Conceiving Resilient Solutions for Tourism during the COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

Until 2019, tourism was one of the most dynamic economic activities in the world, holding the third place in the world for exports, after fuels and chemicals. In 2019, tourism registered a number of 1.460 million tourist arrivals and 1.481 USD billion tourism receipts, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). At the same time, tourism is a very sensitive activity to the occurrence of unforeseen factors, which can strongly affect this activity. The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the factors with a major impact on economic activity in general and on the tourism activity in particular. The negative effect of this unprecedented health crisis on tourism has been noticed from the very beginning. The pandemic has affected tourism worldwide, with major losses in tourist arrivals of 74% in 2020 compared to 2019. Despite all these difficulties, tourism is looking for solutions to resume business, and the administration of anti-COVID- 19 vaccines offers a chance for economic recovery, some countries offering a new "all inclusive" package that includes the anti-COVID-19 vaccine. The paper aims to analyse how countries in which tourism plays an important role in the economy manage to find solutions for tourism recovery, sometimes using newer, atypical solutions.