The Government of India added Singapore to its travel ban list to control the deadly coronavirus outbreak.
On Saturday, India released a travel advisory asking citizens to avoid non-essential travel to Singapore.
Analysts say that the new advisory will restrain tourist inflow into Singapore considering that India is among its top sources of international visitors.
Last year, the south-east Asian business hub accounted for more than 1.4 million tourists from India.
Pronab Sarkar, President of the Indian Association of Tour Operators, said that the ban will surely have an impact on the tourism industry but the extent remains uncertain.
“So, the impact, if any, will become clearer during the summer holiday season from May to June,” he added.
The Tour Operator’s head furthered that the slowdown of tourist outflow does not just involve Singapore but also other countries included in the ban.
Aside from those coming from China, Hong Kong, Thailand, South Korea, Singapore and Japan, the Indian government has also extended coronavirus screening on passengers from Indonesia, Kathmandu, Malaysia and Vietnam on its 21 designated airports for possible symptoms.
Based on the real-time virus tracker created by Johns Hopkins’ Center for Systems Science and Engineering, India’s confirmed cases of COVID-2019 stay at three.
Out of the 79, 360 cases across the globe as of Monday noon, only 24, 963 have reportedly recovered while 2, 619 of them died.
