African Journal of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure (Aug 2021)
Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Global Tourism: A Synthetic Analysis
Abstract
The study aimed to analyse the general impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on global tourism. Obviously, the world tourism industry has been received unprecedented damages never ever seen before. The thematic analysis approach, comparative research method and descriptive statistical analysis are used to investigate the effects of this pandemic. In general, the empirical analysis results show having a high sensitivity to diseases, global tourism is considered as one of the hardest economic sectors hit by the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. First, these huge losses in revenue are still ongoing because the pandemic is fastly spreading worldwide. The hurts of global tourism are serious and can put the whole travel and tourism industry in long-term disruptions. Second, although global tourism has proven strong resilience in response to other previous crises, the results suggest that the negative impacts of this pandemic will longer-lasting expand on would tourism industry compared to others. Third, the analysis result highlights that the countries need robust and urgent solutions for global tourism to reduce the huge losses received from this pandemic. However, this pandemic can have potential long-term changes in customer behaviors and the supply chain in global tourism to help efficiently combat risks from epidemics in the future. Finally, the study results suggest some implications to policymakers and business people in the reconstruction of the tourism industry in countries in the coming time.
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