Mexico City - Mexico suffered a massive drop in tourism in May amounting to 524 million dollars because of swine flu, the tourism ministry said Thursday. The figure was based on data gathered by Mexico's central bank and had a major impact on tourism in the country, although it was well below the expected figure of 1 billion dollars in losses, Tourism Minister Rodolfo Elizondo said.
May was the worst month of the A-H1N1 epidemic, which emerged in Mexico and quickly spread across the world, adding to the problems caused by the global financial crisis.
Mexico's inflow of foreign currency from tourism dropped by 14.8 per cent from January-May, as compared to the same period a year earlier. Mexico received 5.2 billion dollars in the first five months of this year from the arrival of 9.2 foreign visitors.
As tourism fell, about 4 per cent of jobs in the tourism industry were dropped. But Elizondo said Mexico was looking forward to "a faster-than-expected recovery."
Mexican Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova Villalobos said the total losses caused by the new influenza virus were equivalent to four percentage points in the country's GDP, or more than 3 billion dollars.
Nearly 100,000 swine flu cases have been reported in more than 70 countries around the world, including 429 deaths, according to the World Health Organization.
