North Africa’s key oil importers Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt are reliant on tourism from Europe as a key element of their revenue. And with much of Europe under lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and set to remain so, the 2020 tourism season is increasingly looking like a write-off. Businesses will go under and jobs will be lost. With the threat of a major global recession just around the corner, recovery could take years.

While Morocco has seen sustained steady growth, Tunisia and Egypt were only just celebrating a return to normal after deadly terror attacks in 2015 devastated their tourism sectors which were already struggling with post-2011 instability. (CONTINUED - 926 WORDS)