in Europe. 12 months before the pandemic struck, 2.8 billion tourists had opted for overnight stays but the numbers declined to 1.1 billion tourists from April 2020 to March 2021.During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global travel industry was decimated. Every national government across the world issued advisory warnings to all its citizens across the world. Many people across the world were stranded in the tourist locations that they had gone. After some time, the national governments started to take precautions that would help them to prevent the spread of the virus amongst the general populace. Restrictions were placed on the travellers who were coming from foreign locations. They had to stay in quarantine for 14 days in case they were carrying the virus, undertake PCR tests and fill up lots of forms. These procedures coupled with the restrictions on public gatherings and the limited operating hours of hotels and restaurants had taken the fun away from travelling. This deterred many people from leaving their homes and subsequently led the travel and tourism industry and its allied industries to suffer badly.