CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter presents and deals with the concept of related literature

and studies both local and foreign which can determine its relation and

additional information to this study.

RELATED LITERATURE

A. Foreign

Pandemics, Tourism and Global Change: A Rapid Assessment of

COVID-19
Stefan Gössling ORCID Icon, Daniel Scott ORCID Icon &C. Michael Hall
ORCID,
(27 April, 2020)

Pneumonia of unknown cause detected in Wuhan, China, was first

reported to the WHO Country Office in China on 31 December 2019. In

early January 2020, 41 patients with confirmed infections by a novel

coronavirus (COVID-19) had been admitted to hospitals in China (Huang et

al., 2020). Even though the virus spread rapidly in the country’s Wuhan

region, it was initially largely disregarded by political leaders in other parts

of the world (although intelligence services issued warnings of a potentially

cataclysmic event; Washington Post, 2020). To contain the virus, Wuhan

was put into lockdown (a combination of regional and individual quarantine

measures), and case numbers in China stabilized at around 80,000 by mid-

February (ECDC 2020). By then, global air transport had already carried

the virus to all continents and, by mid-March, it had been established in

146 countries. The number of confirmed infections worldwide quickly

doubled, linked to a number of super-spreading events, such as the ski

destination Ischgl in Austria (Anderson et al., 2020; Johns Hopkins, 2020).

From here, the infection rate accelerated through community transmission

and, by 15 April, confirmed cases approached 2 million (with over 125,000

deaths) in over 200 countries (ECDC 2020). The real total number of cases

remains unknown as testing is limited in most countries. With no vaccine

to prevent the disease and limited medical interventions available to treat it,

most countries responded with various forms of non-pharmaceutical

interventions (NPI), including lockdown (home isolation, voluntary/required

quarantine), social distancing (vulnerable or entire populations), closure of

schools/universities and non-essential businesses/workplaces, cancelling

or postponing events (i.e. major conferences and tradeshows, concerts and

festivals, political debates and elections, sports seasons and the summer

Olympics), and bans on gatherings of people over certain numbers.

International, regional and local travel restrictions immediately

affected national economies, including tourism systems, i.e. international

travel, domestic tourism, day visits and segments as diverse as air

transport, cruises, public transport, accommodation, cafés and restaurants,

conventions, festivals, meetings, or sports events. With international air

travel rapidly slowing as a result of the crisis, and many countries imposing

travel bans, closing borders, or introducing quarantine periods,

international and domestic tourism declined precipitously over a period of

weeks. Countries scrambled to return travelers home, which in the case of

important outbound markets involved hundreds of thousands of citizens in

all parts of the world. As an example, on 23 March, the British Foreign

12
Secretary urged British tourists to return home, “advising against all but

essential international travel”, and highlighting that “[…] international

travel is becoming more difficult with the closure of borders, airlines

suspending flights, airports closing, exit bans and further restrictions being

introduced daily” (FCO (The Foreign & Commonwealth Office), 2020). Cruise

ships soon became the worst-case scenario for anyone stuck in the global

tourism system. Starting with the Diamond Princess on 1 February 2020,

at least 25 cruise ships had confirmed COVID-19 infections by 26 March

2020 (Mallapaty, 2020) and at the end of March ten ships remained at sea

unable to find a port that would allow them to dock. Idealized safe

environments (Cordesmeyer & Papathanassis, 2011) at sea turned into

traps, with thousands of passengers held in cabin quarantine and facing

the challenge of returning home.

Within countries, the virus affected virtually all parts of the hospitality

value chain. The impact of cancelled events, closed accommodations, and

shut down attractions became immediately felt in other parts of the supply

chain, such as catering and laundry services. Restaurants had to close as

well, though in some countries, a switch to take-away/delivery sales

allowed some to continue operations. Reports on lay-offs and bankruptcies

followed, with British airline FlyBe succumbing first to market pressure,

declaring bankruptcy on 5 March 2020 (Business Insider, 2020). Major

airlines including Scandinavian Airlines (17 March 2020), Singapore

Airlines (27 March 2020) and Virgin (30 March 2020), as well as tour

13
operators including German TUI (27 March 2020) have already requested

tens of billions of US$ in state aid.

