Hospitality and tourism industry amid COVID-19 pandemic: Perspectives on challenges and learnings from India

COVID-19 outbreak has presented unprecedented circumstances before the fragile tourism and hospitality industry. The highly infectious novel coronavirus continues to thwart the sector and raises serious questions about the present and future survival of the sector. The research addresses two important concerns, first, pertains to the major challenges that hospitality and tourism industry faces amid current conditions; and second relates to the vital learnings for the industry. The study draws on the interviews with 15 participants in senior positions in hospitality industry, and tourism and hospitality education services. Responses to the interviews were content analysed, which resulted in 27 sub-themes that were further condensed into 4 major themes. The dominant sub-themes that emerged out of the qualitative enquiry included need of multiskilling and professional development of the employees, increased sense of hygiene, sanitation and related SOPs, optimism toward revival of the industry, media roles, and need of better crisis preparedness. Subsequent overarching themes included “Human Resource Management”, “Health and Hygiene”, “Continuity” and “Concerns”. The study critically discusses prominent themes in the light of the existing arguments from the literature and reflects on implications for the decision makers. The major implications of the study are in the form of determined themes adding to the evolving theory on COVID-19 pandemic and tourism & hospitality industry; and managerial recommendations to address host of issues while taking essential learnings stemming from the current circumstances. Limitations and scope of future research are also discussed.     

The good,the bad and the ugly on COVID-19 tourism recovery

This paper is to produce different scenarios in forecasts for international tourism demand, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. By implementing two distinct methodologies (the Long Short Term Memory neural network and the Generalized Additive Model), based on recent crises, we are able to calculate the expected drop in the international tourist arrivals for the next 12 months. We use a rolling-window testing strategy to calculate accuracy metrics and show that even though all models have comparable accuracy, the forecasts produced vary significantly according to the training data set, a finding that should be alarming to researchers. Our results indicate that the drop in tourist arrivals can range between 30.8% and 76.3% and will persist at least until June 2021.     

Mental health rescue effects of women's outdoor tourism: A role in COVID-19 recovery

Mental and social health outcomes from a portfolio of women's outdoor tourism products, with ~100,000 clients, are analysed using a catalysed netnography of >1000 social media posts. Entirely novel outcomes include: psychological rescue; recognition of a previously missing life component, and flow-on effects to family members. Outcomes reported previously for extreme sports, but not previously for hiking in nature, include psychological transformation. Outcomes also identified previously include: happiness, gratitude, relaxation, clarity and insights, nature appreciation, challenge and capability, and companionship and community effects. Commercial outdoor tourism enterprises can contribute powerfully to the wellbeing of women and families. This will be especially valuable for mental health recovery, following deterioration during COVID-19 coronavirus lockdowns worldwide.     

Social costs of tourism during the COVID-19 pandemic

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 is currently spreading across the world at an alarming rate, resulting in the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Amidst this crisis, tourism scholars are directing their attention to communities at tourist destinations, looking at their safety and well-being and the costs that they will bear due to the cessation of tourism activity. This article describes residents' perceptions of the risks posed by tourism activity, and estimates their willingness to pay to reduce public health risks based on hypothetical scenarios, using the triple-bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation method. The social costs in three urban destinations are assessed and compared. Based on the findings, suggestions are made for appropriate post-pandemic recovery actions by local authorities and tourism organizations.     

COVID-19 impacts of inbound tourism on Australian economy

The pandemic COVID-19 has severely impacted upon the world economy, devastating the tourism industry globally. This paper estimates the short-run economic impacts of the inbound tourism industry on the Australian economy during the pandemic. The analysis covers effects both at the macroeconomic as well as at the industry and occupation level, from direct contribution (using tourism satellite accounts) to economy-wide effects (using the computable general equilibrium modelling technique). Findings show that the pandemic affects a range of industries and occupations that are beyond the tourism sector. The paper calls for strong support from the government on tourism as the recovery of tourism can deliver spillover benefits for other sectors and across the whole spectrum of occupations in the labour market.     

