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

This report discusses the challenges faced by the hospitality, leisure, and travel industry during the Covid-19 pandemic. It covers the impact of the pandemic on the tourism sector, loss of jobs, and the decline of the economy. The report also suggests strategies for businesses to survive during and post-Covid period.

Academic Writing for
Business and
Management
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Table of Contents
Introduction.....................................................................................................................................3
Main body........................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
References ......................................................................................................................................7
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Introduction
Academic writing for business and management is associated with developing content
regarding concepts, relevance and issues regarding businesses in different sectors. It helps
students in encouraging to apply their academic skills in order to deepen the understanding of
business management. This report studies one of the major current issue that businesses are
facing in recent times. The format of this report is an individual essay on the topic Challenges of
Hospitality, Leisure and Travel industry during Covid-19 pandemic. The severe pandemic
has emerged a number of issues and challenges for various business sectors and overall caused
downfall of economy. This report includes discussion on how tourism sector suffered a great
deal of decline and difficulties in the duration of pandemic. The relevance of this topic is
critically significant as it is an emerging issue which has caused disturbance and resulted in
collapse of the tourism sector. The social restrictions implied by government on businesses and
movement of people resulted in downfall of various businesses of tourism industry. Covid-19
pandemic has caused serious implications through completely terminating leisure and
entertainment activities of individuals. Many small-scale industries and medium-sized
enterprises have to wind up their businesses due to their inability to cope with huge losses. Even
large-scale companies has to face losses due to discontinuation of their revenue operations which
affected them to a substantial extent.
Main body
Tourism industry is one of the most crucial economic forces which is contributing
massively in the overall growth and development worldwide. The abrupt emergence of pandemic
has caused loss of approximately 4.5 trillion US dollars. The consequences of fatal corona virus
caused reduction in number of domestic visitors by 45% while this number in context to
international visitors were reduced by 69.4% in comparison with 2019. Tourism is a major sector
which was influenced greatly by the critical pandemic resulting in downfall of economy, loss of
jobs and opportunities, impacted livelihoods and public services worldwide. It has stopped flow
of movement of individuals which implies losses of businesses as well as created a great deal of
disturbance in livelihood of individuals (Kumar, Normala and Belhadi, 2021). The sudden
outbreak of covid-19 pandemic has resulted in massive losses and forced shutdown of many
small-scale or medium-sized enterprises declining overall contribution. The consequences of
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lockdown has implied loss of jobs of people worldwide and resulted in decline of overall GDP.
The businesses in sectors of tourism are widespread and this sector is massively earning
revenues on regular basis. Hospitality and leisure businesses are operating their activities on a
large scale and providing employment to a great extent. For instance, United Kingdom is one of
the very prominent nation which is highly popular for its historical significance and tourist
attractions. Tourism in England accounts for approximately £106 billion in British economy and
supports employment of around 1.4 million people. The abrupt conditions implied by deadly
corona virus has raised questions on sustenance of many organisations operating in tourism
sector. The tourism sector is a broad area which involves major types of business entities dealing
in food and beverage, accommodation, adventure and recreation, transportation and travel,
events and etc. The impact of covid-19 was major on these businesses as movement of people
were regulated by government due to spreading threat of corona virus (Lamb and et.al., 2021). It
has affected these sectors of businesses negatively through terminating their operations which
has resulted in stoppage of their earnings. The organisations dealing in tourism sector are faced
with losses and were unable to bear heavy losses which has caused their permanent shutdown.
The severe pandemic has caused major chaos and loss of lives in the year 2020 and 2021
which has implied government to restrict the movement of people outside their homes. This
restriction has caused serious implications on overall business sectors but it can be said without
any doubt that some industries were more affected than others. It is argued that tourism is one of
the major industry which was affected terribly from the consequences of pandemic. The leisure
and fun activities of people were completely stopped due to serious restrictions of government.
Moreover, these restrictions were more critical for hospitality, leisure and travel sector and these
restrictions were not lifted for a substantial period of time causing major losses. Travel
companies were abruptly affected as restrictions were imposed on migration of people from one
city to another (Karsavuran, 2021). Moreover, this restriction on travel has also affected other
businesses through delaying their business deals and resulted in huge amount of losses. A
number of hospitality businesses have to wind up their businesses as they were unable to
maintain sustenance of their business after complete discontinuation of revenue generation. The
effects of covid-19 implied heavy losses on small-scale or large-scale organisations and caused
decline in sectors of tourism industry. Many small-scale industries could not be able to manage
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their operations amid the critical circumstances of covid-19 which has caused their collapse and
majorly affected their livelihood.
The impact of covid-19 has caused unemployment on a massive extent and has implies
loss of many jobs affecting livelihood of individuals. Large-scale enterprises are forced to fire
their employees as they were unable to provide them salaries. It caused further implication on
these businesses to recruit new competent employees post covid period. The pandemic has
caused prevention of individuals engagement in services of hotels, accommodation and food and
beverage sectors. It has caused shutdown of many SMEs including many night clubs, bars and
restaurants which has caused major unemployment and worsened the livelihood of individuals.
