Assessing the COVID-19 Pandemic's Impact on UK Tourism Sector

This essay examines the profound impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the UK's tourism and hospitality sectors. It highlights the significant economic contribution of tourism to the UK, including its role in GDP and employment. The essay details the drastic effects of lockdowns and travel restrictions, leading to booking cancellations, business closures, and job losses. It also discusses the uneven impact across different segments of the hospitality sector, such as bars and camping sites. The essay further explores the strategies implemented by the UK government and the tourism industry to mitigate these negative impacts and recommends measures for a safer and more resilient travel industry. The analysis underscores the urgent need for adaptive strategies to navigate the ongoing challenges posed by the pandemic and ensure the sustainable recovery of the UK's tourism and hospitality sectors. Desklib offers more resources for students.

The impact of covid19 in UK
on the tourism hospitality

Table of Contents
IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON THE TOURISM HOSPITALITY....................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON THE TOURISM HOSPITALITY
The main aim of the essay is to throw a light towards the covid pandemic and its impact
towards the tourism and hospitality industry. As the pandemic has negatively impacted the entire
world and various sector majorly the hospitality and tourism sector. The essay also throws its
light in regard to the steps and the strategies which are adopted by the concerned sector towards
the pandemic and its impacts. The essay will also explain the importance and the role of the
tourism sector towards the economy of UK. With this essay the impact in respect to covid
towards the hospitality sector as well as the strategies in relation with the meeting the negative
impact has been discussed.
Covid-19 is one of the major pandemic that has a major impact towards every sector
specially the tourism hospitality sector. Covid-19 is the biggest pandemic that has shaken the
entire nation and the economy of the world. With the outburst of covid pandemic and its impact
in terms of lockdown and the imposition of restriction towards the movement and performance
of trade has lead to put a major impact towards the tourism and hospitality sector (Baum and Hai,
2020). This would be right to said that with the perspective of covid pandemic the entire tourism
and hospitality sector has shaken and impacted. The activities as well as revenue and working of
the sector has been stopped because of the presence of restriction. The imposition of restriction
in terms of movement in regard to tourism wherein the tourist places has been closed and the
movement of tourist has been stopped put a major and drastic impact towards the tourism and
hospitality industry. Cancellation of booking, facing the loss with the closing of sector in the
compliance of the provision of the lockdown is all included under this impact.
The tourism is one of the major sector in relation with the economy of UK and its role in
terms of its contribution towards the sharing of revenue. In respect to the UK, the tourism
contributes £106 billion towards the economy of British i.e. GDP. It also supports 2.6 million
jobs. This shows that the tourism sector plays a major role of in respect to the GDP of UK. this
can also be evidenced with the spending of British resident as £19.5 billion while that of
overseas visitors are £24.8 billion in 2019 (The value of tourism in England, 2022). This clearly
shows that with respect to the tourism sector the entire economy of the UK has been majorly
supported. Likewise, with respect to the concerned sector’s role majority of people get
employment because it is one of the major sector that is related with the providing of the
employment. The tourism sector of England is vibrant and vital and support thousands of local

and small companies and business. Tourism helps to boost the economy at large scale which
encourages the people to travel more by offering them various activities at the places of their
interests. People are more attracted to tourism for the places which offers them luxury.
Other than this the individual who are associated with the tourism and hospitality sector has
also been impacted in terms of loss of job and raising the percentage of unemployment. This may
include the employees who work in the hotels as well as the guides who are associated with the
tourism industry. With the closing of the industry the guides as well as the employees who are
working in the sector loss their job and suffered the financial crises (Korstanje and George,
2022). In the same way the with the negative impact of the covid pandemic the small companies
and the hotels which are associated with the concerned sector has shut down which has lead to
the occurrence of severe debt issues as well as the facing of loss situation.
The covid pandemic has stopped the movement of tourist among the countries which at the
broader scale impacted the economy of the entire nation and the world in terms of facing of loss
because with the tourism sector is entirely depended upon the tourist (Kang and et.al., 2021). In
the same way with respect to the aspect of Lockdown and restriction towards the movement of
tourist the entire sector faced the issues in terms of restriction towards the activities of the
business.it can be right to said that with the perspective of rate of unemployment has raised that
has affected the people of UK.
With the outburst and spreading of covid the airlines, hospitality, tourist places and various
other sector has been impacted. The imposition of restriction towards movement of people and
closing of the tourist attraction have caused a major negative impact towards the hospitality and
tourism sector. This is because with such impact the tourist and the people made cancellation of
their bookings which has lower down the revenue of the hotels (Yang and et.al., 2021). In the
same way the entire economy has also being impacted in terms of slowdown in respect to
growth.
The monthly passengers which arrived to UK fall from 6804900 in February 2020 to 112300
in April, 2020. This means a downfall of 98.3% was recorded in the concerned sector. Likewise,
the greater London also faced a severe downfall in terms of booking occupancy as 20% rooms
were booked in July, 2020 which was 90% in the same month of 2019. This shows that the entire
sector has faced a drastic downfall with due effect of the covid pandemic. The traffic in relation
with the tourism industry peaked at 85% in October 2020 which decline sharply during the