Impacts of COVID-19 on Chinese nationals' tourism preferences

This paper examines the impacts of COVID-19 on Chinese nationals' tourism preferences. Employing a mixed-method research design, two rounds of nation-wide online surveys were conducted, one in February 2020 when COVID-19 cases started to peak in China and another one in June 2020 when COVID-19 was a global pandemic; both survey studies were accompanied with semi-structured in-depth interviews and altogether 37 interviews were conducted in two stages. Based on both quantitative survey data and qualitative interview data, the research identified that: 1) COVID-19 significantly reduced Chinese nationals' preferences to travel to countries with high infection numbers, and geographically faraway, administratively and culturally distant outbound destinations; 2) Chinese nationals reduced their preferences in all travel modes and most of the tourism forms, but most of them would prefer nature-based, rural, and cultural destinations after COVID-19; and 3) shortened trips in short travel distance are preferred after COVID-19. The findings offer rich insights and practical implications for governments, industry organisations, and tourism operators to formulate tourism recovery strategies toward Chinese tourists.     

Visitor arrivals forecasts amid COVID-19: A perspective from the Africa team

COVID-19 disrupted international tourism worldwide, subsequently presenting forecasters with a challenging conundrum. In this competition, we predict international arrivals for 20 destinations in two phases: (i) Ex post forecasts pre-COVID; (ii) Ex ante forecasts during and after the pandemic up to end 2021. Our results show that univariate combined with cross-sectional hierarchical forecasting techniques (THieF-ETS) outperform multivariate models pre-COVID. Scenarios were developed based on judgemental adjustment of the THieF-ETS baseline forecasts. Analysts provided a regional view on the most likely path to normal, based on country-specific regulations, macroeconomic conditions, seasonal factors and vaccine development. Results show an average recovery of 58% compared to 2019 tourist arrivals in the 20 destinations under the medium scenario; severe, it is 34% and mild, 80%.     

Visitor arrivals forecasts amid COVID-19: A perspective from the Europe team

In a context in which the tourism industry is jeopardised by the COVID-19 pandemic, and potentially by other pandemics in the future, the capacity to produce accurate forecasts is crucial to stakeholders and policy-makers. This paper attempts to forecast the recovery of tourism demand for 2021 in 20 destinations worldwide. An original scenario-based judgemental forecast based on the definition of a Covid-19 Risk Exposure index is proposed to overcome the limitations of traditional forecasting methods. Three scenarios are proposed, and ex ante forecasts are generated for each destination using a baseline forecast, the developed index and a judgemental approach. The limitations and potential developments of this new forecasting model are then discussed.     

Forecasting tourism revisited

This article examines the accuracy and efficiency of forecasting techniques by applying time series regression to forecasting visitor arrivals. Past studies have shown that simpler time series techniques perform as well or better than complex forecasting models. An assessment of visitor forecasts developed at regional, destination and individual market levels suggests that time series regression performs well in producing annual forecasts of visitors which can also serve as a baseline for evaluating the net returns from applying more complex techniques. Tourism managers should appreciate the usefulness of simpler formal methods in developing forecasts of visitors.     

Visitor arrivals forecasts amid COVID-19: A perspective from the Asia and Pacific team

It is important to provide scientific assessments concerning the future of tourism under the uncertainty surrounding COVID-19. To this purpose, this paper presents a two-stage three-scenario forecast framework for inbound-tourism demand across 20 countries. The main findings are as follows: in the first-stage ex-post forecasts, the stacking models are more accurate and robust, especially when combining five single models. The second-stage ex-ante forecasts are based on three recovery scenarios: a mild case assuming a V-shaped recovery, a medium one with a V/U-shaped, and a severe one with an L-shaped. The forecast results show a wide range of recovery (10%–70%) in 2021 compared to 2019. This two-stage three-scenario framework contributes to the improvement in the accuracy and robustness of tourism demand forecasting.     

