Impact of Covid19 on UK Tourism Industry

This essay evaluates the impact of Covid19 pandemic on the UK tourism industry, including challenges faced by the industry, revenue loss, lack of transportation facilities, absence of foreign travel, and revenue generation. It also discusses the recovery strategies adopted by the industry to cope with the pandemic.

The impact of the Covid19
pandemic on the UK
tourism industry

Table of Contents
INTRDOUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................1
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................2

INTRODUCTION
The tourism industry in UK is one of the largest and most profitable industry as it
contributes to the national income and supports 2.6 million jobs in the country. The tourism and
hospitality sector is an essential tool for the sustainable economic development that is most
affected by the pandemic impacting economies, livelihood, public services and opportunities. .
The tourism sector also represent important share of national economies in both developed and
developing countries (Japutra and Situmorang,2021). COVID 19 pandemic has impacted the
sector heavily in 2020 and 2021 with government restrictions followed by implementation
quarantine.
MAIN BODY
The COVID-19 epidemic crisis has brought uncertainty to many sectors and resulted in
decline of overall economic growth and development. However, it is argued that some sectors
have experienced major downfall and suffered more than others. One of the most affected sector
from pandemic is tourism industry due to complete suspension of their commercial activities.
The major outbreak of COVID-19 has forced government to impose complete lockdown where
people are not supposed to come out of their home (Japutra and Situmorang, 2021). The
decreasing, almost negligible involvement of people in fun and leisure activities caused
substantial collapse of the businesses of tourism sector. This is vast influential industry across
the globe for economic growth that is facing various challenges in terms of security,
communication, marketing and digitization among others. The tourism is facing number of
issues and challenges during this pandemic that includes lack of transportation facilities, health,
stable and uninterrupted connectivity. In addition to this, the tourism industry is facing
challenges such as fear of uncertainty because people are afraid of coming out of their home due
to social distancing norms (Kumar and Ayedee, 2021). Lack of of international tourists is another
issue because international travelling was banned by most of countries which results in reducing
of foreign exchange earnings. The pandemic was spreading throughout the country due to which
tour destination was closed to control the situation. Therefore, there was no financial benefits
from the tourist that occurred the reason for lack of development of monuments and also the
hospitality industries were failed to maintain hygiene in their services(Kumar and Ayedee,

2021). The industries also faced revenue loss because of lack in arrival of the people to tour
destination or heritage sites (Khalid Okafor and Burzynska, 2021). Most of the registered and
unregistered tour operators had shut down their business due to pandemic, hence it affected
much on their profitability or productivity of the UK tourism industry. Due to spread of COVID
19 pandemic, government impose lockdown across the country for which most the staff of
hotels went back to their home town without being paid. This lead to loss of the human resource
in the tourism industry because of non availability of guides (Raj and Griffin, 2020). The
promotional activities were also barred so as to not spread of the virus in the country and were
not permitted to gain benefits from these activities. The industry also faced challenge of absence
of foreign travel as lockdown suspended domestic and foreign airlines that resulted in decline of
tourist which affected economic growth of the industry (LEE, SU and CHANG, 2022). All
bookings were cancelled which was made earlier which hit the national growth of the company.
The post COVID 19 environment has transformed tourists looking for more details factors such
as health, social distancing, comfort and services offered to enjoy their vacations (Khan, Khan
and Shafiq, 2021).
The tourism sector is one of the major economic force of UK which is a very prominent
source of the nation's earnings. The united kingdom is the 10th biggest tourist destination
accounting for approximately 37 million visitors exploring the country on a global level. In
2019, the travel and tourism sector was accounted for generation of approximately 237 billion
pounds contributing significantly in the overall development of the economy. The country holds
great tourism significance due to its beautiful sceneries and major attractions (Bas and
Sivaprasad, 2021). It is known for its architecture and grand old buildings which makes it one of
the most influential nation. The engagement of people from all over the world in the country's
tourism sector allows exchange of cultural diversities and revenue generation to a great extent.
The sector was disastrously affected by the severe outbreak of the fatal disease corona virus and
has shown major decline in 2020 and 2021. The widespread consequences of the pandemic has
implied government to put restrictions on the flow of goods and services. The global regulations
on aviation sector is one of the major cause which resulted in immense losses to the tourism
industries (Chen and Hang, 2021). It has disrupted the course of operations for tourism sectors
mainly accommodation services and travel agencies. Due to individuals spending their whole
time staying at home, it resulted in complete shutdown of hotels, travel agencies, restaurants and

