Challenges of Hospitality Leisure and Travel industry during Covid19 pandemic

This article discusses the challenges faced by the Hospitality, Leisure and Travel industry during Covid19 pandemic. It covers the positive and negative impacts on companies and future implications. The article also talks about the strategies adopted by the companies to overcome the challenges.

Challenges of
Hospitality Leisure and
Travel industry during
Covid19 pandemic
Table of Contents
Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Positive impacts on Companies.......................................................................................................1
Negative impacts on Companies......................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
References:.......................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Essay topic: Challenges of Hospitality, Leisure and Travel industry during Covid-19
pandemic
Hospitality, leisure and travel industry is defined as the broad category of domains within
the service industry. It includes the services of lodging, food and drink service, event planning,
theme parks, travel and tourism. Further classification of services involves the hotels, tourism
agencies, restaurants and bars. Talking about leisure, it includes the sports and multi purpose
venues. In terms of tourism, domestic and international travel is included which contains the
activities such as sightseeing and attractions (Kumar, Normala and Belhadi, 2021).
The Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in a great challenges in front of the hospitality,
leisure and travel industry which has led to the severe repercussions. Strategies adopted by the
companies has resulted in the harmful outcomes due to the deadly pandemic. It has not only
destroyed the hospitality industry but the entire economy of a particular nation. Recovery of
losses has demanded more than one stakeholders in order to get solutions for raising up the
industry. Another major issue associated are such that the countries which are developing are
less prepared for such crises. One of the major issue is the hygiene which is a most important
concern for the hospitality industry (Sigala, 2020).
The following discussion is based on the positive and negative impact on various
organizations under hospitality, leisure and travel industry. Such impacts are totally based upon
the issues discussed above so that it can be analysed that how the positive and negative impacts
can affect the companies in several ways.
Positive impacts on Companies
Positive impacts on companies under hospitality industry are such that as soon as the
organizations came to know about the pandemic, they have cleared their payments to suppliers
under operations domain (Sheresheva, Efremova, Valitova and Laptev, 2021). This has
maintained the reputation of the organization along with the goodwill without any further
complications during the lock down period. Companies started minimising their extra expenses
on consumption of useless resources thus maintaining the sustainability. Such cutting down of
cost includes the cutting of operational and capital expenditure (Du, Floyd, Kim and Funk,
2020). They started conserving their financial and human resources while postponing their
1

maintenance and every other activity which was not important during the scenario of covid 19.
organizations has started planning about the advanced revenue management system and pricing
models in order to respond the dynamic market developments on a rapid basis. This positive
impact has led the hospitality industry in gaining the sufficient time in systematic planning of the
consumption of resources (Gursoy and Chi, 2021). Positive impacts on companies under leisure
industry are such that the organizations has focused on the funding requirements for the business.
It assesses the equity or debt availability of funding resources. It gives advantages to the
organizations in evaluating the financial resources for future developments. Companies has
initiated to highly involve the existing lenders and being transparent in terms of mitigating
process and continuity plans. Covid 19 lock down has supported the organization in conducting
these activities which they cannot think of doing so in normal period of time (Giousmpasoglou,
Marinakou and Zopiatis, 2021). This is because it is well known that utilizing the free time
strategically for the businesses can help in the growth and expansion of the organization. Leisure
industry has adopted this theory and started working on the same. Moreover, industry has also
focused on the application of tax refunds and other measures with regards to financial reliefs.
Therefore, leisure industry has targeted their financial resources in the period of pandemic and
lock down due to covid 19 which has led to the positive impact on it (Davahli, Karwowski,
Sonmez and Apostolopoulos, 2020). Positive impacts on companies under travel industry are
such that they have facilitated the online services to the customers with better offers and
discounts so that maximum customers can get attracted towards the organization. They have
generated the sales and revenue by reformulating the strategy according to the market demands
so that customer experience can be improved. Travel industry has conducted the brainstorming
process among suppliers, funders, project developers and contractors in order to manage the
expectations and maintaining the confidence. This is because, something innovative and creative
are highly required for better raising up the business and therefore, successful opinions and ideas
are highly required (Impact of COVID-19 on the hospitality industry, 2021). Industry has tried to
made the discussions of discounts with suppliers so that they can save and invest more on useful
resources rather them spending uselessly. This has maintained an appropriate corporate social
responsibility and sustainability within businesses. This is positively impacted on the retention
on employees as well as the customers along with the boosting of morale and engagements in the
2

