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Hello and welcome to the bottom line.

The British and world economies may well be about to endure a pretty thorough test of resilience.

You know what I'm talking about, the COVID-19 coronavirus.

The virus is having an obvious and large human cost.

That is not our topic today,

because it's also causing disruption to economic life. It forces people to stay at home,

thus reducing production and the supply of many goods and services. It thus threatens the survival of many enterprises, and if it goes much further, its costs will probably wipe out

billions of pounds worth of personal wealth and worsen government finances. The stock markets

have reacted to it. The US Fed has cut interest rates to see off the damage. So we thought we

should reflect on the way it affects the economy.

And I have three guests who can talk us through some specific industries and through the general effect.

So let me introduce my guests briefly.

First up, Gloria Guevara, Chief Executive of the World Travel and Tourism Council.

And, Gloria, you come from Mexico and actually as former Mexico tourism minister,

you had to deal with H1N1 as a crisis. How did it affect Mexican tourism?

Significant because we didn't have experience to deal with this type of outbreaks.

The impact of H1N1 back then in Mexico, it was estimated to

$5 billion. And tourism is a very significant economic activity for the country, as you can

imagine. It contributes to 17% of the GDP. And unfortunately, the measurements that we took in some

cases back then were not the best, but that was the best of the measurements that we took in some cases back then were not the best,

but that was the best of the knowledge that we had and the recommendations.

...