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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.
We need tourists. Or help to find a digital way of earning money on what we do. (April, 2020)
Very much, because I'm doing it my whole life, formerly employed youth tourism 7 years and now 23 years have my own agency. (June, 2020)
Coronavirus is a game changer for the tourism industry and society as a whole, though we do not yet know when this crisis will end. (April, 2020)
The biggest concern I have is about the upcoming tourist season, since our apartments are already booked for whole june, july, august and september. If things still aren't settled in june, we will be forced to return the pre-payments for the apartments that usually help us during out-of season. (April, 2020)
All my writing at the moment is exploring how we respond. This was my previous article: https://news.wtm.com/a-future-template-for-resilience-how-we-can-repurpose-tourism-and-champion-local-areas/
My next one, published later this week, looks at how we maintain solidarity during the challenging times ahead. It will also be on WTM's website. (April, 2020)
The local knowledge, for hiking in the surrounding mountains. I can show beautiful little places in nature to relax. (June, 2020)
We would need to know more predicitons on the life after. We would need succesfull (guerilla) promotion to (new) markets. (April, 2020)
Take care of your employees, customers, and business partners, foster an atmosphere of trust and use the time to foster a growth mindset as well as offer (cross-)trainings, webinars, explore ideas of your employees (May, 2020)
It´s sad that there are so many cheaters who just want to get all the money which is spend by the state to help the little enterprises to survive the crisis, so that those who really need the money, don´t have any chance to work against their problems ... (June, 2020)
Impact of COVID-19 on Travel: Foreign Travel Industry Needs an Immediate Rescue Plan:
This article is based on India's data but it could be translated to all the other countries in the world affected by coronavirus, because it is hitting the tourism sector the same way everywhere.
First it states that globally there is already an economic recession due to the fact that more than one-third of the global population is under restrictions. One of the worst-hit sectors is the tourism travel industry, not only by the evidence of the quarantine but also the cancellation of all the international flights. Currency exchange market depends a lot on travelling so it will drop off incredibly.
During the last years tourism was unstoppably growing in India but now this sector will have just to fight for survival, because even if quarantine ends and people go back to their jobs, travelling will probably still be restricted. He is also stating that in many countries the governments already started up plans for saving the tourism sector but India is not one of them, and should start working on that.
He gives four possible solutions to it: Cancel or postpone the proposed TCS on foreign travel that was introduced in the Finance Bill (2020), One-year GST Relief, Exclusive Fund Allocation for the Tourism Sector, Interest-free Credit Facilities for the Travel Sector.
See the original file here: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/348757 (April, 2020)