Omicron variant threatens Caribbean tourism recovery

Significance The move -- a response to the Omicron variant -- comes just weeks after the country reopened fully to international tourists. With tourism across much of the Caribbean having only recently started to rebound, Omicron’s emergence poses a major threat to island economies, and could stifle recovery before it has even really begun. Impacts Investment in tourism projects may pause while investors evaluate the potential impacts of Omicron. Businesses that survived 2020 lockdowns may struggle to endure another disrupted high season. Domestic tourism within source markets such as the United States may increase if people are deterred from visiting the Caribbean. The cruise industry may be particularly vulnerable, with cases among passengers causing sailings or port visits to be cancelled.

Domestic Tourism in COVID-19 Era: Travel Choice in Himalayas Correlates to Geographic Origin and Age

COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent has created recession in the tourism industry on the global scale impacting the livelihood of the millions of people worldwide. Speedy recovery of the tourism industry is essential to ensure the development progress do not retard drastically due to this pandemic. As the world is severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and international tourism will take quite a bit longer time to recover, domestic tourism could be a way forward for the recuperation of the industry. Therefore, this article aims to understand the potential of domestic tourism to keep the momentum of tourism development, after the pandemic situation gets over. Data on general characteristics of the respondents and their attitude towards travel after restrictions are over were collected using online survey. Descriptive and regression analyses were used to understand the relationship between travel decisions and respondents’ attributes. The travel decision was found significantly related to the age and geographic origin of the respondents indicating those who are less susceptible to infection are willing to travel sooner than other. Study indicates the expansion of tourism demand in relatively less popular destinations and diversified tourism products which might pose both the challenges and opportunities for tourism industry in post-COVID-19 situation. The findings of our study are expected to help in planning the post-pandemic recovery of the tourism industry in the country.

Tourism Reset: Reimagining South African Domestic Tourism in the Era Of Covid-19

Domestic tourism is increasingly being propagated as a primer for the global tourism industry’s resuscitation in the era of COVID-19. However, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the challenge for African tourism destinations such as South Africa is predicting domestic tourists’ behavioral and demand responses. The article explores the mediating effect of perceived risk on the nexus between South African domestic tourists’ push and pull travel motives. Data were generated via a self-administered online survey and analyzed primarily utilizing factor and mediation analyses. From the sample (n = 427), the study identifies the heterogeneity in the push–pull travel motives nexus. Moreover, the findings also establish the susceptibility of experiential escape-seeking tourists to the negative mediating influence of COVID-19-induced perceived physical risk on their likelihood of engaging in leisure-oriented domestic tourism activity. The results also point to potential cognitive bias and subjective preference towards domestic tourism, potentially signaling a crisis-induced shift in tourist behavior. The managerial implications are also discussed.

An Analysis of Tourism Opportunities and Challenges Post COVID-19 Between India and Southeast Asia

This chapter attempts economic analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on the economies of Southeast Asia and India. The impact on tourist footfalls, tourism revenues, national GDPs, and employment will be focused on. The challenges thrown by COVID-19 relating to safety, hygiene, mindshare, and digital tools could help evolve a structurally different tourism landscape in the post-COVID-19 world. Long haul travel may not happen soon, and the countries must develop products incorporating proximity tourism, vaccine tourism, and domestic tourism. Intra-ASEAN travel will have to be developed further to offset the losses caused by the curtailment of long-haul travel. Historical and cultural linkages between Southeast Asia and India should be leveraged to extend Intra-ASEAN travel to the Northeastern States of India. This would create a win-win situation for Southeast Asia as well as India. Targeted investments and subsidies aimed at confidence building of travelers and other stakeholders will go a long way to minimize the economic impact of external shock caused by COVID-19.

Could COVID-19 Boost Greece’s Village Revival?

In the last decades, Greek villages, especially in mountainous and remote areas, are gradually depopulated and suffer from youth out-migration, school closures and unemployment. During this COVID-19 outbreak, there is an increasing trend of villages as destinations for domestic tourism for short holidays or longer stays. At the same time, this pandemic leads to a significant increase of remote working practices. This article explores the prospect for the revival of traditional villages via an Albergo Diffuso (AD) model with adjustments for both visitors and temporary distance-working residents. We analyze the AD concept as it has been employed in Italy, make minor adjustments to it, and investigate the applicability of such a model in order to overturn the current depopulation of rural and mountain villages in Greece and improve the wellbeing of the local communities. To this end, we present a comprehensive SWOT analysis and discuss the findings. Our approach lays the groundwork for further research that is required to successfully implement AD in mountainous villages.

INNOVATION-DRIVEN OPPORTUNITIES AND SOLUTIONS TO PROMOTE EUROPE-ORIENTED TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN UKRAINE

