Impact of COVID-19 on UK Tourism Industry

This essay evaluates the impact of COVID-19 on the UK tourism industry, including its contribution to the economy, the decline in turnover, and the measures taken by the government and tourism industry to recover from the pandemic.

Evaluate impact of the
covid-19 pandemic on the
UK tourism industry

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Travel industries is a commercial activity of providing services and facilities to the
travellers and tourists in effective manner. COVID-19 pandemic is a most harmful and
dangerous disease caused by the corona virus which caused death to the infected persons in
dangerous manner (Brouder, 2020). It was spreading rapidly in all over of the world and caused
millions of deaths across the world. This would cause social and economic disruption along with
largest global recession and great depression. The following essay describes the impacts of
COVID-19 on the UK's tourism industry. It covers the definition and background of covid-19
pandemic as well as impact of global crisis in the UK's tourism sector. It further describe the
importance and place of tourism in the UK economy along with the impacts of pandemic in UK
tourism industry with their respond towards it.
MAIN BODY
Corona virus or COVID-19 refers to a infectious disease origin by the SARS-CoV-2
virus. Most of the people was infected by this virus in all over the world, which caused moderate
respiratory illness. Some of the people got recovered without taking any special medical
treatment but some people who underlying with some medical conditions such as diabetes,
cardiovascular disease, cancer or chronic respiratory disease caused serious illness and required
proper medical attention. The person who get seriously ill with COVID-19 are die. It was first
identified in the city of China that is Wuhan in 2019 that caused severe respiratory disease
including pneumonia to their citizens. After it was spread rapidly in all over the world which
infected millions of people as well as caused millions of death in all over the world. This will
make WHO (World Health Organisation to take strict actions in order to stop it in effective
manner. The governments of each country take some strict actions and make rules and
regulations in order to stop its outspread in effective manner (Das and Tiwari, 2021). This lead
lockdown in all over the world, where people are not allowed to go anywhere even out of their
house except some condition in order to stop the its spread in effective manner. It caused great
loss in each country because the operation of many companies are stopped instantly. It resulted
in global challenges, health care and economic crises along with the posed spill over impacts on
the global industries which includes travel industries also. Travelling industries provide the
service to the tourist and travellers to visits in their favourite destinations in simplest manner.
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COVID-19 pandemic stopped the operations of UK tourism industry because the people are get
more conserved towards their health and does not want to get infected from the corona virus that
also caused deaths. This makes tourism industry of UK to suffer great loss and survive
effectively in the market. In 2018, tourism industry contribute around 6.7% to the UK's GDA
which get reduced in 2020 and 2021 due to the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic (Gerwe, 2021).
On 15 June 2020, the restrictions were get relaxed by the opening of non essential retail that
implements the quarantine- free travel corridors. This makes easier to the tourism industries to
operate their business in safest manner.
Tourism is most important to the UK's economy because it creates jobs as well as boost
economic growth in towns and cities across the UK. The government of UK are very keen in
order to promote tourism industries to get recover from the pandemic in effective manner. It
makes around 80% of the Visitor economy as well as generate £100 billion in 2019 (The
importance of Tourism to the UK economy, 2021). In normal years it contributes around £106
billion of the UK's total economy as well supports around 3.8 millions jobs. The tourism is
important in all parts of UK but it is particularly important for the London because it records
around 30 millions tourist within a year. The COVID-19 pandemic has ruin the tourism industry
of the UK. In the first lockdown, around 98.3% reduction caused in the arrivals of air passengers
in between February 2020 to April 2020. In May 2020, turnover of UK travel industries fall to its
lowest level. This will leads to huge impacts on jobs and mainly to the young people. People in
between the age of 16 to 24 saw the largest fall in the employment in 2019 and 2020. It was
highly impact the London because thousands of its citizens were working in tourism industries
and most of them lost their jobs due to the impacts pandemic and new strains in the economy.
The government of the UK launching an ambitious new tourism campaign that worth around £7
million in order to encourage tourists. The lack of tourism industries also effects the other sectors
of the UK economy such as sport, retail, museums and transports. These sectors are rely on the
consumer spending generated by the tourists that makes sizeable proportion of their income. The
government has taken some effective actions in order to support tourism through the Culture
