In Hong Kong, the cancellations come after months of political protests that have convulsed the city and left much of the territory on shaky footing.

Ben Brown, a gallery owner with locations in London and Hong Kong, said that his shop has made a big profit every year at Art Basel Hong Kong, and this year, that bump will disappear. But the damage will go beyond immediate sales.

“It’s the center of the artistic universe for a week, and it leads to other things during the year,” he said. “Imagine if you had to cancel the Oscars. The film world would carry on, and films would carry on either making money or losing money, but it’s a major blow.”

Galleries that had planned to exhibit at Art Basel Hong Kong were offered a refund of 75 percent of their booth fees, which run to $125,000 for the largest spaces. Besides forfeited fees and lost sales, galleries are bleeding money in other ways. Cliff Vernon, director of the contemporary division of Gander & White, which ships fine art, said that there were two shipping containers currently at sea that had been on their way to Art Basel carrying pieces from five dealers. Now, the galleries will have to pay to ship it back, at a cost of about $15,000 for the return trip.

China is also critical for the movie business, a $9 billion annual market second only to North America, according to Paul Dergarabedian, a senior analyst at Comscore, a media measurement company. But with most movie theaters in the country closed, he said, that business is almost entirely on hold. Releases of “Jojo Rabbit” and “Dolittle” — a box-office bomb in the United States that desperately needs foreign sales — are among those postponed in China so far.

“There’s no question there are going to have to be footnotes as far as the box offices goes this year,” Mr. Dergarabedian said. “The longer this goes on, the bigger an issue it becomes.”