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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 think that the fact tourism is highly affected is not that big of the problem. Yes it’s true that people won’t travel during the epidemic, but when everything is over, people will travel again, they won’t just stop. Maybe this is a great chance for everybody to see how much we all can do to help restore Earth, not just in tourism, but in the whole industry sector. (March, 2020)
Tourism for me means to travel and see new places in the first place. Whether I’m only visiting a nice village or a city in Austria for a couple of days or take a trip around the world for a longer time, tourism is a way to explore. The other big part of tourism is to get to know new people, new cultures and explore different styles of living. Since I myself am a huge fan of travelling and experience as much as possible, tourism is a key thing in my life and hopefully will never get lost in those times. (October, 2020)
To cheer the tourism industry up. (October, 2020)
We will go back to mass or over-tourism. (July, 2020)
Remain positive even in difficult time, better times are coming soon. (October, 2020)
With my studies, I can help to improvise plans and help with getting the wheels rolling again after this all stops. Hopefully someone will hire me so I can help. (April, 2020)
We need customers, interesting local providers, accommodations that will meet safety standards. (July, 2020)
I am from a small town in Virginia/Tennessee and one of my favorite restaurants has impressed the community throughout this pandemic. They are an upscale restaurant offering foods from sushi and stir fry to burgers and tacos. Tuesday nights are half price sushi nights- the community's favorite. While the dining area has been closed, they are still offering their deals on their respective nights. By offering their special on delivery and to-go orders, they received as much business as a normal day. To my benefit, once they were overwhelmed with the number of orders in the afternoon, they honored the deal prices the next day to those they couldn't accommodate on Tuesday. They even offered their Tuesday deal on Sundays, as they saw the huge success of it. They have even began to sell gallons of beer and margaritas, pints and quarts of their soups, etc. Things that they don't normally do. The greatest help to the community has been the restaurants ability to buy things such as toilet paper, paper towels, sugar, flour, etc. in bulk and sell at a breakeven price to customers. These are things that are sold out in grocery stores and are in high demand. They are able to take advantage of their suppliers and help get the community what they need, even without the desire to make a profit off of it. I know that there are many customers and community members that are impressed with the way the restaurant is handling this crisis and are thankful for their efforts! (March, 2020)
Lots of people lose their jobs do to this crisis. Employees have to get rid of a lot of job places because they need to safe money and the people who are still working for this company get less paid than before. Lots of employees in Austria exploited the "Kurzarbeit" because they got money from the government but the workers in this company still worked the same amount of hours than before, but they got less income. (October, 2020)
Strategy for opening: personalize your offer. Think about how people will travel and plan how to highlight your strengths. Who will be your buyer? Prepare new experiences for individuals or really small groups involving the locals. (April, 2020)