Tourism in Bihar post COVID-19 pandemic: resilience and recovery plans

ABSTRACT

In the 21st century, tourism has arisen as the heart and soul of societies, communities and nations across the globe, for the plethora of benefits it carries for the host societies and markets. It has thus, established itself as an endeavor of immense importance facilitating enriched connections, interactions, and transactions at global as well as local levels. However, the coin of tourism has a flip side to it as well, for it has also proved to be a potential catalyst in facilitating the undue spread of coronavirus through the people carrying it, knowingly or unknowingly. Such incidences have led to the generation of stigmatising attitudes towards those who are considered to be the potential carriers of it to varied geographical regions. Stigma is the practice of derogation, exclusion, and avoidance of people deemed dangerous to the affective dynamics of public health and well-being and/or social interactions. Engrossing with the view of social vis-a-vis spatial stigmatisation at tourist destinations. This paper aimed to explore and discuss the notion and consequences of apparent stigma, based on secondary evidence collected from various sources, the perceived condition of tourism in Bihar after the homecoming of people (who are apprehended to be the fomicides of COVID-19). It also seeks to explore the likely consequential effects the tourism industry of Bihar might have to bear in the present state of pestilence, and the challenges that the region would have to overcome in order to re-establish its position in the tourism sector.