The ongoing pandemic is constantly disturbing the flow of operations in many businesses of
hospitality and travel which is implying them to question their existence in market. Due to
closure of many businesses, the economy is dealing with situations of financial crisis and forcing
economy towards collusion (Zapata-Cuervo, Montes-Guerra and Jeong, 2021). The temporary or
permanent shutdown of many bars, nightclubs, amusement parks, movie theatres caused
downfall of economic forces. Moreover, it has caused individuals to quit their jobs as firms were
unable to provide them with monetary benefits. The impending pandemic has abruptly affected
the operations of travel and leisure industry and resulted in downfall of hospitality sectors.
One of the major implication of covid-19 on many hospitality and travel industry is their
inability to repay loans from monetary and financial institutions which further caused
incapabilities of company to pay salary to their employees. The ongoing pandemic has keep
worsening the situations through accumulation of salaries payable to the employees. This
resulted in loss of credibility and reputation of many travel and hospitality companies including
other medium or small-scale firms of food and beverage and other tourism organisations.
Moreover, the discontinuation of tourism operations resulted in loss of significance of many
major tourist destinations. The further implications of covid-19 were loss of ideas and
innovations on many hospitality and travel businesses. The pandemic has affected travel
agencies and mediocre travel firms or sole proprietors dealing in transportation services
negatively (Nazneen, Hong and Din, 2020). It caused them to stop their earnings and resulted in
decline of their livelihood. The scope of tourism industry is multidimensional and it supports
local and international employment as well as growth and development. The various sectors of
tourism were massively affected and it has became difficult for them to deal with situations post
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covid period. The loss of many potential employees during pandemic has further implied
difficulties in continuing operations of tourism sector post covid duration (Torres, Wei and
Ridderstaat, 2021). As these restrictions were lifted to a considerable extent, companies are still
finding a way to maintain their sustenance.
Conclusion
From the above essay, it has been concluded that covid-19 has imposed several
implications in the duration of two years. This duration was dreadful for many businesses
dealing in services of tourism which caused permanent shutdown of some SMEs. This has made
companies to rethink their existence and obliged to adopt tactics and constructive strategies if
they wish to survive in market during or post covid period. It has made companies to take
preventive measures of social distancing in order to deal with threats imposed by fatal pandemic.
Many small-scale enterprises and medium-sized firms shifted their businesses online in order to
manage their existence. For instance many food outlets shifted their businesses to online food
delivery apps which enabled them to cut costs involved in maintaining ambience and customer
service expenses (Önder and Gunter, 2020). As in case of hospitality and accommodation
businesses, firms are adopting numerous strategies in order to rebuild their businesses.
Companies are attempting at discovering new methods which can reduce costs and help
minimising expenses as pandemic has caused financial crisis for sectors of tourism industry.
Also, many small-scale and medium-sized enterprises are seeking government help and support
as they suffered more and are facing with difficulties of lack of funds in comparison to large-
scale businesses. The implications of Covid-19 has caused a great deal of disturbance and
collapse of many business entities and resulted in heavy amount of losses. The businesses that
managed to survive during covid-19 are expected to recover shortly considering if the threat of
covid-19 will vanish and no further restrictions were implied.
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References
Karsavuran, Z., 2021. The Effects of COVID-19 on Tourism and Hospitality Employment.
In Handbook of Research on the Impacts and Implications of COVID-19 on the Tourism
Industry (pp. 539-557). IGI Global.
Kumar, M.D., Normala, S.G. and Belhadi, A., 2021. COVID-19 Impact on Leisure and Travel
Industry: Psychological, Safety and Governance Imperatives. In Virus Outbreaks and
Tourism Mobility. Emerald Publishing Limited.
Lamb, T.L. and et.al., 2021. A qualitative analysis of social and emotional perspectives of airline
passengers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Air Transport Management, 94,
p.102079.
Nazneen, S., Hong, X. and Ud Din, N., 2020. COVID-19 crises and tourist travel risk
perceptions. Available at SSRN 3592321.
Önder, I. and Gunter, U., 2020. Blockchain: Is it the future for the tourism and hospitality
industry?. Tourism Economics, p.1354816620961707.
Torres, E.N., Wei, W. and Ridderstaat, J., 2021. The adventurous tourist amidst a pandemic:
Effects of personality, attitudes, and affect. Journal of Vacation Marketing,
p.13567667211063208.
Zapata-Cuervo, N., Montes-Guerra, M.I. and Jeong, M., 2021. How do restaurants respond to the
COVID-19 pandemic? Lessons from Colombian restauranteurs and their survival
strategies. Journal of Foodservice Business Research, pp.1-22.
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