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Impact of Coronavirus on the UK Travel and Tourism Industry

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Impact of Coronavirus on the UK Travel and Tourism Industry
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Impact of coronavirus on the uk travel and tourism industry
Summary -
Analysis of the coronavirus impact on the UK travel and tourism industry, including recovery plans and future outlook.
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ACADEMIC WRITING FOR BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT

ACADEMIC WRITING FOR BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT

UK TOURISM INDUSTRY





INTRODUCTION

The following essay will be based on the impact of coronavirus on the UK travel and tourism industry. The essay will be started with the introduction and background to the COVID-19 and how does it affect the international travel industry along with the UK. Then the importance of travel and tourism for the UK will be written so that an understanding of the contribution of the Tourism sector in the performance and development of the UK economy can be made. Then the next paragraph will be followed by the Impact on the UK tourism industry and the recovery plan that has been implemented by the UK government.

MAIN BODY

Covid-19 is the world's biggest and deadliest health crisis that has impacted the world in 2019 originated from Wuhan province in China. On March 11, 2020, the disease has been named a health pandemic by WHO. The spread of this virus has been known to infect people and increase severe illness in the people. Some 10% of all the reported cases were severe that needs the most attention and thus leads to more than a million deaths around the world due to the spread of the virus. It is known to affect the lungs and other respiratory organs along with pneumonia cause difficulties in breathing (AAPMR, 2022). Before the impact of coronavirus, the world was seeing positive growth in the travel and tourism sector. In 2020, the sectors accounted for almost 10% of the total global GDP and thus it created more than 320 million jobs around the world. But after the first wave of a pandemic that leads to global lockdowns and closure of international airspaces, the travel industry has been one of the worst-hit. This global pandemic in the era of technological development leads to the risk of loss of more than 100 million in every sector in the world. This has resulted in the loss of more women occupied jobs as 54% of the total share was from the jobs that were allotted to women. The impact of the pandemic has been measured worst on the countries that are dependent on tourism sectors to regulate the national economy (Zhang et al., 2021; Robert, 2021). In the first year of a pandemic, tourism fell more than 65 per cent in the year to years growth and thus shifted the growth curve of the industry to negative. Particularly in the UK, the travel and tourism sector contributed 6.7% of the total gross value added of the economy and the first wave of lockdown and economic shutdown was announced on 23 March. This has led to the fall of international passenger travelling rates to 1.9% of the traffic that has been reported in February of the same year. Explaining in numbers the international travel passenger number fell from 6.8 million in February 2020 to just 112300 in April of which more than half were British national making the international travel number very less. Along with the international travel occupancy, Hotel occupancy hits its worst as only 20% of the entire rooms are booked in July 2020 as compared to the same month last year (Jones, 2021; Robert, 2021).

UK tourism is one of the central industries in the UK that serves the growth and development of the national economy. Tourism is growing at a faster rate in the UK economy than the economic rate itself that is estimated to add more than 9 million passengers by the end of 2025. Tourism in Britain accounted for almost £106 Billion to the UK economy and creates more than 2.6 million jobs across the country. As per the data given in VisitBritain, almost 99.1 million domestic trips have been executed in the year 2019 spending more than £19 billion (PLMR, 2021). UK travel industry accommodates 33734 accommodation businesses with more than 700000 rooms in the entire country. London is the most famous travel hub in the country that receives more than half of the total international and domestic passengers accounted to the country. In 2018, the capital city delivers its services to more than 18 million overnight stays trips which add up to a total of 118.6 million overnight stay trips in the UK. The functioning and the facilities are monitored and created by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport or better known as DCMS. This department has been held the responsibility to make necessary developments in UK tourism industry and also to make international travels easier. This authority makes coordination with other departments to make sure travel policies can be implemented effectively (OECD, 2020). As stated by Dearsley (2021), the UK is one of Europe’s most popular tourist destinations favoured by its diverse scenery and rich cultural heritage that can still be seen on the streets of UK cities. The UK is such a diverse country that it is presented with heritage and beauty at every juncture of its cities. LONDON is the most favoured destination in the UK that also serves as the largest attraction to international and domestic passengers. London is home to Buckingham Palace, the residence of the royal family along with-it city white hall road that houses the Parliament Buildings and other important monuments are among the attraction of the city. Along with that Edinburgh is also among the top tourist cities in the UK. The sightseeing includes the royal palace, Scottish National War Palace and other monuments that relive the rich history and heritage of the country's glorious past. With the two destinations, the UK is also home to many other travel places like Windsor, Cambridge that also home to some of the world’s best Universities and education. All these places serve as an important tourist attraction to international and domestic travellers and therefore contributes to the development of the UK travel industry (Arfin, 2021).

As stated by the travel recovery plan of DCMS (2021), the UK has been the most affected country by the pandemic and its after-effects as the country went down in lockdown three consecutive times as the first waves hit the continent. The impact was so strong over the tourism industry that it leads to a loss of more than 2 million jobs and the profits of the companies operating under the travel and tourism industry as been reduced by 80% with the largest decline over the profits based on y/y basis in the hotels and accommodation businesses. To suppress the spread of the virus in the country, it has been amended that eth international travel needs to be under a 14-day isolation period to be monitored for the symptoms if any. The impact leads to a significant fall in the number of domestic and international air passengers to 2% of the number of travellers in February 2020 in April 2020 (Zhang et al., 2021). Accommodation and travel agency businesses saw the sharpest declines in the revenues that pushes the companies into making losses that year. Thus, to manage the development and regrowth of the UK tourism industry an action plan has been created by the government to make sure that focus can be concentrated on how operations can be reshaped with the necessary measures so that business operations can continue. Therefore, on 22 February 2020, the government dispatches its four-step recovery model that will help in easing the restrictions and opening up the economy for tourism while making sure that necessary precautions are instated in place (Jones, 2021; DCMS, 2021). On April 12, with the implementation of step 2, the route towards normalcy began with the reopening of the major sectors in the country. Step three opened all the major tourist sections and attraction places that boosted up the incoming of international travellers towards recovery. It includes the compulsory application of certifications and vaccine documents at places to formulate better safety protocols. On 7 May 2021 transport secretary announced that international travel could begin with all the safety procedures kept in mind, allowing people to travel from a green list for leisure without needing to quarantine. This safety protocol was kept under analysis so that other countries can also be included in the list of green countries. in the G20 tourism ministerial meeting in Rome, focusing on making international travel safe and resilient from health crises, the UK tourism minister stated that eh country is working towards creating better value plans so that international travel could be made possible and safer (Jones, 2021).

CONCLUSION

With the completion of the essay, it is evident that the UK travel industry is worst hit by the pandemic and therefore the government has come up with a travel recovery plan to make sure that necessary steps will be taken to boost travel. Some recommendations include compulsory evaluation of vaccination certificates at arrival points, regular monitoring of body temperatures of staff and travellers. Streamlining effective marketing strategies and online customer interaction will boost the confidence of travellers and will lead to an increase in international traffic. The use of contactless technology in check-in and boarding will swing the chances of an increased rate of infections and therefore it will lead to safe international travel.

REFERENCES

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