period of pandemic and the imposition of restriction in respect to the concerned sector. Likewise,
the individual of age 16-24 years face the largest fall in employment in quarter 3 of 2019 and
2020 (Coronavirus and the impact on the UK travel and tourism industry, 2022). This would be
right to said that with the due impact of covid the hospitality and the tourism sector has faced a
lot of difficulty and face a large proportion of downfall. This may include all the aspect i.e.
employability, sales and revenue and various other.
In the same way the during the period of January 2020 to June 2021 it was noted that the
impact towards the hospitality sector is uneven (Coronavirus and its impact on UK hospitality:
January 2020 to June 2021, 2022). This is because the bars and the clubs has majorly impacted
while the camping side has raised. In the same way the sector has also impacted in terms of
declining the job vacancy which has further impacted the persons who are associated with the
tourism and hospitality sector.
In order to deal with such crises, the tourism and the hospitality sector of UK has taken
major steps that majorly include the compliances towards the rules and regulations. The tourism
was affected due to Covid 19 at large scale. The tourism industry saw the downfall in the
business as they faced the negative impacts as how the tourists and guests were reduced while
visiting the places (Tounis, Parker, Skinner and et.al., 2022). People had made cancellations in
their bookings to the places to where the tourists would fly to. The UK tourist industry responded
to the pandemic and the worse cases of pandemic by how the tourism market was changed which
forced to follow the rules and regulations which were to be followed effectively at large scale for
the tourism business. The tourism business was largely impacted as it created the worst scenario
for the people who wish to travel and this helped in knowing the tourism market at large scale.
The tourism industry responded negatively to the business of tourist and this became
difficult for the business of tourism to take control over the market (Zhong, Sun, Law and et.al.,
2021). The UK government took charge of how the people lost interest in the travelling and how
they were engaged in not responding and taking part in the travelling activities which were taken
place within UK. The UK government framed strategies which helped to recover from the
pandemic and took the actions regarding to resume the travel of people so that the business is not
impacted.
Therefore, it has been concluded from the above essay that the UK tourism industry was
impacted at large scale and how it responded to the pandemic conditions at large scale. It was

also analysed from the above essay that how Covid can recover from the above crises of
pandemic which the UK is facing (Gössling, Scott and Hall, 2020). There are certain
recommendations as to how the travel industry should make certain changes and modifications in
the process of how the travelling can be made easier and safer for the people and travellers so
that the business is not impacted at large scale. The tourism industry should take concern of
providing all the activities as to how effectively the changes and modifications should be done ta
large scale. This should provide the scale of how effectively and in appropriate manner the safety
and security against the pandemic can be provided.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Baum, T. and Hai, N.T.T., 2020. Hospitality, tourism, human rights and the impact of COVID-
19. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Gössling, S., Scott, D. and Hall, C.M., 2020. Pandemics, tourism and global change: a rapid
assessment of COVID-19. Journal of sustainable tourism. 29(1). pp.1-20.
Kang, and et.al., 2021. The stress-induced impact of COVID-19 on tourism and hospitality
workers. Sustainability. 13(3). p.1327.
Korstanje, M.E. and George, B., 2022. The Nature and Future of Tourism: A Post-COVID-19
Context. Apple Academic Press.
Tounis, N., Parker, C., Skinner, H. and et.al., 2022. Tourism and Hospitality industry resilience
during the Covid-19 pandemic: Evidence from England. Current Issues in
Tourism. 25(1). pp.46-59.
Yang, and et.al., 2021. Monitoring the global COVID-19 impact on tourism: The
COVID19tourism index. Annals of Tourism Research. 90. p.103120.
Zhong, L., Sun, S., Law, R. and et.al., 2021. Tourism crisis management: Evidence from
COVID-19. Current Issues in Tourism. 24(19). pp.2671-2682.
Online references
Coronavirus and the impact on the UK travel and tourism industry., 2022. [Online]. Available
from < https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/tourismindustry/articles/
coronavirusandtheimpactontheuktravelandtourismindustry/2021-02-15>
Coronavirus and its impact on UK hospitality: January 2020 to June 2021., 2022. [Online].
Available from
<https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/activitysizeandlocation/
articles/coronavirusanditsimpactonukhospitality/january2020tojune2021 >
The value of tourism in England., 2022. [Online]. Available from
<https://www.visitbritain.org/value-tourism-england#:~:text=Taking%20into%20account
%20direct%20and,billion%2C%20supporting%201.4%20million%20jobs. >
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