SQU Tourism Industry and Covid Effect Discussion

          Academic Writing (01 ACW)

     In class test                                                                                                    Max Marks: 100

     Date: 17 December, 2020                                                                             Time 3 hours

Write an essay on ‘COVID 19 and the Tourism Industry’ in not less than 1000 words. Use the information given in the four texts efficiently for supporting your arguments.

• You must support your points/arguments by citing from the given sources.
• Paraphrase, summarize or direct quote (10% of direct quoting is allowed).
• Be mindful of the structure and organization of your essay.
• Prepare a reference list at the end.
• Use Harvard style of referencing for in text citation and list of references.

Source 1:

The world was not ready for a pandemic of this level. First it looked like a small problem but with the passage of time the world came to see its real impact. Each and every sector was impacted but the tourism sector was hit the most. In the tourism sector the airline industry is supposed to have suffered the most.

The closure of air transport at such a level was never experienced before. Businesses slowed down and in turn the airline industry had to suffer. Business travelers and people who could save some money earlier for travelling were no more in a position to travel. Business travel almost came to a standstill as there were airports where there were no flights for several months. Despite all of this some airlines continued their business though on a smaller scale. Things now have started coming back to normalcy and it is expected that soon air travel will start on its regular scale. There are experts who are of the opinion that in a few months’ time air travel will pick and airlines will have more business as people are tired of being at home and have been waiting for the travel bans to be lifted. Alongside this the steps taken by airlines and airport authorities have also had a very positive impact on people. People believe that airports are not as dangerous a place as they were projected earlier.

Airports around the world have started picking their operations and more and more flights are available for passengers and tourists. This is due to the level of dedication, enthusiasm and focused approaches from the airlines as well as airport managements.

Source 2:

Social distancing was a requirement of the COVID 19 pandemic. This was required so as to ensure safety of the people. Due to social distancing the hotel industry almost came to complete halt. There were hotels where there were no customers for weeks and months. Due to slow down in businesses people already had less to spend on tourism and travelling and the fear of getting the virus added to that. The hotel industry is supposed to have been impacted the most. This not only had an impact on the people directly employed by them but also impacted the indirect workers like food suppliers, taxi and transport workers. Added to this was the impact on the local businesses in tourist destinations which were running due to the tourists in that destination. Local food shops, small restaurants, tour guides and people making and selling handicraft were also negatively impacted. Tourism planners who are responsible for a consistent supply of tourists around the world also couldn’t work as usual.

Though all these sectors had a direct or indirect impact from the pandemic but most of the businesses seems to have survived the worst times. A positive impact of this whole situation is that now the best service providers will stay in the market. Competition has increased so service providers across the world are now focusing more on the quality of their services. New and better ways of looking after the tourists are being thought of and better ways of keeping customers happy are employed by the hotel, transport as well as other sectors.

Source 3:

Talking of Covid 19 and the impact it has on the tourism industry make you feel that two sectors were impacted the most in the whole situation i.e airlines and hotels.

Airline industry has highlighted that the current travel bans around the world brought them almost to a complete stop. Different salary cuts had to be put in place for several months as there was hardly any business for them. The airline industry faced its gravest crisis when the Government of China denied entry to foreigners in March 2020 until further notice. China is one of the major travel destination for the world and Chinese are on top of the list of international travelers. This ban was just a start, other countries and regions followed in no time. Luckily governments came to rescue and support the airline industry otherwise staying in the market without regular business was almost impossible. The good thing is airlines have also focused on the wellbeing, health and safety of the passengers and have taken steps for ensuring people get to have safe journeys.

The hotel industry was the second most impacted industry. In the months of February and March 2020 a huge number of room bookings were cancelled which caused a huge loss to the hotels. Countries and destinations where tourism is the biggest source of business were affected directly as well as indirectly. Hotels have lost billions of dollars’ worth of business during this pandemic. But it seems most of these businesses could survive this bad patch. Hotels have come up with new standards of safety for their customers. They are taking extra measures for ensuring hoteliers stay safe mentally as well as physically. From a customer’s perspective, room rents have also come down to some extent. Now you can pay less and get better services in a hotel which used to be very expensive before the pandemic.

Source 4: Social distancing was a direct outcome of COVID-19 which made it necessary for people to ensure reduction in social contact, avoiding crowded places, or minimizing travel. These measures had direct as well as indirect impacts on the tourism industry.

There are multiple effects on the host communities as they are directly in contact with the tourists. In social impacts we can say that the presence of a large number of tourists at a destination was itself a hazard for the locals as well as the tourists. So instant decisions for stopping tourists from reaching destinations had to be taken.

There were some indirect impacts of the virus. Many people lost their job or had to get a lower pay than their usual salaries. Another aspect of COVID 19 was that new jobs could not be created. Leisure and business travelers, group and independent tourists, special interest tourists such as religious tourists felt it better to stay at home as this meant safety for them and their families. This had a very hard hitting impact on the current as well as new jobs in the tourism sector.

Businesses slowed down and in turn the airline industry also had impact. People had less to spare for touristic purposes. More importantly the fear of getting the virus made people stay away from sectors which even did not have any hand in the spread of the disease.

Tourism planning and supply businesses got affected so there were fewer than normal tourism planners and suppliers in the beginning but things have started to settle. According to WHO a restart is underway and soon things will come back to almost their previous state. As tourists are returning to destinations, hotels and local businesses have started to get more and more business.

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