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The 2020 pandemic and previous years’ overtourism issues showed us both the benefits, the relevance, and the limits of the tourism, hospitality and leisure industries for society. We cannot foresee the future, but we can listen to challenges and start developing solutions.
So far we have received more than 900 responses in which these questions have been discussed::
In the name of the global tourism family, many thanks to every single one of you for the inspiring feedback. Your replies are summarized in the sections below.
Don't forget to share YOUR insights (for the first time or again, with new observations):
The 10 quotes below are updated every few minutes and elephant word-clouds are recalculated regularly based on your new survey entries. You have to refresh the page or revisit us every so often to see the changed content.
I am worried that the complete stagnation of tourism will continue for a very long time (at least two years) and that tourism will never be at the same level as it used to be. (July, 2020)
To live... to be free and explore the world. (April, 2020)
Most people pay lip service to sustainable tourism. There is too much focus on the 'cost' of sustainability, and not enough on the cost of inaction. (April, 2020)
When flights are being blocked or reduced, the tourism industry would be a major one that being affected hard no matter what reasons are behind the situation. What I am concerning about is, how long does it take to get everything back to normal, the actual situation would be even worse than any types of prediction. For example, It might be possible that all the official organization will be stating that the coronavirus is no longer a big issue for damaging the tourism industry, having a trip is safe now. But it takes more time than we thought to let public believe after the huge panic that the coronavirus caused. So, I personally really concerned about the amount of time for people to actually start traveling like what they used to do, would be still long way to go. (April, 2020)
Selling "advanced travel packages" is what I've been thinking about, it may sounds naive that this could work from my point of view, but trying something different is always better than doing nothing. In many countries, not like the U.S, people don't arrange their travel plan by themselves, they tend to work with professional travel agent in order to save money or at least save time. From my personal experience, in many of the cases, agents only asked customers to pay one time fee that includes flights, tickets and sometime even food and beverage which is sounded like they are selling a packages. Thus, when the coronavirus is strongly affect people's travel plan at this moment, selling them any types of "advanced travel packages" that will be activated after the coronavirus is my idea, I do think the most important thing for tourism business to be survived now is keep the cash flow going as normal. It is okay to lose some revenue or giving bigger discount on those "advanced travel packages" but having more business keep coming, is very important. (April, 2020)
Data on youth travel responses to Covid 19 - now being published with WYSE Travel Confederation. (May, 2020)
For tourist right now there is only the option to dream of future trips and looking back at past ones. Many destinations around the world already offer digital content to facilitate this. In the future it will be important to receive information about the immunity of the population and I am sure that less crowded destinations will be more popular in the short run. (April, 2020)
For me the best solution at that time was simply to make the best of it and rethink my lifestyle. I realized how important social contacts are and how little we actually appreciate it. I followed the rules and in the end I can say that I did everything I could to get through the pandemic quickly. (December, 2020)
The protests of stay in place orders. (April, 2020)
Communicate: build up your digital community now! Talk to you guests of tomorrow, contact the loyal guests and ask how are they doing. They will really appreciate it. Encourage people to stay home today and travel tomorrow. Share positive messages and make people dream about your destination. (April, 2020)