Challenges of Hospitality, Leisure and Travel Industry during Covid-19 Pandemic

This article discusses the impact of Covid-19 on the hospitality, leisure, and travel industry. It highlights the challenges faced by the industry and how companies are reacting to the situation. The article also provides recommendations for companies to cope up with the difficult times. The subject of the article is Academic Writing for Business and Management. The course code and college/university are not mentioned.

Challenges of
Hospitality, Leisure
and Travel Industry

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................6
REFERNCES:..................................................................................................................................7
Books and Journals:....................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
The hospitality industry is very wider category among all sectors. It covers many areas
such as food and drink service, lodging, event planning, travel and tourism, theme parks. It
involves hotels, restaurants, bars, motels, tourism agencies. It does has several definitions such as
making someone feel welcome, commonly through comfort entertainment. This industry is drive
to offer an enjoyable experiences to the customers for all who involve. The surrounding is warm
and welcoming, the facilities provide amenities such as complimentary valet parking, swimming
pool or showers and their revenue typically depends on who enjoys or who do not. The Covid-19
and its effect spread across the world (Garanti and Berjozkina, 2021). It is a contagious virus for
which government highly focuses on the safety of their citizens. The impact of Covid-19 was
unpredictable and huge as it affects several industries and sectors. The Covid-19 measures have
shut down and pause many businesses and companies that serve customers at their best. In this
assignment, various challenges that are faced by hospitality, leisure and travel industry have been
discussed, how organizations are reacting to the situations of Covid-19. It is crucial to utilize
the experiences during tough times to find the future challenges.
MAIN BODY
Understanding Covid-19 pandemic and its economical affect is vital for future crises
management. It is pivotal to use the experiences during such crises in order to know the
upcoming challenges. When Covid-19 went globally, the hospitality and tourism sectors was
severely affected. Various hotels and hotel managers face uncertainties in such pandemic to
survive. The ramifications of the Covid-19 such as border closures, travel bans and quarantine
instructions, have resulting in several organizations in the tourism and hospitality industry either
closing and limiting their operations of business. It is observed that hospitality and leisure sectors
are the first ones that experienced bad circumstances and conditions. Due to such Covid-19
crises, many organizations shut down their restaurants, theme parks, hotels, cinemas, all have
vital impact on the worldwide tourism (Hayashi, Garcia and Jayasundara, 2021). This industry
has faced many challenges that affects their revenue of the business.
Hygiene is a big concern in hospitality industry. In hotels and restaurants, a protocol
should be established for an emergency response to those persons who got infected with the
virus. If anyone who is already infected with the virus entered in hotel or restaurant then

necessarily hotel members decontaminate as a precautionary measure. Hotels must use PPE kit
(personal protective equipment) and comply with safety measures at all time. In order to gain
customer trust, air hygiene is one the most essential things must be ensure by the hotel industry.
Employees lost their jobs, due to Covid-19 crises, many businesses in the hospitality
industry have to shut down their doors for the services. As a result, companies were not able to
make profits and revenue for the business through which they are paying salaries to their
employees (Liu-Lastres, Mirehie and Cecil, 2021). Companies have to reduce their staff
members in order to cope up with the situations. And those who were left over in the industry got
trainings related with Covid-19 measures that how they should check their guests temperature,
social distancing on counters, on the dining side and many more.
Health and wellness, multi-purpose spaces that motivates guests to be more conscious
about their health and wellness. It becomes a growing trend which also upgrades the costs and
require time for the implementation. Therefore, millennials are demanding more hygienic
accommodations and organic farm grown foods.
Technology, as the new social distancing measures are increasing day by day and focus
on cleanliness, electronic check-in and check-out will become more crucial to the service sector
with guests and not having to come to the front counter to get a key. Mobile phone applications
and digital technologies will become the new norm, involving food and beverages as customers
order room service using their smartphones (Tuman, 2020). Implementing these technologies in
use is challenging for the business as it involves high costs.
Remote working, Covid-19 also encourage employees and workers to work remotely. It
is a new experience for the employees to work from their homes or any places where they do not
have to present physically at offices. These needs high internet services, power back up, costs
and many more. It is a new experience for their customers as well as they book online rooms,
orders for food and many more.
In the hospitality industry, many companies respond the situations very positively and
maturely. Many companies adopt work from home policies for their employees and workers so
that they can keep their valuable employees employed and paid in the company, IT department
of the companies provide the desktop system or laptops to their employees who do have it at
their home. It help employees to access services even from their homes. In order to communicate
the services to the customers, employees work on many social media platforms to keep in

