Challenges of Hospitality Leisure and Travel industry during Covid19 pandemic

This report discusses the challenges faced by the hospitality, leisure, and travel industries during the Covid-19 pandemic, including reductions in sales, salary cuts, and staff reductions. It also provides recommendations for organizations to overcome these challenges.

Challenges of
Hospitality Leisure
and Travel industry
during Covid19
pandemic

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................3
Challenges faced by hospitality, travelling and leisure industries during Covid-19 pandemic.. 3
CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES...................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Hospitality industry offers food services and include many other businesses like resort,
hotels and conference etc. It meet the needs of their guests with goodwill and kindness ( Kaur and
Kaur, 2020). The travelling industry deals with the services of moving people from one place to
other place by cabs, ships, planes and trains etc. and it helps to promote the travel and vacations.
Tourists purchase services provided by the hospitality, so their relationship is very important.
Because hospitality industry sells more services to more tourists. The hospitality and travelling
industries helps other industries in their growth. Hospitality industry depends on the availability of
leisure time and complete customers (Cardoso, 2020). Travelling and leisure are overlapping
concepts, but there are certain criteria for them. Leisure is basically a free time that include
discretionary time, and tourism is temporary visiting. The organisation chosen in this report is
Savoy is a luxury hotel with electric lights throughout the buildings, lavishly furnished rooms,
electric light and other innovation. It is established in 1886, in the Westminster in
London,England and it provide luxury services with proper accommodation to their guest which
feel them satisfied. In this report it will include the concept of hospitality, travelling and leisure
industry, the challenges faced by these industries during Covid-19, how they react at this position
and how they overcome from this situation.
Challenges faced by hospitality, travelling and leisure industries during Covid-19 pandemic.
This pandemic situation adversely effect on HTL industries, due to this situation travelling
restrictions are observed an the national and international levels. It create the situation of
quarantine, due to this there is cancellations of events, border closures and fear of spread etc. it
also reduce the need for leisure travel (Jareño, Escribano and Torres, 2021).
The hospitality, travelling and leisure industries face the issue of is sales decrease during the
covid 19.The travelling industry hardest hit by the pandemic situation and crises. These agencies
faced the problem crises because of fight booking cancellations. It spread the risk of virus for the
movement of peoples via air travel (Cherkaoui and et. al., 2020). So, peoples were avoiding to
travel on their vacations. There are less than around 30 lakhs tourism in 2020-21. Thus, it reduce
their demand and decrease sales. Due to which they cancelled their travelling plans. impact of
covid 19 on the leisure and travel industry has been devastating and very serious, due to this the
global airline industry has predict the losses in billions in their sales (Pang, Law and Fong,

2021).The quarantine procedure and panic of infection enforced by government world wide led
many peoples to cancel their tourism plans (Diamond, 2020). Hospitality dustinesses decrease
there contract by around 65%. Peoples stop to visit in hotels, so due to the unpredictable impact
of covid-19, decision being taken to shut down the restaurants, hotels and theme parks etc. and
tourism business were unable to adjust their operations to homeworking. Due to pandemic only
18% rooms are occupies and revenue declined by approximately 80%. So, there is a reduction in
demand and supply. Due to this in UK, the revenue for international tourism was down 73% in
2020 (PT and Kayarkatte, 2021). Now, Peoples become health conscious and they prefer their
safety in hotels and travelling, if they do not get safety environment then they does not visit that
place and this reduce sales. This pandemic situation has brought travel and tourism to a near
standstill, and no one is sure when it will restart.
 The hospitality, travelling and leisure industries has negative reactions towards this
issue.
1. Salary cutting- It become common to reduce the salary of employees during this situation. the
HTL industries turn to cuts in pay. Many employees are witnessed a reduction in their pay. Savoy
start reduction in salary of their employment between around 30%. they also forced for step salary
cuts of their top and senior management level's managers. They unable to take losses, so they have
decide to bite the bullet on salary cuts (Garanti and Berjozkina, 2021).
2. Reduction in staff- In this situation these industries reduce there staff, due to this many people
lost their job. This create a situation of unemployment in the economy. The pandemic placed up to
8 million jobs in the hospitality and leisure industry in risk, with travel crashes and the
cancellations expected to continue. Savoy minimize their staff by eliminating them for their post.
They kept only essential staff for their hotels and management. This reduce their expenditure and
increase revenue.
3. Closing businesses- Because of continuously decreasing their sales many company in HTL
industries shut their business. Some business temporarily shut, and some permanently. Various
hotels, restaurants and travelling agencies close their business, because they could not face this
situation. It become very difficult to them to start their business again. Due to this people with
mental illness report higher levels of financial distress (Gordon, 2021).
4. Less revenue- Due to the pandemic HTL industries suffer from financial losses and their
expenditure remain constant. They bear the expenditure of maintenance. Under the situation of

