Most of the countries are in lockdown and the world seems to be halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s like the COVID 19 has put the travel industry into a delay. Even though if you wanted to get away, it would be hard to find the normal air routes and hotels still operating. The countries all around the world have been focusing on bringing back their citizens. Summer vacation plans are either canceled or into limbo. Even if the people are allowed to travel it is likely to be in very few numbers.
The travel industry is a very flexible industry, commonly it is an industry that has to deal with many obstacles, for many years it has been dealing with many crises like Climate Change, Technology, a decline in travel agents, etc, but the major impact today that has been created is due to the pandemic’s scale, the COVID 19 has spread in a worldwide scale definitely has harmed the industry globally. Worldwide travel restrictions have crippled the industry.
According to the report by UNWTO, International tourism is down by 22% and could decline by 60-80% over the whole year. Most countries whose economy is mainly related to the tourism and travel industry has more to suffer and most likely face crisis in terms of economy. The hotel businesses and the airline businesses are the most affected businesses compared to any other businesses, in any one day in the peak season the business would be flooded by people but today there are very few.
As we wait and watch, travel destinations such as popular restaurants, hotels, amusement parks, etc are also getting affected by the pandemic. These unpredicted challenges in many sectors related to the travel industry have definitely affected the global GDP in a negative way. Most of the large companies that are related to the industry have already started laying off their employees like so many companies are losing so much money.
Every business that is directly or indirectly related to the industry, are also badly impacted due to the pandemic. We don’t think any of are recovering any sooner. For those industries to recover the people will need to feel safer and confident about their health which is very hard to expect very soon. For that, the global community must have to create and implement new sets of policies regarding the health safety of travelers all around the world.
In order to look forward, it is helpful to look back, the truth is that the human race has already faced a pandemic back in 1918 and we know how to cope with it. As the travel and tourism sector is highly affected by it, the global tourism has never been united now than ever before. Sooner or later the world has to move on, sooner or later the world has to travel, some because of business meetings, some because of postponed travel and trips and so on and so forth.
IS BOUNCING BACK POSSIBLE SOON FOR TRAVEL INDUSTRY?
In order to bounce back, it is very necessary for the industries to use the crisis as an opportunity and to open doors for new innovation, it is also very important to encourage the people to travel, bring different schemes to attract the travelers and most importantly make sure that the travelers are safe and sound. Let us hope that the tourism sector is badly affected by the global pandemic recovers very soon. But for now, there is nothing more important than the safety of ourselves and the health of our loved ones and in times like this staying alive is the first priority while traveling can wait.
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