ABSTRACT
The detrimental impact of the COVID-19 on the world has ensued unrest amongst people. The reverberations of the life-threatening virus are conspicuous in all realms of life culminating in physical and psychological disturbance. The fear of loss of life, threatened livelihood and enforced seclusion has resulted in psychological morbidities. The existing literature demonstrates the positive effects of spirituality and religion in the life of someone mentally ailing as an efficient way of coping with problems. Spirituality is believed to provide positive emotions such as hope, courage and perspective to individuals. The current article based on a review of the literature highlights the burgeoning of post-pandemic spiritually-inclined travel to restore the balance of life. It adds to current knowledge on the effect of the pandemic on the human psyche and the mitigating effects of spirituality. The results also allow better marketing, management, and design techniques for the spiritual tourism product by providing knowledge on tourist behaviour post-pandemic. The conclusions from the review aim to evoke governments to accord more attention towards the mental health of individuals and advance programmes to help the distressed. © by the author, licensee University of Lodz – Lodz University Press, Lodz, Poland.
ABSTRACT
The World Health Organisation declared the novel coronavirus disease as a pandemic in March 2020. The outbreak of the novel coronavirus restricted global mobility as cities and countries started to impose complete lockdown to curtail the spread of the deadly virus. The restricted movement of people and transport worldwide resulted in a metamorphosis from overtourism to zero tourism within a short period. This study aims to analyse the effect of COVID-19 on the tourists' perceptions about crowding and how will this transition impact their decision while choosing a destination. In-depth interviews were conducted with tourists, and Nvivo12 plus was used to analyse the data. The study reveals that in the post-COVID-19 phase, tourists will be more sensitised towards crowding, and they would volunteer to avoid crowded places in the short run. Further, maintenance of social distancing norms and sanitised services at destinations will be a pre-requisite in selecting a destination. The study is a pioneer in analysing the changing tourist's behaviour concerning crowding, evolving perceptions of overtourism for the tourists which will aid the stakeholders at the destinations in developing strategies. Inadvertently, the tourists visibly reflected the need for sustainable tourism.
ABSTRACT
Though a lot of studies have analysed the impact of the pandemic on the tourism industry and several suggestions have been made to revive the sector, tourism education is largely overlooked. Tourism and cognate courses offered by higher educational institutions are essentially a part of the tourism system. This study aims to emphasize the perspective of tourism educators with respect to upcoming challenges in the tourism discipline and ways to reinvent and reboot the tourism education in the post-COVID-19 phase. The study adopted a qualitative approach and a total of 22 responses were interpreted. A thematic analysis using the Nvivo 12 plus software was done. Even though there was variability in the respondents’ background, a significant emphasis on curriculum design, industry collaboration, and excellence in research was mutually suggested by the educators. The study suggests that ambidextrous management in tourism education be adopted in post-COVID-19 phase. In other words, educators must become adept at the delivery of courses in a variety of modalities that would enable them to cope with the short and medium-term impacts of teaching in a COVID-19 (incremental innovation), while providing by anticipation of future demands (from industry and students), cutting edge curriculum (radical innovation). © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.