A big case of he said, she said: Tourism Industry Wobbles
Is Recovery Doable?
The elected and appointed men and women working in Washington, DC, spend most of their time pointing fingers at each other, creating mayhem, dissention, confusion and ultimately disasters, wrecking (perhaps destroying) the world economy. One of the biggest losers in this “He said. She said” fiasco is the tourism industry and its partners, including (but not limited to) destinations, hotels and travel/transportation, restaurants, travel agents, tour operators, stadiums, and conference centers.
As of October 2, 2020, there were 34,567,664 reported cases of Coronavirus with 1,028,990 people dead from the disease ( www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ ). After over nine months of acknowledging and dealing with this pandemic, leaders are no closer to corralling this virus then they were when it was first identified. It is about time to stop name calling and blaming and the perfect time to round-up the scientists, address the disease for what it is, take an inventory of the harm it has caused, and develop/implement solutions that will enable the world to reboot, creating new routes to economic recovery.
COVID-19 has disrupted both the demand and supply side of the tourism global value chain (GVC). Unlike previous natural disasters, global capacity (i.e., hotels, restaurants, stadiums, airlines, airports) are in place, but out of use, providing opportunities for a rapid recovery once the virus becomes neutralized.
