Essay
Challenges of Hospitality, Leisure and Travel industry during Covid-19 Pandemic
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Introduction
The tourism business has suffered significantly as a result of the SARS-CoV-2 virus also known as the COVID-19 outbreak. Emergency precautions and regulations have curtailed vacationers' access to popular holiday spots around the globe. Transit between areas was also carefully restricted and monitored in addition to the halting of persons. It was summer, yet a lot of towns were deserted, and it was difficult for people to go around because of the bad roads. As a result of COVID-19's worldwide quarantine, people's lives and the global economy have been affected. Local and international traffic limitations had a significant impact on demand for tourism services in early 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which had been worsened by local and worldwide traffic restrictions. At the beginning of 2020, Covid-19 was declared emergency health and economic catastrophe. Although immunizations have been administered, the long-term effects of a calamity like this have sparked much debate over the long-term future of the tourism industry. It's not the first time the tourism industry has taken advantage of a downturn to up its environmental game. According to the Sustainability Leadership Project, this economic crisis is also critical to the long-term sustainability of tourism. Legislation on a national level can support and promote environmentally responsible tourism practices, particularly in developing countries (Hu, et. al., 2021). The primary goal of this investigation is to determine how COVID-19 would affect tourism and the economy of the companies in this domain by showcasing both positive and negative sides of the same to illustrate what changes the pandemic situation has brought on the tourism and hospitality companies and what severe impact they have faced because of this situation as illustrated in the following given report.
Positive Impact
People are becoming increasingly interested in learning how tourism may benefit from development sustainably. In spite of the fact that a sustainable tourism plan has been successfully implemented, there is still much room for improvement, emphasizing the requirement for more research. However, despite the fact that the study concentrated mostly on hotels, cruise ships, theme parks, restaurants, and events, it did not pay much attention to the overall tourist industry as a whole. Also included in these extra publications are articles that analyze how the hospitality sector has dealt with sustainability in the past, as well as research studies that proposes the themes or frameworks to aid in the sustainability for the tourism. Ecotourism, in particular, has been hailed as having a positive impact on the environment, despite the fact that it contributes considerably to climate changeglobally. In the wake of natural disasters and other unpredictably occurring occurrences, concerns have been voiced about the tourism industry's long-term viability. Because of the severity of the disasters that have an impact on tourism, a number of studies have been conducted at the regional and national levels. Several research papers have looked at the impact of the pandemic on tourism; however, these studies have tended to focus on the pandemic impact on tourism for specific countries rather than offering a more comprehensive picture of the issue. As the impact of the Covid19 pademic situation, many individuals believe that a move away from policies that promote sustainability and toward policies that promote resilience, particularly in the economic sector, is in the works. The fact that it is not commonly acknowledged does not diminish its importance (V?rzaru, et. al., 2021).
A lot of people believed that the tourism industry was exceptionally resilient and capable of dealing quickly in the face of catastrophic or unforeseen events and recovering quickly after the COVID-19 epidemic, which occurred in 2015. The company, on the other hand, has been subjected to an extensive stress testing process. It is necessary to implement significant structural reforms according to the sustainable development principles in order for the tourism industry to thrive in the current environment. Its long-term survival means that it will be resilient in the case of large-scale tragedies, which is important given that the pandemic currently underway is projected to last several months.
A warning was issued to the travel industry, government officials, and academics about the hazards of uncontrolled tourism, while simultaneously opening the door to new opportunities for global transformation. In the travel sector, the task for turning the crises into opportunities for the expansion of the industry's operations. People do not appear to have returned to their pre-epidemic levels of activity or tourism habits, even though the COVID-19 pandemic has been reported to be gone. As a result of unsustainable tourism, mass tourism in excessive has a negative impact on the environment. In terms of tourism, one of the most significant outcomes of the economic and health crises has been the local tourism consolidation, particularly domestic tourism (Jones, et. al., 2020).
Negative impact
It is detailed in detail in one article how COVID-19 will affect the industry of hospitality in general, including the prospect of empty hotels as well as the loss ofjobs. Travel restrictions and bans have been lifted, and the tourism industry expects to see an increase in visitors in the coming months as a result of this. During a pandemic, the author emphasized the importance ofaiding the hotel industry as well as providing good advice in order to ensure that businesses could return to normal as quickly as feasible. According to another study conducted from a different standpoint, travel restrictions, as well as mobility restrictions, may have a negative impact on the hotel industry. Over half of respondents who took part in the poll said they would refuse to order meals even when the outbreak had been contained, according to the findings.