activities of business and decision making process at the time of covid 19 pandemic (Joshi and
Gupta, 2021).
Negative impacts on Companies
Negative impacts on companies under hospitality industry are such that the market
demand has decreased on a sudden basis. This is because the decrement of the the disposable
income of an individual. This has resulted in the low sales and revenue generations by the
hospitality industry. Industry has affected in a drastic manner due to the losses in revenues in
large basis (The Hospitality Industry in the Face of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Current Topics
and Research Methods, 2020). People has stopped demanding the services from hospitality
industry because of the hygiene factor and extra expenses of an individual. Moreover, the
spreading pattern of covid 19 that is one level up phases has resulted in the low to lowest
generation of sales and reduction in the demands of customers. All these are the negative impacts
of covid 19 on hospitality industry which has suffered by them in a drastic manner and took a lot
time to recover for the same (Romagosa, 2020). Negative impacts on companies under leisure
industry are such that it has majorly affected the employees in terms of unemployment and
economic nature of a nation. Many staff were terminated and resulted in the job losses and the
organization has lost so many talented employees because of the insufficient funds available with
them. After the some sort of recover, now it is difficult to approach the same talent again. Safety
and health is also one of the major issue where most of customers are reluctant in using the
services of leisure industry because of the hygiene (Lu, Xiao, Xu, Wang and Zhou, 2021).
Leisure is all about the entertainment and customers don't find appropriate to spend time and
money on such activities because of the pandemic period. Moreover, leisure industry has faced a
lot of issues and negative impacts in terms of the workers because of their pay and motivational
factors of working within organizations (Liu, Wang, McCartney and Wong, 2021). Negative
impacts on companies under travel industry are the travel behaviour of a person. This means that
the people initially who likes travelling and plans their tour every month has now stopped
making such plans due to the covid 19 pandemic. Moreover, this has changed the travel
behaviour of a person in a negative manner. Preferences of customers in terms of travelling has
changed so that they can maintain their hygiene and safety factors but impacted a great losses to
the organizations. Companies has tried advertising themselves with high prices in order to offer
discounts to the customers (Richards and Morrill, 2021). This has resulted in the high social cost
3

incurred by the firm. But customers has followed the theory that health comes first and this has
led to the decrement in travelling numbers. This has negatively impacted the travel industry in its
revenues generations (Lau, 2020).
CONCLUSION
It is concluded that covid 19 pandemic has drastically impacted the organization in
hospitality industry. But has also affected in a positive manner as well. The above discussion is
based on the positive and negative impacts of covid 19 pandemic on hospitality, leisure and
travel industry. It is analysed that the negative impacts can be resolved out if positive impacts are
taken into considerations for improvements.
Talking about future implications, investors who are associated with the hospitality
industry will make sure that operators and contractors must be applicable in the lease and
management of the functioning of the organizations. Operators analysis will get essential in
terms of impact on performance of not only the organization but also the staff as well. Creation
of plan will be focused so that risk associated can get mitigated on time before any further losses.
Moreover, future will be more dynamic which results in a highly changing environment.
Organizations will get prepared so that they can quickly respond to such changes in terms of
operations and business processes. Future implication will highly require the government
structure and support for the hospitality management in terms of decision making and the
communication flow regarding the policies and norms. Furthermore, future implications will also
depend on the re-evaluating of the business and providing training to employees. This can also
includes the redevelopment of new services in the hospitality industry which can be more
flexible and more opportunistic in nature. Organizations will highly focus on the grabbing of
such opportunities for better future implications associated with the hospitality, leisure and travel
industry.
4

References:
Books and Journals
Davahli, M.R., Karwowski, W., Sonmez, S. and Apostolopoulos, Y., 2020. The hospitality
industry in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic: Current topics and research
methods. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 17(20).
p.7366.
Du, J., Floyd, C., Kim, A.C. and Funk, D.C., 2020. To be or not to be: negotiating leisure
constraints with technology and data analytics amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Leisure
Studies, pp.1-14.
Giousmpasoglou, C., Marinakou, E. and Zopiatis, A., 2021. Hospitality managers in turbulent
times: the COVID-19 crisis. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality
Management.
Gursoy, D. and Chi, C.G., 2021. Celebrating 30 years of excellence amid the COVID-19
pandemic—An update on the effects of COVID-19 pandemic and COVID-19 vaccines on
hospitality industry: overview of the current situation and a research agenda.
Joshi, V.A. and Gupta, I., 2021. Assessing the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on hospitality
and tourism education in India and preparing for the new normal. Worldwide Hospitality
and Tourism Themes.
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.
Lau, A., 2020. New technologies used in COVID-19 for business survival: Insights from the
Hotel Sector in China. Information Technology & Tourism. 22(4). pp.497-504.
Liu, M.T., Wang, S., McCartney, G. and Wong, I.A., 2021. Taking a break is for accomplishing
a longer journey: hospitality industry in Macao under the COVID-19
pandemic. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Lu, J., Xiao, X., Xu, Z., Wang, C. and Zhou, Y., 2021. The potential of virtual tourism in the
recovery of tourism industry during the COVID-19 pandemic. Current Issues in Tourism,
pp.1-17.
Richards, G. and Morrill, W., 2021. The challenge of COVID-19 for youth travel. Anais
Brasileiros de Estudos Turísticos-ABET.
Romagosa, F., 2020. The COVID-19 crisis: Opportunities for sustainable and proximity
tourism. Tourism Geographies. 22(3). pp.690-694.
Sheresheva, M., Efremova, M., Valitova, L. and Laptev, G., 2021. Russian Tourism Enterprises’
Marketing Innovations to Meet the COVID-19 Challenges. Sustainability. 13(7). p.3756.
Sigala, M., 2020. Tourism and COVID-19: Impacts and implications for advancing and resetting
industry and research. Journal of business research, 117, pp.312-321.
Online sources
Impact of COVID-19 on the hospitality industry, 2021. [Available through].
<https://www2.deloitte.com/nl/nl/pages/consumer/articles/impact-of-covid-19-on-the-
hospitality-industry.html>
The Hospitality Industry in the Face of the COVID-19
Pandemic: Current Topics and Research Methods, 2020. [Available through].
<https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mdpi.com%2F1660-
5

4601%2F17%2F20%2F7366%2Fpdf&psig=AOvVaw2_D-
Ke1rj10fbO_yNX_k3T&ust=1634880346571000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAkQj
hxqFwoTCLDvl4ri2vMCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAP>
6