The situation is unprecedented. Within the space of months, the

framing of the global tourism system moved from over tourism (e.g. Dodds

& Butler, 2019; Seraphin et al., 2018) to non-tourism, vividly illustrated by

blogs and newspaper articles depicting popular tourism sites in ‘before’ and

‘after’ photographs (Condé Nast Traveler, 2020). While some commentators

already speculate on “What will travel be like after the Coronavirus”, with

some unrealistically optimistic perspectives already having proven wrong

(Forbes, 2020), the general belief is that tourism will rebound as it has from

previous crises (CNN, 2020). However, there is much evidence that COVID-

19 will be different and transformative for the tourism sector. Governments

only begin to understand that, unlike other business sectors, tourism

revenue is permanently lost because unsold capacity – for instance in

accommodation – cannot be marketed in subsequent years, with

corresponding implications for employment in the sector.

Against this background of a rapidly evolving global pandemic, this

paper has four interrelated goals. First, to critically review the literature on

the impact of previous epidemic/pandemics on global tourism and

compares these events to other types of global crises. This section also

examines whether the COVID-19 pandemic was an unknowable risk.

Second, the paper provides a rapid assessment of the reported impacts of

COVID-19 on global tourism through to the end of March 2020, including

documented travel restrictions by each country and declines in air travel

14
and accommodations. The differential regional impacts and implications for

development are also examined. Recognizing that the impact to global

tourism has only just begun, the third goal is to summarize early estimates

of the damage to the tourism economy over 2020 and beyond. Because of

the tremendous uncertainty, these early estimates are critically assessed

against available epidemiological modelling and public health scenarios for

restrictions on travel and public gatherings. Finally, the paper considers

how the COVID-19 pandemic may change society, the economy, and

tourism, and some of the key research needs to understand these changes

and contribute to a more sustainable post-pandemic tourism sector. As

soon as the virus is under control, there will be an urge by many to go back

to business as usual, perhaps to overcompensate for losses by even more

aggressive growth. Yet, the crisis holds important messages regarding the

resilience of the tourism system, also in regard to other ongoing crises that

are not as immediate, but potentially even more devastating than COVID-

19, such as climate change.

15
 Changing Paradigms and Global Change: From Sustainable to
Steady-state Tourism
Michael Hall (Docent) (Finland and Professor) (Docent) (Finland
and Professor), (January, 2015)

The field of Tourism Studies has given substantial attention to the

issue of sustainability since the late 1980s. However, despite the plethora of

publications, conferences, and strategies that deal with sustainability,

tourism is arguably less sustainable than it has ever been. The reasons for

this are several-fold and include the relative weakness of sustainability

research in tourism as an epistemic community; economic, institutional

and political barriers; and the inherent problems of the concept in terms of

its capacity to marry social, environmental and economic indicators, and

the addiction to economic growth. Following an outline of the expansion of

tourism's contribution to global environmental change the article provides a

re-conceptualization of sustainable tourism from an ecological economics

perspective. From this approach sustainable tourism development is

understood as tourism development without growth in throughput of

matter and energy beyond regenerative and absorptive capacities. Steady-

state tourism is, therefore, a tourism system that encourages qualitative

development but not aggregate quantitative growth to the detriment of

natural capital. In the case of tourism, more does not mean better, and

growth does not mean development. Tourism policy implications are also

16
examined. It is concluded that while the political-economic indications for

such a transformative approach are not immediately encouraging, the

environmental necessity is stronger than ever.

B. Domestic

Impact of the Perceived Risk from Covid-19 on Intention to Travel

Sandra M. Sánchez-Cañizares, (13 October, 2020)

The global consequences of Covid-19 remain difficult to gauge as

today’s society finds itself immersed in one of the greatest health and

humanitarian crises witnessed in the last century (OECD, 2020a).