A number of actions have been recommended by COVID-19 for hotel owners as well as managers, such as using less number of rooms, focusing on delivery or take-out options for reducing the dining in public, ensuring the personal protective equipment (PPE) use for the workers as well as increasing the attention towards the personal hygiene, making sure that the new COVID-19 policies are followed by the guests and employees, implementing intensified cleaning and sanitization, and implementing new COVID-19 policies. WHO developed "Operational Considerations for COVID-19 Management in the Accommodations Sector" in order for providing practical guidelines to the hospitality industry, in particular, to prevent the virus spread. The management team, concierge services as well as reception, maintenance nad technical services, dining rooms restaurants, and bars, cleaning as well as housekeeping, and children's leisure areas, are all included in the list including the tasks designed to assist in the control of the COVID-19 threat, as is the management team. The use of utensils which disposable are disposable in rooms, the importance of employee health as well as hygiene, along with the use of ultraviolet light for disinfecting the surfaces and equipment were all discussed as potential techniques for re-engaging customers in the hospitality industry during the conference (Davahli, et. al., 2020).
Also included are ideas for capitalizing on COVID-19's unique opportunity for transforming and refocusing hospitality and tourism toward local attractions instead of the global destinations, as well as spacesredesigning to maintain the 6-foot distance among the guests and employees in post-COVID-19 time through cross-training as well as teaching different skills to workers. In response to considerable research into the consequences of COVID-19 pandemic for hotel business, a COVID-19 management strategy was implemented by the companies in this domain. (Nicole, et. al., 2020).
Conclusion
The travel and tourism industries came to a complete standstill once it was announced that 2020 would be the year of the pandemic outbreak. As a result of these concerns, questions have been raised about the organizational structures of the business, as well as the requirement of reorganizing them in order to be more environmentally friendly. The first objective of this analysis was met by the use of quantitative cross-national data on COVID-19 travel patterns, GDP per capita changes, and the likelihood of tourists visiting other EU countries during the pandemic as the moderator, all of which were collected before the outbreak. This information was gathered from 24 countries across the European Union, including the United Kingdom, and then collated into a single report. It was the secondary goal of this study to identify, through a review of relevant literature, the most effective techniques for reducing the negative impact of the outbreak of COVID-19 on the tourism business (Niewiadomski, 2020).
The COVID-19 outbreak, which has resulted in a decrease in visitor flow and a preference for domestic tourism, among other long-term benefits, will allow tourism osperators to better adapt to precarious demand for maritime travel in the future, resulting in a better ability to modify and adapt in the short term. Even if the tourism returns to pre-recession levels, the business will still have challenges in terms of long-term survival in the long run. Governments and international tourism organizations will need to provide financial incentives in order for this goal to be realized.In addition to addressing concerns such as how to best utilize tourism infrastructure, destination marketing, and the decentralization of tourism within certain geographic bounds, such policies must also handle concerns such as assuring the safety of tourists.
References
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.
Hu, X., Yan, H., Casey, T. and Wu, C.H., 2021. Creating a safe haven during the crisis: How organizations can achieve deep compliance with COVID-19 safety measures in the hospitality industry. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 92, p.102662.
Jones, P. and Comfort, D., 2020. The COVID-19 crisis and sustainability in the hospitality industry. International journal of contemporary hospitality management
Nicole, M., Alsafi, Z., Sohrabi, C., Kerwan, A., Al-Jabir, A., Losifidis, C., Agha, M. and Agha, R., 2020. The socio-economic implications of the coronavirus and covid-19 pandemic: A review. International journal of surgery, 78, pp.185-193.
Niewiadomski, P., 2020. COVID-19: from temporary de-globalisation to a re-discovery of tourism?. Tourism Geographies, 22(3), pp.651-656.
V?rzaru, A.A., Bocean, C.G. and Cazacu, M., 2021. Rethinking tourism industry in pandemic COVID-19 period. Sustainability, 13(12), p.6956.
