Pandemics, tourism and global change: a rapid assessment of COVID-19

TLDR

COVID‑19, lacking a vaccine and with limited treatment capacity, has forced reliance on nonpharmaceutical interventions and unprecedented travel restrictions, severely disrupting the global economy and especially impacting tourism due to mobility limits and social distancing. The study compares COVID‑19’s impacts to past epidemics and global crises, examines how the pandemic may reshape society, the economy, and tourism, and argues that the pandemic is analogous to the climate crisis, warranting a reevaluation of the UNWTO‑endorsed tourism growth model. The authors conduct a comparative analysis of COVID‑19’s effects against prior epidemics and global crises to assess its potential to alter societal, economic, and tourism dynamics. International travel bans affecting over 90 % of the world population and widespread restrictions on public gatherings and community mobility caused tourism to largely cease in March 2020, with early evidence showing devastating impacts on air travel, cruises, and accommodations, and UNWTO projections indicating a 20–30 % decline in international arrivals relative to 2019.

Abstract

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is challenging the world. With no vaccine and limited medical capacity to treat the disease, nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPI) are the main strategy to contain the pandemic. Unprecedented global travel restrictions and stay-at-home orders are causing the most severe disruption of the global economy since World War II. With international travel bans affecting over 90% of the world population and wide-spread restrictions on public gatherings and community mobility, tourism largely ceased in March 2020. Early evidence on impacts on air travel, cruises, and accommodations have been devastating. While highly uncertain, early projections from UNWTO for 2020 suggest international arrivals could decline by 20 to 30% relative to 2019. Tourism is especially susceptible to measures to counteract pandemics because of restricted mobility and social distancing. The paper compares the impacts of COVID-19 to previous epidemic/pandemics and other types of global crises and explores how the pandemic may change society, the economy, and tourism. It discusses why COVID-19 is an analogue to the ongoing climate crisis, and why there is a need to question the volume growth tourism model advocated by UNWTO, ICAO, CLIA, WTTC and other tourism organizations.