Covid-19 and its Impact on Tourism

Munnmunn Marwah May 12, 2020

Over the past years, most of the countries have considered tourism as a contributor to economic growth and is widely accepted that year after year throughout the world a massive investment continues to pour in its development.

Think Strawberries was among the first companies in the travel vertical to respond to the pandemic. As a company, we announced work from home for our employees from March 18. We wanted to make a conscious effort to 'break the chain' and it has worked to our advantage. All our employees are safe and working from home and we are proud to announce that their productivity is up. We are able to service all our clients during these testing times with minimum turnaround times. No cases have been reported in our offices in New Delhi, Mumbai or Gurgaon.

To clients, we have been doing crisis management exercise with daily situation updates.

Outlook in the travel industry all points to recovery with lower volumes. Leisure will be hit most, business mandatory travel will resurge. This will be in phases – Phase I from May to September, Phase II September to December post vaccine and virus control.

International short-haul to ‘safe’ destinations will emerge first, honeymoons by Phase II and by summer 2021 we envisage resuming of International travel.

The company's business strategy for the rest of 2020 and 2021 will be to help our clients dynamically to make the most of the evolving market and roll with it.. maintain brand awareness when we cannot do business. For example -design incentives and packages.

Whenever there has been any major impact on the economy of any country, tourism has always been the first one to get affected as people start to cut down on their travel budgets first. However, tourism relatively had a direct role to play when it comes to COVID-19 which has widely spread most in the countries with a high number of tourists.

This pandemic is the biggest challenge that any country has ever faced as international travel could be adversely impacted by up to 25 per cent this year which is equivalent to a loss of three months of travel.

During this time when on-ground activities are not possible, we are already planning ahead so that whenever there is a slight window open for tourists by any of our clients, we are absolutely prepared to take a lead on the opportunity and ensure the best result.

Since travel has become an important part of everyone’s life and is no longer considered as a luxury but a necessity to break away from a mundane routine and rejuvenate, we are positive that travel will revive soon. However, destination marketing services will see a drastic shift. The usually not so conventional destinations, who have seen a controlled exposure to the pandemic might see an upward trend in terms of tourists or as an alternate destination for some of the conventional ones for the time being. Luxury travel will take its time to again play an important role in an individual’s life and domestic market and self-driven accommodations at boutique hotels and home-stays will be the focus till next summers as social distancing and staying at smaller properties reduce the risk of the virus. South East Asia and Middle East will play a key role in India Outbound tourism as they have close proximity and fewer Covid-19 cases.

Regarding MICE Travel, there will be a reduction in the travel budget and companies will keep on promoting Work from Home and conference calls/ meetings to reduce the risk and expenses.

The WTTC (World Travel and Tourism Council) predicts potential jobs impact of COVID-19 to the global Travel & Tourism Sector. Impact to be felt on both white and blue-collar jobs and up to 50 million jobs are at risk globally, representing a reduction in jobs of 12 to 14per cent, the government should accept the proposal from TAAI and should also consider a complete GST Tax-free Holiday for the Tourism, Travel & Hospitality Industry for the next twelve months till the time the recovery happens.

While we all try to resist the crisis situation, the show must go on.

We are confident that together we can overcome this situation as well.

The recovery might be slow, but we are sure, once we manage to control this virus, the tourism industry will be the first one to see major growth. After a very long time of no international travel, people would be looking forward to explore once again.