Critical Analysis: Tourism Industry's Response to COVID-19 Challenges

This report provides a critical analysis of the tourism industry's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It examines the significant impact of the pandemic, including travel restrictions, economic downturns, and the shift towards online platforms. The report highlights the challenges faced by the industry, such as supply and demand shocks, and the opportunities for a sustainable redesign. It discusses the importance of online travel companies like Tripadvisor and the potential for flexible working hours and the participation of various sub-sectors. The report also considers the impact on urban, rural, and regional economies, the role of SMEs, and the need for cultural authenticity and sustainable development. It concludes by emphasizing the importance of adapting to the changing landscape, leveraging online platforms, and promoting sustainable practices to achieve balanced and resilient growth in the tourism sector.

Critical analysis

Tourism industries should reset and redesign its structure by the unique challenges and opportunities
presented at the time of Covid 19 and it seems out to be more balanced and sustainable to
achieve growth in the department.
Covid 19 has been been affected to more than 10 billion individuals in all over the world.
The daily cases has been evolved in many countries by which these countries had sealed their
borders to all the outsiders and tourists due to lock down. Mirani, S.Z. and Farahani, B.M are the
two researchers that has been said that there are travel restrictions in over 100 global destinations
at the time of Covid-19. Although after August, International tourisms have been started slowly
or some annot even afford because of the economic and financial crisis. In terms of International
economy, tourism is set out be a critical sector (Mirani and Farahani, 2015).
In 2019, 29% exporters had been given approximately 400 million employees globally.
Tourism is set out be the fastest economic growing sector and it is very important for the growth
and development in the economy. In 2018, there are approximately 1,407 million international
tourist arrivals, that are almost a 6% from 2017.
Employment can be increase by tourism sector very efficiently. It can be also said that the
tourism industry is labour intensive which suggest that high proportion of jobs are booked for a
women, approximately 35% are for the young adults and rest for the men. There is also a
significant amount of opportunities given to the low skilled workers who are illiterate and
unemployed. Tourism exports account for seven per cent of global trade in goods and services,
or $1.7 trillion. In 2019, the most popular destinations were France, Spain, the USA and China
(Bayih and Tola, 2017).
Covid 19 is one of the economic crisis on a global scale and to slow down the virus many
countries have been encouraged and mandated the use of mask and sanitizers in every travel and
tourism department. Government have been introduced some policy measures such as lock down
measures, closure of borders, up gradation of the public health facilities. It helps the tourism
industry to deliver the personal services, resulting in supply and demand shocks (Almeida-García
and et. al., 2016). The Covid-19 pandemic presented a unique opportunity to reset and redesign
tourism in a more balanced and sustainable manner. It will be genuinely the more sustainable
environment if tourism industry can be reset or redesign their structure. It raises many
employment, literacy, sustainable development and efficiency from reset or redesign the whole
structure.
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The fear of Covid 19 includes chaotic conditions and significant uncertainty in various
industries. The tourism industry suggested that slow down revenues has been completely
affected the economic sector of the economy. And there is a specific need to recover the shocks
that affect the demand side and supply side. The demand side includes closings of the borders,
guest fear of affection and the supply side includes catering establishments, leisure facilities and
closure of accommodations.
The evidence based on this case can be efficiently propounded that trip advisor properly
is one of the online travel company which operates a websites and mobile app. At the time of
Covid 19, trip advisor is one of the company that had made enrichments profits and customers
are conveniently informed about any bookings or destinations if they are easily available or not.
This evidence of online shifting of the tourism industry suggest that customers can face no
difficulties if there are facilities of online websites and mobile app because of an efficiency in
convenience to the people (Ferreira and Hunter, 2017).
Challenges and opportunities which might influence the transition towards balanced,
resilient and sustainable tourism sector. There are diverse employment opportunities which
suggest that as a labour intensive industries, tourism provides flexible working hours and
participation of various sub sectors (Del and Abbate, 2016). It required wide varieties of personal
and social skills. Another challenge is about urban rural and regional economies which states that
there is a great need that people who are living here should face no problem in the tourist sector.
Tourism can promote the development of activities, infrastructure and equipments to attract and
promote activities (Hall and Gössling, 2016). Third factor is innovation of small scale business
operations which suggest that tourism creates demand for the specific goods and services
including travel, accommodation and transport to provide the significant opportunities for rural
sector to diversify the income opportunities and participate in the local supply chains.
Cultural authenticities and the assets which are quiet natural is also a great challenge after
the transition in tourism sector. Broad stakeholders and sustainable development in the tourism
sector can simply raises the cultural and environmental values, financial assets, and proper
protection and management. Small and medium enterprise (SMEs) respond to opportunities to
meet the specific needs of travellers, the cumulative effect on local communities and economies
can be significant, particularly as SMEs represent around 85% of those enterprises with a major
role in the delivery of tourism services in OECD countries (Kiráľová, 2019).
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Tourism can be suggested as a significant part of the national economy. As government
around the world have introduced the unprecedented measures to contain the virus, business
operations and people-to-people interactions. Now after the five months of Economic slowdown
because of the pandemic recovery is now expected and slower then previously foreseen. The
online shifting of various tourism companies nowadays helps in generating the foreign exchange,
drives regional development and support various jobs and opportunities and increases the
employment ratio so that there is less unemployment in the society (Aleksandrov and Fedorova,
2018).
One of the authors suggested that there is a need of developing more areas in tourism
department so that employment increases and proper structured will be maintained. Another
author Marden Spongier suggested that there is a need of using more information on the online
websites so that there will be online structure and it is more convenient for the people even in the
rural arenas and regional disparities (Nunkoo and Gursoy, 2016).
The above discussion concludes that the articles which has been argues about the needs to
recover the growth in tourism sector by executing various opportunities and growth segments.
Online websites and mobile apps of tourism organisation are achieving success during the
Covid-19 rather that the offline attainment. Online structure are more easy and convenient for the
people even for those who are living in the rural areas or the regional disparities. Some
challenges and opportunities are mentioned below that shows about how the new transition is
more balanced and sustainable.
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References
Books and Journal
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Hall, C.M. and Gössling, S. eds., 2016. Food tourism and regional development: Networks,
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perspective in the context of Italy. Current Issues in Tourism, 19(13), pp.1372-1385.
Bayih, B.E. and Tola, M.W., 2017. Practices and challenges of promoting major tourism
destinations of Bale Zone for Sustainable Tourism Development in Ethiopia. Afr. J.
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Ferreira, S.L. and Hunter, C.A., 2017. Wine tourism development in South Africa: a
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Almeida-García and et. al., 2016. Residents' perceptions of tourism development in
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Kiráľová, A., 2019. Sustainable tourism marketing strategy: competitive advantage of
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Aleksandrov, I. and Fedorova, M., 2018. Strategic planning of the tourism development in small
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