Collateral effects of the fight against the virus include the paralysis of

productive activity, with serious economic and social repercussions at the

global level (Bapuji et al., 2020).Due to the global pandemic, the decision to

travel involves risks, not only because of the uncertainty surrounding the

conditions that the tourist will encounter in the destination, but also

because of the potential negative outcomes related to the decision taken

(Chang, 2009). In the area of tourism, there are a number of different types

of risk worth mentioning (Fuchs & Reichel, 2006): physical/health risk (fod

safety, epidemics, accidents, etc.); equipment risk (equipment or

organizational problems); psychological risk (the tourist may not derive

personal satisfaction from the trip); financial risk (unexpected expenses);

social risk (change in the attitude of friends and relatives towards the

tourist due to the trip); and time risk (the trip could be a waste of time).

Although each of these cases could be directly related to the consequences

of Covid-19, in recent years, travelers’ concerns about risks to their health

17
or the possibility of catching an infectious disease have been influencing

their behavior and the choice of tourist destination (Chinazzi et al., 2020;

Lee et al., 2012).

As things currently stand, there is still scant research on intention to

travel in an environment of pandemic risk (Wen et al., 2020). This type of

analysis is of the utmost importance, as it helps to facilitate the decision-

making needed to revive the demand for tourism. The present study seeks

to fill this gap and is justified on the basis of the characteristics of Spanish

tourism described above. The analysis is based on one of the most

established theoretical frameworks in the analysis of intention. Previous

tourism research in the context of epidemic crises has primarily focused on

examining the subsequent recovery patterns (Cheer, 2020), analyzing the

impact of infectious diseases on tourist arrivals and movements (Shi et al.,

2020), studying how different outbreaks can alter travelers’ lifestyle and

preferences (Wen et al., 2020), or assessing their economic repercussions.

However, the accumulated knowledge about the decision-making process

and intention to travel in pandemic situations is still very limited. In this

regard, mention can be made of studies such as those by Chuo (2014) on

the self-protection behavior of customers in restaurants, or Lee et al. (2012)

on the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) on potential

international tourists’ intention to travel.

Despite the above, and even though tourism is a very vulnerable

activity, the sector had been relatively resistant to external shocks until the

current Covid-19 crisis. With the exception of the 2008 financial crisis,

18
none of the major disruptive events – September 11 terrorist attacks, SARS,

and MERS – resulted in a long-term decline in global tourism development.

The Effect of Educational Level on Job Satisfaction and Organizational

Commitment: A Case Study in Hospitality
Francisco González, Sandra María Sánchez, Tomás López-
Guzmán International Journal of Hospitality & Tourism
Administration 17 (3), 243-259, 2016, (20 July, 2016)

The hospitality industry is characterized by the close personal

interaction between employees and customers. Consequently, the study of

certain constructs that influence this relationship, such as organizational

commitment and job satisfaction, is a key factor in ensuring business

success. Furthermore, there are a number of variables that can, in theory,

help to explain the levels reached by these constructs, one of the most

important being educational level. Using this as our starting point, this

article aims to determine the effect of educational level on the job

satisfaction and organizational commitment of hotel employees in the

province of Cordoba, Spain. As such, the study found that educational level

does not influence job satisfaction. However, it does have an inverse effect

on organizational commitment where the lower the educational level of

employees, the higher their commitment. This result is consistent with the

temporal component of both constructs, since job satisfaction is related to

more ephemeral influences while organizational commitment is related to

job security.