Recovery Fund. Hundreds of millions has awarded by this fund to various cultural organisation
that includes the National Football Museum and the Glastonbury Festival in order to allow them
to survive the pandemic in effective manner (Houston, 2020). The basic aim of this fund that
they will be able to recover and reopen in time for supporting tourism industry in effective
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manner. This will helps them to operate their business in effective manner as well as provide
safest service to the tourist. It also supports other sectors of the UK economy as well as generate
employments in effective manner.
The tourism industry is heavily hit by the coronavirus pandemic as well as measures
introduced to contain its spread. It has causing an unprecedented crisis in the tourism industry
that provides immense and immediate shock to the sector in the UK. Turnover in travel and
tourism industries fell to its lowest level in May 2020 in compared to other industries (Jeon and
Yang, 2021). The government and industry are focusing their efforts on lifting the travel
restriction as well as working with the businesses in order to access the liquidity supports,
applying new health protocols for making travel safe as well as help to diversify their markets in
effective manner. They also focus on restoring the travellers confidence as well as challenging
demand with new safe and clean labels for the sector, domestic tourism promotion campaigns as
well as information apps for visitors. It further preparing the comprehensive tourism recovery
plans in order to rebuild destinations, encourage investment and innovation as well as rethink the
tourism sector. All these actions are essential for reopening the tourism industry successfully as
well as make businesses to get back run in order to coordinated with the tourism industry in
effective manner. The government and tourism industry of UK should continue to reinforce their
coordination mechanism for accompanying the businesses specially the smallest ones and the
workers. It is important to them to take particular attention to the most sensitive or vulnerable
destinations in the recovery phase. This also become helpful for the future of tourism industry of
UK in effective manner. This makes essential for the government to consider the longer term
implications of the crisis while staying forward of the digital curve, encouraging the low carbon
transition as well as supporting the structural transformation needed to build a more sustainable,
stronger and resilient the tourism industry in effective manner. The crisis makes an opportunity
in order to rethink tourism for the future in effective manner (Mathew and Sivaprasad, 2020).
Tourism is a significant part of the UK economy and corona virus pandemic create the great
immense and immediate shock that also affects the UK economy. So, all these measures help
other industries of the UK economy in order to get recovered from the coronavirus pandemic in
effective manner. These also leads in improving the growth of the UK economy in appropriate
manner.
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CONCLUSION
From the above mentioned essay, it is concluded that COVID-19 is an infectious
situations that impacts negatively to the UK's tourism industry in order to get survive in the
economy in effective manner. It declines their contribution to the total economy of the UK
because their total turnover also get declines due to the pandemic situations in all over the world.
It also affects the other sector of the UK economy that link with the tourism and travel industry
of the UK. This makes important for the governments to take effective measures in order to
improve the growth of UK economy by reopening the tourism industry in effective manner. The
governments and tourism industry are taking all safety measure in order to maintain the health of
the tourists and improve the turnover in effective manner. It will also help in creating more and
more employment for the people in order to improve the economic growth of the UK in effective
manner.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Brouder, P., 2020. Reset redux: Possible evolutionary pathways towards the transformation of
tourism in a COVID-19 world. Tourism Geographies, 22(3), pp.484-490.
Das, S.S. and Tiwari, A.K., 2021. Understanding international and domestic travel intention of
Indian travellers during COVID-19 using a Bayesian approach. Tourism Recreation
Research, 46(2), pp.228-244.
Gerwe, O., 2021. The Covid-19 pandemic and the accommodation sharing sector: Effects and
prospects for recovery. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 167, p.120733.
Houston, D., 2020. Local resistance to rising unemployment in the context of the Covid‐19
mitigation policies across Great Britain. Regional Science Policy & Practice, 12(6),
pp.1189-1209.
Jeon, C.Y. and Yang, H.W., 2021. The structural changes of a local tourism network:
Comparison of before and after COVID-19. Current Issues in Tourism, 24(23),
pp.3324-3338.
Mathew, S. and Sivaprasad, S., 2020. Corporate governance practices in the context of the
pandemic crisis. Available at SSRN 3590253.
Online:
The importance of Tourism to the UK economy, 2021 [Online]. Available through
<https://plmr.co.uk/2021/05/the-importance-of-tourism-to-the-uk-economy/>
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