COVID-19 Impact on Indian Food and Hospitality Sector with Specific Reference to Potato Crop

Abstract

Disruption through present pandemic is applicable to almost all the sectors of economy. However, impact of COVID-19 pandemic on Indian food, agribusiness and hospitality industry is largely experienced. Further, it is believed that fluctuations in arrivals and price surge of essential staple vegetables like potato can have severe multifold effects on hospitality sector including restaurants and online food delivery platforms. Keeping the vitality of these issues in mind, in present study we decided to keep potato as a focused commodity to be analyzed since it is the most popular vegetable across the globe. Daily data for potato arrivals and prices was considered for the date range between 1st January 2018 to 16th April 2020 using online mandi data from Agmark (government recognized site for vegetable price and arrivals). Arrivals and trends of price behavior over the coming six months during the pandemic was attempted to measure. Time series ARIMA model was adapted for this purpose. Azadpur mandi being the Asia’s largest mandi was purposively chosen as study area. Forecasting range suggested the stress in potato supply chain for coming 6 months also depicted that fluctuation in both prices and arrivals. This study forecasted that the potato price would increase by 58.7% by October 2020 compared to October 2019 and arrivals would be just 3.11% less compared to last year. Situation assessment through forecasted range can draw attention of policy makers to ensure streamlined chain of supply for essentials and preventing any devastating effects of COVID-19 on food and hospitality sector.

The effect of COVID-19 pandemic on domestic tourism: A DEMATEL method analysis on quarantine decisions

“…Among them are the social costs of tourism during the COVID-19 pandemic ( Qiu et al, 2020 ), the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the tourist’s psyche ( Kock et al, 2020 ), hotel marketing and management ( Jiang and Wen, 2020 ), hospitality workforce ( Baum et al, 2020 ), sustainability in the hospitality industry ( Jones and Comfort, 2020 ), and global tourism industry ( Uğur and Akbıyık, 2020 ). Additionally, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Chinese citizens’ lifestyle and travel ( Wen et al, 2020 ), Indian food and hospitality sector with specific reference to potato crop ( