People-First Tourism Lab Blog

The COVID-19 pandemic and the global protests against racial injustice have demonstrated once again how vulnerable the tourism industry is to crises.   The public’s desire to reduce exposure to the virus by staying home and avoiding crowds compounded by fears of violence and curfews have caused a dramatic halt to leisure travel.   Mandated closings of tourism-related businesses compounded in some cases with damage to storefronts and looting have crippled the restaurant and lodging private sector. And reductions in occupancy and prepared food taxes have defunded the public organizations responsible for marketing and managing destinations. While this situation is extremely worrisome for tourism businesses, their employees and entrepreneurs, as well as the destination communities…   several factors also spell an opportunity for communities to reinvent how they engage with the tourism system to ensure that they emerge from this crisis more competitive and with greater influen

The COVID-19 pandemic took many tourism organizations and businesses by surprise, with a drastic drop in revenues and a deep uncertainty about a timeline towards recovery.   A lack of preparedness for such a rapid downturn in visitation and revenues made it difficult to retain staff, and the lack of precedent is making everyone wonder how and when travel will recover. Despite all the uncertainty, there are already indicators about how tourism microentrepreneurs might need to react to be more resilient to shocks like this pandemic and to accelerate recovery.   Our research ( Ferreira et al 2018 ) indicates that tourism microentrepreneurs should address five types of demands: pursuing innovation, marshalling resources, adapting to externalities, aligning core purpose with self, and e-marketing.   Following I draw from this research and from observation of the rapidly evolving landscape of tourism recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic globally to provide a few tips. 1. Pu