MEXICO CITY — There were major hurricanes, and the global financial crisis of 2008. There was 9/11, and an array of regional health scares, from SARS to Zika.

But during the decades that he’s been involved in the tourism business in the Caribbean island nation of Sint Maarten, Emil Lee has never seen anything remotely like the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

“A switch got flipped,” said Mr. Lee, whose family manages a hotel on Sint Maarten, which shares a 34-square-mile island with the French territory Saint-Martin. “And now there’s no tourism.”

The global travel and tourism industry is in peril.

Layoffs in the sector are mounting at the stunning rate of one million jobs a day, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council, an industry group based in London, with as many as 75 million jobs at “immediate risk.” The industry could lose as much as $2.1 trillion in business by the end of the year, the council said.