RELATED STUDIES

19
A. Foreign

TOURISM AND HOTEL COMPETITIVENESS RESEARCH

Henry Tsai, Haiyan Song &Kevin K. F. Wong, (9 September, 2009)

The competitiveness of industry and firms has been one of the most

important themes of research in the fields of economics and business

studies. Although the concept of competitiveness of nations was initially

proposed by economists (e.g., Porter, 1990), the term has also gained

importance as a subject of study among management scholars during the

last decade. Most empirical studies on competitiveness at the industry level

have been related to the manufacturing and related sectors, and only

recently have some researchers started to examine the international

competitiveness of the service sector with a particular focus on tourism

destinations and the hotel industry that deserves a systematic and critical

review. As the tourism and hotel industry continue to prosper in the global

economy, competition—whether it be international or domestic among

members of the industries—becomes fiercer. Possessing competitive

advantages could be key to success for those members. In this article, we

aim to synthesize the published studies in tourism destination and hotel

competitiveness and provide a holistic picture of what has been examined

previously with a view to facilitating further research in these areas.

Competitiveness research starts arguably with the seminal work on the

competitiveness of nations by Porter (1990), who defined national

competitiveness as an outcome of a nation's ability to innovatively achieve,

or maintain, an advantageous position over other nations in key industrial

sectors. Organization for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD)

20
defined competitiveness as “the degree to which a country can, under free

and fair market conditions, produce goods and services which meet the test

of international markets, while simultaneously maintaining and expanding

the real incomes of its people over the longer term” (1992, p. 237). Adding a

time dimension to the definition of the national competitiveness, Boltho

(1996) distinguished between the short‐ and long‐run competitiveness of

nations. He viewed the short‐run international competitiveness as the level

of the real exchange rate that ensured internal and external balance with

appropriate domestic policies; the longer‐run international competitiveness,

on the other hand, could be associated with the highest possible growth of

productivity that was compatible with external equilibrium In addition to

the role of firms in determining the national competitiveness, Newman,

Porter, Roessner, Kongthong, and Jin (2005) listed a number of other

factors that could influence national competitiveness. They believe that

competitiveness encompasses everything from national government policies

and citizens' attitudes to investments in infrastructure and manufacturing

capability. National competitiveness exists because of competition. Francis

(1992) argued that the presence of competition makes competitiveness a

relative quality and competitiveness is essentially a zero‐sum game. In other

words, it is the quality of a competitor that determines its probability of

winning the competition, which indicates that the competition has to be

specified along with the competitiveness. Papadakis (1994) described the

same notion from a consumer's perspective, suggesting that

competitiveness is reflected by the consumer choice between two or more

goods competing for the consumer's dollar.

21
 Some researchers and practitioners define competitiveness through

the assessment of national/firm productivity. Competitiveness is considered

to involve a combination of assets and processes, where assets are either

inherited (e.g., natural resources) or created (e.g., infrastructure) and

processes transform assets to achieve economic benefits through sales to

customers (Department of Industry, Science and Resources, 2001).

According to Tefertiller and Ward (1995), competitiveness is related to

productivity growth and entails quality differences, relative prices,

production and distribution costs, the ability to market, and the efficiency

of the supporting marketing and distribution system. In the same vein,

Scott and Lodge defined competitiveness as “a country's ability to create,

produce, distribute and/or service products in international economy, while

rising returns on its sources” (1985, p. 3). Competitiveness is also “about

producing more and better quality goods and services that are marketed

successfully to consumers at home and abroad. (Newall, 1992, p. 94).

The Effects and Challenges of COVID-19 in the Hospitality and Tourism

Sector in India
Prakash Gautam (7 April, 2021)

The hospitality and tourism sector is considered the backbone for

economic growth, especially in developing countries. However, this thriving

sector is particularly vulnerable to natural and human-made disasters. This

study assesses the impact of the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease-2019)

pandemic in India’s hospitality and tourism sector by addressing essential

aspects such as current conditions and challenges as well as future

22
perspectives. The secondary research methodology has been applied for the

research. For data collection, the secondary data has been collected

through literature, journal articles, government documents, etc. The

research findings show that COVID-19 in India has significantly affected

the hospitality and tourism sector. Global and domestic tourists have

canceled their programs to visit the natural, historical, religious, and

cultural sites. The flight tickets and the hotel reservations have been

canceled. A significant number of workers in the sector have lost their jobs.

