The Coronavirus or COVID-19 is the first pandemic to have occurred since globalization. With major continents and businesses affected by this, the tourism industry has also been fallen in the same platter.
The growth of the tourism industry in recent years has been very public. But, this inevitable outbreak has caused a major impact on the travel industry. Be it global corporate events, destination weddings, hotel accommodations or even cruise ship activities, everything seems to be at a halt.
“Governments and those in authority must not seek to choke travel and trade at this time. Closing borders, imposing blanket travel bans and implementing extreme policies are not the answer to stopping the spread of coronavirus.” “Past experiences show that taking such extreme actions has been ineffective at best. We urge governments to explore fact-based measures which don’t affect the vast majority of people and businesses for those travel is essential.”
Like any other sustaining environment, event and tourism industries are also evolving to survive. As technologies advance, the event industry now does not require attendees’ physical presence at a particular venue. Various ways are now introduced to conduct face-to-face virtual interactions which can help them to exchange their thoughts and attend conferences and seminar without having to travel.
Various webinars for product training sessions are hosted by several DMCs to educate people about destinations and provide them various information about the best hotels, local restaurants, the currency in use and the best times to travel.
During these times, one can let go of leisure travel for a while but cannot let go of the essential travel. Essential travel for business, a student stuck in his/her college city or someone travelling to see a sick family member cannot be ignored.
The hybrid events are now on high demand, whether it is an internal event like township, department meeting, celebration or external event such as a product launch, online training or stakeholders’ meeting.
With #VocalForLocal being promoted by the central government itself, traditional and local sight-seeing will see a rise after the lockdown. While there is nothing definite to say about the future of tourism, one can still be prepared to see the evolving wave of enrichment in indigenous traditions.