The COVID-19 Pandemic: Impacts and Combating Strategies in Hospitality & Tourism Industry

ABSTRACT

Tourism industry is very vast, dynamic and growth-oriented industry which is associated with several other sectors such as hospitality, education, finance, agriculture, transport, medical, real estate etc. The whole socio-economic structure has become still due to global pandemic of novel Corona (COVID-19) which has emerged as a big challenge for the globalization and worldwide operations of enterprises. This problem has led to almost entire shutdown, which ultimately affected the human life, business and economic growth immensely and may exist for both short & long duration depends as the things progress. Major adverse impact has been observed on the Indian hospitality industry struggling with very less demand along with very few upcoming reservations. Effectively, all momentary demands have diminished entirely, except those guests who have been staying for long and the hotels which have been recommended by the government for the stay of international passengers returning back to India. Implementation of Section-144, where mass gathering is prohibited, deferment of Visas, & the lockdown in India and their influences seem to be a big challenge. To combat the socio-economic impacts of this pandemic, Government is making appropriate plans to set up a COVID-19 squad to commence essential measures. Since, tourism industries is among the largest and fastest growing industries world-widely and it is considered to play crucial role in retrieving the socio-economic stability after this pandemic situation. Keeping these points in mind, the present article focuses on the challenges faced by tourism and hospitality industry due to COVID-19 and implementation of strategies to cope up the situation. © 2021 Publishing India Group. All rights reserved.