5 tips for resilience and recovery from COVID-19 pandemic

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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. Pursuing innovation
Several of the microentrepreneurs with whom P1tLab collaborates have reacted to the pandemic by adopting innovative approaches to their businesses.  The pandemic is making everyone reconsider what is important in life (aka The Great Realization), so we can expect changes in traveler motivations and travel preferences.  Times of change open opportunities for those that want (or desperately need) to break away from the status quo.  So, this is a time for savvy microentrepreneurs to be observant of societal changes, to attempt new ways to reach the market, and to pivot their businesses accordingly.

2. Marshalling resources
Government has launched financial relief programs to try to avert the impending economic doom.  Those programs have been executed with a varying degree of effectiveness. In some cases large corporations hoarded capital leaving out most micro businesses.  Yet, there were financial relief programs in the US and there will be more in months to come.  In some cases these are in the form of zero interest business loans, in other cases they are grants to help businesses make necessary investments to be COVID-19 ready, and in other cases they are subsidies to partially cover employee salaries.
Tourism microentrepreneurs are at times outside the sphere of influence of county TDAs and county government; but my long experience working with communities in North Carolina reveals that tourism businesses have many willing allies in local government.  This is an excellent time to reach out to the local TDA, to the county Extension office, to the local SBA Center, etc asking for advice and assistance.

3. Adapting to externalities
We have found that microentrepreneurs are relatively risk adverse partially because they have livelihoods very vulnerable to unpredictable forces and events.  For some microentrepreneurs a “failed crop” might mean losing their business or losing their property.  A strategy used by farmers to cope with uncertainty is to buy crop insurance, but most kinds of tourism microentrepreneurs are unable to buy an appropriate form of insurance.  Some microentrepreneurs opt to diversify their livelihoods - this strategy appears to be potentially applicable to a broader set of people.  The COVID-19 pandemic will likely be listed in management books as the ultimate externality, so this is a good time for microentrepreneurs to reflect on their livelihood portfolios and strategize ways to make their livelihoods ever more resilient.

4. Aligning core purpose with self
Most microentrepreneurs developed small tourism business because they feel that it supports a lifestyle they desire (e.g., life in a farm), it helps them pursue a passion (e.g., devotion to art), or helps them share something deemed important with the public (e.g., need to protect nature).  During periods of fast economic growth and collective hypnosis with greed, these personal choices and stories may be uninteresting to the market and to support organizations.  But in the present time of reckoning it is likely that guests, support organizations and others would be interested and captivated with microentrepreneurs’ principled life paths.  Therefore, microentrepreneurs might want to seize opportunities to share self-narratives with the public in ways that they deem appropriate with the goal of celebrating their life paths and to showcase the integrity of their businesses. 

5. e-Marketing
The COVID-19 pandemic has motivated microentrepreneurs to experiment with e-commerce innovations that they were once reluctant to try.  Namely, many farmers started selling online through marketplaces like those listed in this Extension fact sheet, others started offering a drive-through CSA pick-up weekly, and many opted to participate in the Vacationer Supported Agriculture initiative in North Carolina beaches (www.p1provisions.com).  Other microentrepreneurs have experimented offering virtual guided tours and workshops through telepresence platforms like Zoom and Facebook Live.  As a result some microentrepreneurs reported reaching a broader audience and became more visible to local Tourism Development Authorities.  In addition, microentrepreneurs that tended to be chronically disengaged, invisible and neglected by support organizations, have been able to participate in the mushrooming number of webinars and telepresence workshops and virtual town hall meetings offered by Extension programs, economic development organizations and universities.
All these developments are making the internet fulfill its long promised role of a leapfrog technology that provides universal access to markets, networking and resources.  The digital divide still exists, but I sense a renewed urgency in providing broadband coverage in rural areas, and an acceleration of digital adoption and literacy among microentrepreneurs.
Be sure to get on this bandwagon.  For all this, microentrepreneurs should be sure to embrace web technology and connectivity.

PS:  P1tLab methods demand that we work with communities and microentrepreneurs as partners, so sharing universal tips is .  We bring insights from previous work, but we recognize that each person and each group of people are unique.  So…  we invite current and aspiring partners to reach out to us for deeper and more actionable discussions about resilience and recovery strategies.


By: Duarte B. Morais, Associate Professor of Equitable and Sustainable Tourism
                                        Lead in(ve)stigator, P1tLab
                                        NC State University

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