NEW YORK: Japan may lose 1.29 billion dollars in tourism revenue in January-March due to travel bans introduced to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus, an international organization has said.

The International Civil Aviation Organization also said the impacts of the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak on the global economy "are expected to be greater" than those caused by the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic.

China's international air traffic has doubled and domestic traffic fivefold since the time of the SARS epidemic, ICAO said Thursday, citing reasons for the bigger impacts.

The number of passengers on international flights to and from China during the first quarter of 2020 is expected to decrease by 16.4 million to 19.6 million from the level initially projected by airlines, the organization said.

This would result in a reduction of 4 billion to 5 billion dollars in gross operating revenues for airlines around the world, according to ICAO.

JIJI Press