travelling restriction and closed border, these industries faced with a sharp reduction in the
demand. Due to this the travelling industries, hotel and other tourism related business have
experienced a significant material losses. Savoy is a luxury hotel and it require a good
maintenance fir their image, due to this it increase the expense of electricity and other thing which
decrees their revenue (Khan and et. al., 2021).
 Recommendations for the organisation to solve these issues.
1. Offer discounts- The hospitality industry should offer some percentage of discount to
encourage peoples for visit their hotels, and restaurants. This discounts and offer can be in the
form of coupon, scratch card and discount on services etc. These discounts are a big part of
marketing strategy and it help the industries stand out and connect with new customers. Savoy
hotel also provide various types of benefits to their customer to increase their sales (Yoopetch,
2020).They offer some schemes and vouchers to influence the customers so that they visit hotel
and connect them, which is very helpful in making new loyal customers base in the market.
2. Promote your own USP- It is short for unique selling Proposition. It is a reason, why someone
will do business with you instead your competitors. It is helpful in attracting maximum customers.
When you offer a benefit which they can not get from other companies. If you do not already have
a USP then create one by adding something in your business and convert it into a benefit. It also
include in your advertisement. Savoy can use USP for attract their customers and other new
customers to face their competitors (Ibrahim, 2020).
3. Diversification- It is less expensive and much easier to satisfy your potential customers rather
than find new customers group. An organisation should diversify their services in such a manner
that it give an advantages to its customers. Savoy diversify their services to fulfil their customers
needs and provide them a new experience (Griffin, 2020).
4. New services- There should a power in your new services so that it can get attention of new
customers as well as old customers. The business should offer new services to their customers
with some improvisation (O'Neill, 2021) It will be helpful in attracting new customers and expand
the market areas. Savoy provide new services to their customers by offer them different variety of
food products and other facilities in their hotel.

CONCLUSION
From this report it is find out that hospitality, travelling and leisure industries drives the
economic prosperity and sustained the development in many ways. These industries were the
world's greatest markets until the world face a pandemic in 2021. This report aims to represent the
reaction of HTL industries during the covid-19. At the time of this pandemic these industries faces
various challenges. The main challenge is reduction in sales. Because of government protocol
peoples stop to visit in restaurants, hotels, and travelling in transport due to which these industries
have to face many difficulties. These industries faces many financial crises and find difficulties to
bear the expenses. To handle this situation they take many steps like that sated reduce in their
employment staff, pay cut off, and many hotels and agencies shut down their business. To
overcome form this situation they offer discount and various types of services to the customer so
that they attract towards them. The organisation can use various method to handle this situation by
diversification of products, provide new services to their customers etc. The travelling agencies
needs to leverage their managerial and marketing tactics to achieve and maintain the competitive
advantage.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Cardoso, C., 2020. The contribution of tourism towards a more sustainable and inclusive society:
Key guiding principles in times of crisis. Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes.
Cherkaoui, A. and et. al., 2020. Implementation of the WASPLab™ and first year achievements
within a university hospital. European Journal of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious
Diseases. 39(8). pp.1527-1534.
Diamond, M., 2020. This New Children’s Book Series Celebrates Diversity in Travel.
Garanti, Z. and Berjozkina, G., 2021. Introduction: what are the challenges and opportunities for
tourism sustainability in Cyprus?.Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes.
Gordon, S.E., 2021. The well-being and subjective career success of workaholics: An examination
of hospitality managers’ recovery experience. International Journal of Hospitality
Management. 93. p.102804.
Griffin, W.C., 2020. Hospitality faculty: are we meeting the demands of industry?. Journal of
Teaching in Travel & Tourism. 20(4). pp.262-283.
Ibrahim, A.M., 2020. Psychological empowerment and organizational commitment among
employees in the lodging industry. Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality &
Tourism. 19(3). pp.277-295.
Jareño, F., Escribano, A. and Torres, M.P., 2021. Analysis of stock returns of main European
service and tourism companies. Tourism Economics. p.1354816621992983.
Kaur, J. and Kaur, J., 2020. Assessing the Impact of Corona Virus (COVID-19) on Tourism and
Hospitality Industry in India-A Perspective Study. International Journal of Management
(IJM).
Khan, A. and et. al., 2021. COVID-19 and sectoral employment trends: assessing resilience in the
US leisure and hospitality industry. Current Issues in Tourism. 24(7). pp.952-969.
O'Neill, S., 2021. US Hotels Added 36,000 Jobs in February in New Sign of Optimism.
Pang, L., Law, R. and Fong, D.K.C., 2021. Mainland Chinese Visitors’ Perceptions of Macau as a
Travel Destination. Journal of China Tourism Research. 17(1). pp.33-56.
PT, R. and Kayarkatte, N., 2021. A study on the Impact of Covid-19 on Houseboat Tourism
Industry Among Local Communities in Kumarakom, Kerala. Ilkogretim Online, 20(4).
Yang, J. and et. al.,2021. Antecedents and consequences of supply chain risk management
capabilities: An investigation in the post-coronavirus crisis. International Journal of
Production Research. 59(5). pp.1573-1585.
Yoopetch, C., 2020. Women empowerment, attitude toward risk-taking and entrepreneurial
intention in the hospitality industry. International Journal of Culture, Tourism and
Hospitality Research.