Rewriting Future of Tourism: Emerging Paradigms post-COVID

These are unprecedented times. COVID19 pandemic has affected us in a way like anything never before in our lifetime. It has impacted all facets of our existence, including mobility. Tourism and travel are severely affected, and there are various estimates of the magnitude of the losses. The ever-optimistic human beings have begun to reorganise themselves to look beyond the world post-COVID. There are several predictions for the post-COVID scenarios with suggested recovery strategies. I will resist the temptation to make another prediction. Instead, I will focus on analysing the two broad scenarios that emerge from these prophecies.

One is the optimist school, which argues an immediate resurgence of tourism once the lockdowns are lifted. This school argues that the travel will bounce back immediately once a vaccine for the COVID 19 is found, estimated to be in the markets by January- February 2020. As the market began to pick up, India was severely hit by the second wave, and everything came down crumbling.  However, there might be some reservations for international travel. Most industry enthusiasts are holding their hopes on domestic travel and lifestyle changes. Even the governments are keen on domestic travel to infuse cash in the economy- both for resurrecting the economy and equitable distribution of tourism revenues. The other school, however, is a bit cautious and maintains that people will tread somewhat cautiously. Cautious by the experience of the second wave, they would like the pandemic to get over finally before they travel again. They would also expect the destinations and service providers to have a new set of standard operating procedures (SOPs). The school believes that leisure travel would hold back, while business travel would be the first to take off.

While many people believe that people will tread cautiously, a section of the industry is pinning its hopes on a wave of 'revenge travelling'. People are frustrated with being locked down and being restricted in their activities. Though they have gotten conscious, yet they want to bust out. The longer the lockdown and travel restrictions, the more the people would be longing to go out. There will be a renewed demand for nature-based travel- the tranquillity of wilderness, rurality, and so forth. While public transport may be avoided, people would prefer to travel on their own by road. The industry is building its hopes on luxury travellers who might divert from international travel to short-haul domestic travel to the countryside. A case in point is China's travel restart post COVID. In India, a section of optimists is pinning their hopes on many young populations that rearing to go out but for permission for the jaunt. Some are calling it rage-tourism, but the term revenge tourism is popular.

Another tactical move that is gaining acceptance is the creation of tourism bubbles. The realisation is that there cannot be a generalisation on post-COVID mobilities. Travel between destinations will be specific and on cases to case basis. While the source market may open up, the host destinations may not accept visitors. Alternatively, vice-versa, the host destination may be open to receiving visitors, but their primary source markets may not be permitting outbound travel. Given this scenario, destinations are creating tourism bubbles to allow inter-destination travel. UNWTO also wants to have tourism restored, at least in select safe pockets. For example, trans-Tasman and Pacific bubbles are being proposed.

Similarly, the three Baltic countries Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, have opened their borders to one another, creating a Baltic travel bubble. Thus, some countries are creating a bubble with other countries where the coronavirus has been contained to travel within each other's territory. Travel bubbles, or travel bridges or corona corridors, as they are differently called, appear to be a vital restoration strategy.

Another dimension to post-COVID travel is the host community's receptivity and reciprocity. The willingness of the host community to receive guest would be crucial. Tourism cannot carry on without the concurrence of the host community. The correlation between opening up and benefits to the community have to be more pronounced. At an operational level, the cost dynamic has to be reworked. The spatial arrangement of the tourism servicescape and SOPs for the service providers will have cost implications that the tourist must bear.

All said and done, eventually, tourism will return. We seem to be learning to live with the virus.