Lessons from COVID-19 can prepare global tourism for the economic transformation needed to combat climate change

TLDR

The COVID‑19 pandemic halted international travel, and its recovery will overlap with climate‑crisis efforts, requiring tourism to move beyond pre‑pandemic models toward carbon‑neutral strategies informed by pandemic lessons. The study proposes that applying pandemic‑era mitigation tactics alongside a circular economy can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prevent a looming environmental disaster. The findings show that pandemic‑era strategies such as flattening the curve can guide a shift toward a carbon‑neutral economy, offering tourism a chance to move from high resource consumption to an environmentally friendly, resource‑neutral model.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic led to the cessation of almost all international travel in the first half of 2020. A return to pre-pandemic growth patterns will take time and depend on the depth and extent of the recession sparked by COVID-19. The recovery phase will overlap with global efforts to deal with the evolving climate crisis. For the tourism industry to thrive in a future world it must look beyond the temptation of adopting strategies based on a return to the pre-COVID-19 normal of the past and instead seek to understand how it should respond to the emerging transformation of the global economy to carbon neutrality. Many of the lessons that emerged from the pandemic can be applied to strategies to deal with climate change. Of most interest is the success of strategies such as "flattening the curve". Application of similar strategies plus adoption of the circular economy model to wind back Green House Gas emissions will help avert the global environmental disaster that will occur if global temperatures continue to increase. These strategies point to what a future carbon-neutral economic production system might look like, the path to which could offer the tourism industry numerous opportunities to transform from the current model that favours a high resource consumption model to one that is environmentally friendly and resource neutral.