Via The New York Times: Coronavirus in N.Y.: Without Chinese Tourists, Business Sags. Excerpt:
The manager of a hotel near Newark Liberty International Airport that relies on tourists from China estimated the loss from the coronavirus outbreak at “well over $100,000 and climbing.”
A company that arranges Chinese-language bus tours of the sights in Manhattan is dealing with as many as 300 cancellations from Chinese tourists who cannot come to New York this week.
The owner of a travel agency in Queens who had booked trips for 200 Chinese tourists this week and next has already thought about when he might have to lay off two of his five employees.
With health officials scrambling to deal with an outbreak that is spreading around the world, tour operators and travel agents in the New York area are bracing for the economic pain that will come with empty rooms in hotels and empty seats on tour buses.
“It’s going to be a serious financial burden,” said Elizabeth Chin, a travel agent in Fort Lee, N.J., and the chairwoman of the Pacific Asia Travel Association, a trade group. “The flights are canceled. The tour operators have canceled.”
Across the globe, many cities are starting to experience the fallout from the precipitous drop of visitors from China now that the Chinese government has imposed a ban on organized tours and many airlines have suspended service to and from that country. The coronavirus is believed to have originated in Wuhan, China, late last year.
In London, restaurant operators in the city’s Chinatown have noticed a steep drop in business since the country’s first two cases of the coronavirus were confirmed last week in northeast England.
“Compared to the last few months, we lost around 50 percent of our customers,” said Martin Ma, the general manager of Jinli, a restaurant with two branches in Chinatown. “The reason is the virus.”
Health officials in New York have identified three possible cases of the virus among residents, all of whom are now hospitalized. The official said the city was prepared for the possible spread of the virus and cautioned people not to panic.
Still, beyond a plunge in Chinese visitors, owners of restaurants and stores in New York’s three main Chinatowns — in Lower Manhattan; Flushing, Queens; and Sunset Park, Brooklyn — say the coronavirus and the fears it has stoked are hurting business.
At restaurants in Chinatown in Manhattan, workers and owners said business had dropped 50 to 70 percent in the last 10 days.
In New York City, China is an important source of visitors. Chinese tourists represent the second-largest group of foreign travelers. (Visitors from Britain are No. 1.)
Bruce Zhu, the manager of China Tour Travel Services in Flushing, Queens, had booked hotel rooms and made sightseeing-tour arrangements for 200 people who were scheduled to arrive from China in the next two weeks. He said that was a typical number for early to mid-February.
“It’s a big problem,” he said. “We have to cancel the bookings, cancel the hotels. We lose a lot of money on the bookings.”