bars. This impact was so critical to some businesses that it leads to permanent disclosure due to
their inability to bear heavy losses. The major outbreak of covid-19 has resulted in collapse of
many small-scale restaurants and bars along with hotels and other tourism sector businesses. The
pandemic has caused operations of major tourism sectors on hold due to which small sized
businesses has to liquidate their assets. It has became extremely challenging to recover from the
major downfall of tourism companies and sectors due to situations imposed by lockdown.
The implications of the pandemic was critical in the course of commercial operations of
business entities of tourism sector (Mohanty, Hassan and Ekis, 2020). It has disrupted the
activities of hotels, restaurants, nightclubs, movie theatres and travel agencies etc. the outbreak
of fatal and critically infectious disease has created fear and insecurities among individuals
which forced them not to step out of their homes. Many other groceries and supermarkets
business were operating through providing goods through home delivery. The duration of
pandemic has implied individuals to take necessary precautions of social distancing through
completely staying at home (Park and Jones, 2021). The worldwide ban of aviation and airlines
companies in 2020 has substantially caused critical downfall in the tourism sector. The sudden
outbreak has implied government to abruptly decide to terminate the operations of most of the
businesses till the recovery of pandemic situation. Moreover, people were not ready to continue
their travelling activities abruptly during the course of pandemic. The complications due to the
pandemic will take considerable time in order to recover from losses. Around October 2020,
situations of pandemic were gradually started to coming under control until another variant of
corona virus has coerced government to put more strict regulations on the opening of restaurants
and hotels (Yeh, 2021). The impacts of the pandemic was lasted for over two years and still has
not completely vanished as people are still showing symptoms of the coronavirus variant. The
recovery of tourism sector cannot be guaranteed until the effects become almost negligible. The
frequent outbreak of new variants of corona virus is still showing possibilities of disturbance in
flow of services of tourism sector (Lim and To 2021). However, the tourism sector and
government of UK is determined at coping with the significant effects of the pandemic through
continuing the course of commercial activities while complying with social distancing
precautionary measures. The hotels, restaurants along with theatres and other amusement
services are attempting to continue their commercial operations through strictly following
guidelines imposed by government to ensure safety (Prayag, 2020). After complete shut-down of

economic enterprises during the phase of substantial threat caused due to major deaths and
emergence of patients, the government gradually started liberalizing its regulations and allowed
businesses to conduct their operations (Lim, 2021). Moreover, individuals have also started
engaging in entertainment and leisure activities which leads to generation of revenues among
businesses of tourism sectors. However, the effects of pandemic are still causing disturbance and
is serving as a obstacle in enhancing profitability margins (Şengel and et.al., 2020). It could be
said that it would take a considerable amount of time for tourism industry to regaining its
position in contributing to the UK economy. Since, COVID-19 is still emerging as a threat to
individuals and it has major implications in affecting growth and development of the nation's
economy.
Conclusion
From the above essay, it has been concluded that the emergence of infectious disease
coronavirus has abruptly caused major disturbance in the economy of UK. The implications of
the severe pandemic crisis was extremely negative on economic enterprises. One of the most
affected sector which has suffered prominently due to the consequences imposed through
lockdown restrictions was tourism sector. The termination of operations of hotels, travel
agencies, restaurants, bars, movie theatres and other tourism based industries has resulted in
major downfall of the tourism sector. However, the tourism sector is attempting at securing its
previous dominance through conducting their commercial operations while strictly imposing
social distancing guidelines. It would take a significant amount of time to recover from the losses
and maintaining stability in the economy.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bas, T. and Sivaprasad, S., 2021. COVID-19 and Implications for Future Trends in the UK
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Chen, Z. and Hang, H., 2021. Corporate social responsibility in times of need: Community
support during the COVID-19 pandemics. Tourism Management, 87, p.104364.
Japutra, A. and Situmorang, R., 2021. The repercussions and challenges of COVID-19 in the
hotel industry: Potential strategies from a case study of Indonesia. International Journal of
Hospitality Management, 95. p.102890.
Khalid, U., Okafor, L.E. and Burzynska, K., 2021. Does the size of the tourism sector influence
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Yeh, S.S., 2021. Tourism recovery strategy against COVID-19 pandemic. Tourism Recreation
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