The article presents an in-depth analysis of innovation opportunities and solutions to promote Europe-oriented tourism development in Ukraine, which is especially relevant given the significant lag in economic indicators of Ukraine's tourism industry against the world tourism leaders. The findings reveal that the tourism industry, as well as in Ukraine, is adapting fast enough to the global challenges caused by the coronavirus pandemic and other crisis phenomena and is gradually returning to its normal functioning, even under heavy restrictions. Particular emphasis is put on the growing role of innovative solutions to boost the process of adaptation to new realia. It is argued that tourism innovations and reforms will contribute to promoting both short-term and long-term tourism demand, raise the number of tourism businesses and, consequently, will create more jobs in this sector, along with enhancing the quality and competitiveness of domestic tourism product and increasing the tourism industry share in GDP. The purpose of this article is to identify opportunities to innovate and search for optimal solutions to ensure Europe-oriented vector of tourism development in Ukraine. To attain the research agenda, a range of general research methods have been employed, in particular, analysis and synthesis, monograph methodology, as well as methods of abstraction and concretization. The study asserts that in modern economic settings to secure the European vector in tourism development, there is a vast variety of innovative solutions available to tour operators and travel agents, ranging from radical changes in their management and marketing activities up to diversification of tourism products and customer service models. To facilitate further Europe-oriented development of domestic tourism, a focus is also placed towards the essential role of innovation-driven transformations of a tourist product at the regional level which assume new services, new tourist attractions and travel routes or their modifications, including the use of digital technologies and new tourism types, such as glamping, immersive tourism, fitness tourism, virtual tourism, travel journalism, film tourism, etc. In addition, the study discusses the specifics of backpacking as one of modern innovative tourism trends. It is argued that the key pathway for the tourism industry to innovate is building a single national tourist information base with an easy access and customer-friendly interface. Such an electronic database will combine the capabilities of an interactive travel guide and a marketplace. According to the results of the study, to enhance the Europe-oriented development of the tourism industry in Ukraine, the government should design sound investment and innovation policies that will help to support both nation-wide and regional innovative projects. The summary concludes that the implementation of innovations will contribute to gaining a competitive edge in the global tourism market.

Domestic tourism, its potential to compensate the outage of international arrivals caused by COVID-19 and the vulnerability of different groups of countries (a cluster analysis)

Tourism is the most affected industry by the pandemic COVID-19 and will be probably also the last one to recover. International organizations UNWTO, WTTC, and others suppose that domestic tourism will play a significant role in 2020 and after. However, domestic tourism is not a universal solution for all destinations. This paper aims to identify the factors that might play a role in the domestic tourism results in 2020 and later and to which extent domestic tourism can compensate the outage of international arrivals in different countries. Two types of factors were analysed: (1) economic factors (GDP, GDP per capita, share of tourism on GDP) and (2) characteristics of tourism (domestic tourism intensity, Travel &Tourism Competitiveness Index, domestic tourism share etc). Based on the data from 2018 and 2019 from 41 countries, the cluster analysis identified six groups of countries with different potential of domestic tourism to support the survival of the tourism businesses and drive recovery in the post-pandemic period.

Urban tourism and Covid-19 in Poland

World Tourism Organisation estimates an 80% drop in tourist arrivals by the end of 2020. The Polish tourism industry is also dramatically affected by the ongoing pandemic, with a 30% drop in the number of tourists in July 2020 compared to July 2019. The global lockdown has limited the functioning of the tourism sector, therefore domestic tourism, including urban tourism, may rise in importance. Domestic urban tourism can become a useful response to the growing resilience of the tourism industry, for example in the context of reducing dependence between the tourism industry and mobility which favours the spread of coronavirus. The potential of urban tourism in Poland is clearly visible (in 2019, it was three times higher than rural tourism in terms of overnight stays provided). However, the COVID-19 pandemic is not conducive to urban tourism in Poland, for instance, because infections are much more frequent in cities than in rural areas. The aim of the research, in addition to checking destinations of Poles in the context of urban tourism in the era of the pandemic, was to learn about the behaviour of tourists during their holiday trips. To achieve the aim of the paper, the study was conducted from 16 to 31 August 2020, using CAWI survey method, among people who visited Polish cities starting from May 2020 through the end of August 2020 (following the partial lifting of restrictions). The research indicated, despite the threat, the popularity of the largest tourist destinations in Poland. It also indicated that the behaviour and decisions of tourists were not different from those before the pandemic.

Tourism Market Segmentation Applied to Coastal and Marine Destinations: A Study from Acapulco, Mexico

Coastal and marine destinations offer alternate options for the sun and the beach, options that are related to nature and culture. This empirical study aims to segment the demand of domestic tourism in coastal and marine destinations and its relationship with satisfaction and loyalty. A factorial analysis and an analysis of K-means clusters were used to reduce and group data. Six motivational dimensions are evident heritage and nature, learning, and sun and beach; and physical, authentic coastal experience, novelty, and social interaction. Two segments were found: the “multiple coastal motives,” which returned a high motivation among the motivational variables proposed and are related to all the factors found, and the “beach lovers”, with high motivation in the aspects of sun and beach, resting, and wanting to see things they do not usually see. These two segments are related to the dimensions of sun and beach and novelty. The multiple coastal motives rendered higher levels of satisfaction and in some variables of future behavior, which shows the relationship of the motivation with the visit. The findings are used to develop marketing plans appropriate to the characteristics of the demand found in each group.

Ecotourism as Leisure and Labor in the Experience of the “Great” Outdoors

Ecotourism as an international concept promotes foreign and domestic tourism to locations in forests, oceans, and other forms of the natural world. National parks and other preserved ecosystems are popular destinations, usually located in the so-called developing countries or Global South countries, such as South and Southeast Asia, Central and South America, and Africa. This paper examines the construction of labor and leisure as forms of experience of the “Great” Outdoors for both ecotourists and local peoples. We argue that ecotourism is a form of colonial/racialized/gendered gaze, in which power imbalances are reflected in people’s experiences of ecotourism as labor and leisure. We use case studies in Indonesia and India, based on our long standing field research in each respective country.