Uncertainty risks and strategic reaction of restaurant firms amid COVID-19: Evidence from China

To contain the pandemic of coronavirus (COVID-19), social distancing, self-isolation and travel restrictions have been imposed globally. To shed light on how COVID-19 is affecting restaurant industry, this study aims to explore the factors that affect restaurant firms’ financial turnaround for their sustainability after the business shutdowns amid the COVID-19 pandemic. By utilizing a total of 86,507 small- and medium-sized restaurant firms’ sales data collected from nine cities in Mainland China, the exploratory approach of this study successfully determines positive impacts of three aspects of operational characteristics (i.e., delivery, discounts, and service type) and brand effects as uncertainty minimizing factors amid distinctive business shutdowns and restrictions. This is the first empirical study in the management realm on the impacts of COVID-19 on restaurant industry. This paper strengthens the extant literature by highlighting the impact of COVID-19 on the restaurant industry after the business restrictions are lifted.     

Perceived hygiene attributes in the hotel industry: customer retention amid the COVID-19 crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a crisis in the hotel industry worldwide, but few studies have suggested methods to retain customers. This study proposes hygiene management as a means to minimize the indirect damage from COVID-19 to the hotel industry. It identifies perceived hygiene attributes and explores their influence on hotel image, word of mouth, and revisit intentions. This study identifies and validates three types of perceived hygiene attributes through qualitative and quantitative methods. It uses structural equation modeling to validate hypotheses and concludes that there are significant relationships of influence between the proposed variables. This study provides important and meaningful insights into hotel image and customer behavior through perceived hygiene attributes.     

Impacts of COVID-19 on global tourism industry: A cross-regional comparison

The tourism industry was one of the world's greatest markets; until the world met a pandemic in the 21st century, COVID-19. This study aims to present the reactions of travelers during the pandemic trends outlined by adopting text mining techniques. Between December 30, 2019–March 15, 2020, approximately 75,000 comments are retrieved from the TripAdvisor forums, and 23,515 cases from the US, Europe, and Asia forums are employed for analyses.The results reveal that the tourism sector is easily affected by global crises. It is almost the same day that travelers decide to cancel or delay their trips, with the spread of the news. More in-depth analyses uncovered several topics consisted of comments on benefiting from travel insurance and refund due to the travel cancellations. Travel insurance has become a hot topic, which may be a way of reanimating the industry by offering travel packages, including travel insurance services.     

The post-COVID-19 tourism recovery led by crisis-resistant tourists: Surf tourism preferences in the Canary Islands

The post-COVID-19 tourism recovery is most likely to be led by crisis-resistant tourists (Hajibaba, Gretzel, Leisch and Dolnicar, 2015). The surf tourism market is highly crisis resistant (Dolnicar and Fluker, 2003a) and has potential to expand during the pandemic (Mach and Ponting, 2021), especially with the advances in technologies for remote workers. In an attempt to answer Hritz and Franzidis' (2018) call for further research on this niche market in order to ascertain the significance of surf tourism in a particular community, we provide a baseline for surf tourism in terms of these niche preferences and satisfaction levels in Gran Canaria (Spain). The study is based on a discrete choice model that relies on preferences elicited through best-worst scaling methods. Our research demonstrates that the BWS scores can be used to develop a destination attribute quality index based on importance and satisfaction scales and provides important information to destination managers.     

新冠肺炎疫情对中国旅游业的影响及其应对探讨

新冠肺炎疫情给全球旅游业带来了巨大的冲击和挑战,深入探讨疫情对旅游业的影响及应对成为各界关注的重点。本文从居民出游意愿、场所空间容量、市场经营主体、旅游政策等供需关系方面分析了新冠肺炎疫情对中国旅游业的影响。研究表明：（1）疫情对居民出游消费信心、意愿和能力造成较大影响,但潜在出游需求仍然存在。（2）疫情对旅游地空间环境造成较大物理和心理压缩,与旅游关联紧密的文化产业、娱乐业的生产空间容量也受到了间接影响。（3）疫情对旅游产业链、旅游市场主体经营等方面造成了全面且深远的影响。（4）疫情防控常态化下旅游政策供给以“流动管制”和“行业纾困”并重为主。面对疫情的持续影响,建议着重从组织响应、空间响应和企业韧性3个方面进一步强化旅游业应对能力,即：完善业外支撑、业内驱动、业界保障的三位一体组织响应体系;构建旅游目的地（点）-连结（线）-网络结构（网络）的三级协同空间响应机制;从企业组织、产品服务、管理和营销、市场品牌、员工心理等5个方面加强旅游企业韧性建设,以增强中国旅游业恢复发展能力。