This pandemic has affected the economy of the country as well as the well-

being of the individuals to a large extent. As the intensification of the

COVID-19 is being thought to cause a long-term impact, this study could

be relevant to the decision-makers in regards to the crucial task of reviving

the sector.

The hospitality and tourism sector is commonly recognized as a

significant contributing factor to the green economy through a more

sustainable development agenda (Wilkes & Reddy, 2015). It has been the

primary and most dynamic sector in today’s global economy. It had

generated about 10.3 % of global GDP and provided 330 million jobs in

2019 directly and indirectly (World Travel & Tourism Council, 2019). Such

a large and positive impact on the global economy was experienced despite

its survival from the crises and disasters at various times in the past. The

primary forms of crises that affect the hospitality and tourism sector are

armed conflicts, environmental hazards/pollution, and pandemics. The

main events were the 9/11 attacks in the USA, the 2004 Asian tsunami,

23
the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the 2015/2016 drought in India, Avian fl

u, amongst others (Ahlfeldt, Franke, & Maennig, 2015; Cheer, 2020; Kuo,

Chang, Chen, Huang, & McAleer, 2012; UNICEF, 2016). Moreover,

pandemics have left the hospitality and tourism sector with unprecedented

challenges time after time, such as by limiting the demand side (freedom of

movement, fear of infection, etc.) and the supply-side (closure of

accommodation and leisure facilities, etc.). Therefore, it is difficult to predict

how the tourism sector will develop during this period. Analysis, early

approach, and marketing strategies of tourism elements that meet the

modified requirements due to the COVID-19 pandemic are clearly

demanding. These necessitate significant research that focuses on its

impacts, changes, and awareness. COVID -19 pandemic has impacted the

global economy. It has been predicted that the global GDP will be

contracted by 5.2 % in 2020 (The World Bank, 2020b). One of the economic

areas this pandemic has affected the most in developing countries like India

is the hospitality and tourism sector. Many hospitality businesses have

been temporarily closed due to strategies to minimize the infection rate. The

measures such as lockdowns, social distances, home orders, travel bans,

and travel restrictions have been imposed. Also, demand for businesses

that are allowed to continue has declined significantly (Bartik et al., 2020;

Gursoy & Chi, 2020). In a nutshell, the fear of COVID-19 has led to

uncertainty and chaotic conditions in the hospitality and tourism sector.

The hospitality and tourism sector is an essential tool for sustainable

economic development in India, like in other developing countries (Asif

Khan, Bibi, Lorenzo, Lyu, & Babar, 2020).It contributed 6.8 % of total GDP

24
and 8 % of the total employment in 2019 (The Times of India, 2020; World

Travel & Tourism Council, 2019). The revenue from domestic trips in India

is the most profitable sum of capital. However, with the spread of COVID-19

at the beginning of 2020, there is a significant downfall in the sector. The

lockdown started on March 25, 2020, and continued until May 31, 2020,

taking into account the extension of the lockdown. In the hospitality sector,

the lockdown was lifted, and on June 8, 2020, hotels, restaurants, temples,

and tourist destinations were allowed to reopen. Even so, it is not possible

to estimate the extent of the economic impact of the COVID-19 outbreak in

the sector because the course and duration of the outbreak are still

uncertain. As the lives and health of the people are still at stake, it is

unlikely that the positive signals in this sector will be restored soon. With

this regard, there is a need for detailed study and analysis of the eff ect of

COVID-19 in the hospitality and tourism sector in India.This study is based

on secondary data obtained through the internet, books, nline news,

reports, and published research articles. The data were also collected from

the homepage of temples, the published news portal of the Ministry of

Tourism, and the information page for COVID-19 of the Government of

India. In the rest of this article, I review the literature and mention the

impacts of COVID-19 in different hospitality and tourism sectors. It

provides correlations between COVID-19 and the sector demand. Finally,

the author presents the implications and conclusions of this study that

could provide recommendations and outlooks on a future plan.