contact with their customers. They use phones, emails, SMS and many more communication
channels (Mircheva, Plompen and Wynants, 2020).
Many workers take sick leaves as they come in contact with the virus and does not able to
fulfil their duties and other job responsibilities on time. Suppose if an employees is quarantined
and they do work from home, they may not take any sick or casual leave. Some organisations in
the hospitality industry also pledging to continue to pay hourly workers their regular salaries
even if the working timings are reduced due to the pandemic (Vermicelli, Cricelli, and Grimaldi,
2021). M,any companies provide two week's paid leave without using their sick leaves or casual
leaves. For employees in the hospitality industry where they have to meet customers personally
and human contact is necessary, it is vital and essential for them to review sick leave and PTO
policies.
Recommendations are also very supportive to the companies even in the situations of
Covid-19. In the hospitality industry, employers must ensure that their staff members are
vaccinated against the virus. Guests who are enter in the premises must be checked with the
infrared thermometer, if any guest has high temperature then he or she should not be allowed to
enter in the premises (Pathak and Joshi, 2021). Distancing of guests should be 1 metre from
other guests and employees. This may include avoid shaking hands, hugging. If they are not
follow the necessary rules then it is important that they must weak mask. It is vital for the
hospitality sectors to keep their surfaces neat and clean, keep their elevators buttons, restaurant
cutlery, door handles and many more.
In the hospitality industry, as companies experienced some new changes post pandemic,
many hotels, restaurant, bars adapted to the new normal in response to the situation. It is
recommended that while adapting the new normal to the business, hospitality industry must not
avoid their quality of services to the customers. Organisations can do an investment on
technologies in order to provide contactless services to their customers such as ultraviolet light
interventions, electrostatic disinfection misters for the welfare of their guests and employees.
Employees safety is also important for the organisation. So welfare and safety of the
employees must be consider by the company. If any employee fall sick then company must
relevant amount to that employee. Apart from this, companies may also supply safety kits, illness
support, regular health checks and measures in order to keep them and their guests healthy and
safe.

CONCLUSION
From the above discussion, it has been concluded that Covid-19 has a immense impact of
several industries, including hospitality, leisure, and travel industry. Hospitality industry comes
in the service sector which included services such as hotels, bars, restaurants, motels, theme
parks, event planning, amusement parks and many more. Hospitality industry face very bad
experiences due to the Covid-19 pandemic as many companies in the industry have to shut down
their restaurants, hotels and many more. As a result, the companies' revenue and profits have
been reduced. There are many challenges that are faced by companies during Covid-19 pandemic
such as remote working, closing of business, loss of valuable employees due to losses and many
more. But with the help of effective strategies, many organisations are able to perform their
business very well. By acceptance and adaptability of new normal after pandemic, companies
introduced several new policies and necessary changes in their regular business. The report also
discussed with some recommendations that could help companies to cope up with the difficult
times.

REFERNCES:
Books and Journals:
Garanti, Z. and Berjozkina, G., 2021. Introduction: what are the challenges and opportunities for
tourism sustainability in Cyprus?. Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes.
Hayashi, R., Garcia, M. and Jayasundara, H. D. S. A., 2021. COVID-19 Impact on Technical
and Vocational Education and Training in Sri Lanka.
Liu-Lastres, B., Mirehie, M. and Cecil, A., 2021. Are female business travelers willing to travel
during COVID-19? An exploratory study. Journal of Vacation Marketing,
p.1356766720987873.
Mircheva, N., Plompen, B. and Wynants, M., 2020. Restaurant industry's response to Covid-
19. LBMG Strategic Brand Management-Masters Paper Series.
Pathak, D. and Joshi, G., 2021. Impact of psychological capital and life satisfaction on
organizational resilience during COVID-19: Indian tourism insights. Current Issues in
Tourism, 24(17), pp.2398-2415.
Tuman, J. P., 2020. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on labor market conditions in
Nevada: A preliminary assessment. Journal of Labor and Society, 23(3), pp.367-381.
Vermicelli, S., Cricelli, L. and Grimaldi, M., 2021. How can crowdsourcing help tackle the
COVID‐19 pandemic? An explorative overview of innovative collaborative
practices. R&D Management, 51(2), pp.183-194.