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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.
Hospitality is the most personal human interaction industry. I don't see how the hospitality industry will be able to become virtual like most industry's are becoming due to the coronavirus. That being said, I think the hospitality industry should shift a lot of focus to nature based tourism. This would allow people to practice social distancing and enjoy beautiful places in nature at the same time. An idea would be to establish an open air outdoor hotel in close to great hiking spots, where the hotel would serve as a base camp. This way tourists can go hiking all day then comeback and enjoy the services usually provided by a hotel, while still enjoying being outside in the fresh air. (April, 2020)
Means broden horizons, giving experiences, generating new knowledge. (April, 2020)
After COVID-19, we will face challenges in rebuilding trust within our markets that it will be safe to travel again. There might also come other travel trends that do not pay our region the attention. Companies will be economically weaker and might not be able to develop their service and competence, and we might loose the momentum we had where companies were eager to work with sustainability. Many companies might drop prices and stop caring about which clients they get, as long as they get clients. This can be challenging for the general quality level of tourism business in our region. Higher unemployment can lead to emigration from our region, with the result that it will be challenging for the local places to attract new people and for companies to find the right competence. There might be less willingness to contribute to development and marketing of tourism from the public government's side, as they might loose faith in tourism. (May, 2020)
That nobody learns anything from this situation and no improvements are made in any economic area. (April, 2020)
Take this time to learn, tourism is so important industry and it has countries running only from tourism. Is that what we really want? That is definitely not sustainable way of running a country. Also. Here in Iceland..... tourism companies are lowering their prices, that means FINALLY icelanders can travel in their own country. It was so extreamly expenisve to travel in my own country that I could rather just go to another country and that would have been cheaper. Just think about it. It is crazy that local people can't afford traveling in their own county, right? (April, 2020)
I do not have any resources at the moment, as I do not see adequate resources in this situation to save tourism. (July, 2020)
We need people who will not be afraid to travel. People who will want to travel. Abolition of travel restrictions. (August, 2020)
Off the topic more personalized school system would drastically develop our country in a decade. For sure there would be more tourism and sustainability experts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqTTojTija8 (April, 2020)
Tourist vouchers should also be redeemable in travel agencies, restaurants, museums and national parks. Now some providers are earning a lot, while others are in red numbers.. (August, 2020)
It's been about 30 years since I started this job. I have experienced the collapse of the Internet bubble, the Lehman shock, the Great East Japan Earthquake, and so on. Marketing techniques such as sales measures, cost control, and attracting customers during these times are the know-how of tourism that cannot be learned in normal times. (June, 2020)