B. Domestic

25
 Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic on Hospitality Industry: Review of the
Current Situations and A Research Agenda
Dogan Gursoy, ( 5 July, 2020)

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the world’s economy was shut down

almost overnight (UNWTO, 2020). The pandemic has confronted the

hospitality industry with an unprecedented challenge. Strategies to flatten

the COVID-19 curve such as community lockdowns, social distancing, stay-

at-home orders, travel and mobility restrictions have resulted in temporary

closure of many hospitality businesses and significantly decreased the

demand for businesses that were allowed to continue to operate (Bartik et

al., 2020). Almost all restaurants were asked to limit their operations to only

take-outs. Restrictions placed on travel and stay-at-home orders issued by

the authorities led to sharp decline in hotel occupancies and revenues.

However, the reopening process has slowly begun and authorities have

started to ease restrictions, for example, allow dine-in restaurants to reopen

at a reduced capacity with strict social distancing guidelines, and gradually

reduce restrictions on domestic and international travel.

While the hospitality industry is slowly recovering, the COVID-19

crisis continues to exert profound impacts on how hospitality businesses

operate. Hospitality businesses are expected to make substantial changes to

their operations in the COVID-19 business environment in order to ensure

employees’ and customers’ health and safety, and enhance customers’

willingness to patronize their business (Gössling et al., 2020). This pandemic

is also likely to have a significant impact on the research agenda of

hospitality marketing and management scholars. With unprecedented

26
challenges faced by the hospitality industry in the COVID-10 era, hospitality

scholars are expected to shift their research focus to develop solutions for

the industry. Hospitality scholar will need to provide answers to a number of

critical questions such as: what are the customers’ sentiments about

patronizing a restaurant or a hotel in the time of coronavirus? Are they

ready to return? If not, what will make them return?

Preliminary findings of a longitudinal study conducted by the editorial

team of the Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management suggest that

reopening the sit-down restaurants and easing travel restrictions will not

bring customers back immediately (Gursoy et al., 2020). A large portion of

individuals (over 50%) are not willing to dine in at a restaurant immediately.

The same is true for staying at hotels. Most customers (over 50%) are not

willing to travel to a destination and stay at a hotel any time soon. Only

around a quarter of the customers have already dined in a restaurant and

only around one-third are willing to travel to a destination and stay at a

hotel in the next few months (Gursoy et al., 2020). These findings suggest

that customers in general still do not feel comfortable to dine in at a sit

down restaurant, travel to a destination and stay at a hotel. Since the

breakeven point in the hospitality industry is relatively high due to high

operating costs, the survival of many hospitality businesses heavily depends

on increasing the demand for their services and products. Thus, figuring out

what will make customers return is essential and this requires intensive

research efforts. The industry and the academia are in urgent need of

27
behavioral and operational hospitality marketing and management research

to guide the hospitality operations in the time of COVID-19 pandemic.

The research findings also indicate that around a quarter of the

customers will only feel comfortable to patronize a sit-down restaurant when

their communities’ ability to test, trace, and isolate COVID-19 cases is

significantly improved. Around 18% of the customers will only feel

comfortable to travel to a destination and stay at a hotel when that

destination has very few COVID-19 cases and has the ability to test, trace,

and isolate COVID-19 cases. Furthermore, there is a group of customers

who will only feel comfortable to patronize a sit-down restaurant (around

14%) and travel to a destination and stay at a hotel (around 17%) when the

COVID-19 vaccine becomes available (Gursoy et al., 2020). These findings

clearly suggest that we need further research on factors that can drive

customers back to the hospitality businesses.

Pandemics, tourism and global change: a rapid assessment of

COVID-19
Stefan Gössling

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is challenging the world. With no

vaccine and limited medical capacity to treat the disease, non-

pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) are the main strategy to contain the

pandemic. Unprecedented global travel restrictions and stay-at-home orders

are causing the most severe disruption of the global economy since World

War II. With international travel bans affecting over 90% of the world

population and wide-spread restrictions on public gatherings and

community mobility, tourism largely ceased in March 2020. Early evidence

28
on impacts on air travel, cruises, and accommodations have been

devastating. While highly uncertain, early projections from UNWTO for 2020

suggest international arrivals could decline by 20 to 30% relative to 2019.

Tourism is especially susceptible to measures to counteract pandemics

because of restricted mobility and social distancing. The paper compares the

impacts of COVID-19 to previous epidemic/pandemics and other types of

global crises and explores how the pandemic may change society, the

economy, and tourism. It discusses why COVID-19 is an analogue to the

ongoing climate crisis, and why there is a need to question the volume

growth tourism model advocated by UNWTO, ICAO, CLIA, WTTC and other

tourism organizations. International, regional and local travel restrictions

immediately affected national economies, including tourism systems, i.e.

international travel, domestic tourism, day visits and segments as diverse as

air transport, cruises, public transport, accommodation, cafés and

restaurants, conventions, festivals, meetings, or sports events. With

international air travel rapidly slowing as a result of the crisis, and many

countries imposing travel bans, closing borders, or introducing quarantine

periods, international and domestic tourism declined precipitously over a

period of weeks. Countries scrambled to return travelers home, which in the

case of important outbound markets involved hundreds of thousands of

citizens in all parts of the world. As an example, on 23 March, the British

Foreign Secretary urged British tourists to return home, “advising against

all but essential international travel”, and highlighting that “[…]

international travel is becoming more difficult with the closure of borders,

airlines suspending flights, airports closing, exit bans and further

29
restrictions being introduced daily” (FCO (The Foreign & Commonwealth

Office), 2020). Cruise ships soon became the worst-case scenario for anyone

stuck in the global tourism system. Starting with the Diamond Princess on 1

February 2020, at least 25 cruise ships had confirmed COVID-19 infections

by 26 March 2020 (Mallapaty, 2020) and at the end of March ten ships

remained at sea unable to find a port that would allow them to dock.

Idealized safe environments (Cordesmeyer & Papathanassis, 2011) at sea

turned into traps, with thousands of passengers held in cabin quarantine

and facing the challenge of returning home.

Within countries, the virus affected virtually all parts of the hospitality

value chain. The impact of cancelled events, closed accommodations, and

shut down attractions became immediately felt in other parts of the supply

chain, such as catering and laundry services. Restaurants had to close as

well, though in some countries, a switch to take-away/delivery sales allowed

some to continue operations. Reports on lay-offs and bankruptcies followed,

with British airline FlyBe succumbing first to market pressure, declaring

bankruptcy on 5 March 2020 (Business Insider, 2020). Major airlines

including Scandinavian Airlines (17 March 2020), Singapore Airlines (27

March 2020) and Virgin (30 March 2020), as well as tour operators

including German TUI (27 March 2020) have already requested tens of

billions of US$ in state aid. The situation is unprecedented. Within the

space of months, the framing of the global tourism system moved from over

tourism (e.g. Dodds & Butler, 2019; Seraphin et al., 2018) to non-tourism,

vividly illustrated by blogs and newspaper articles depicting popular tourism

30
sites in ‘before’ and ‘after’ photographs (Condé Nast Traveler, 2020). While

some commentators already speculate on “What will travel be like after the

Coronavirus”, with some unrealistically optimistic perspectives already

having proven wrong (Forbes, 2020), the general belief is that tourism will

rebound as it has from previous crises (CNN, 2020). However, there is much

evidence that COVID-19 will be different and transformative for the tourism

sector. Governments only begin to understand that, unlike other business

sectors, tourism revenue is permanently lost because unsold capacity – for

instance in accommodation – cannot be marketed in subsequent years, with

corresponding implications for employment in the sector.

31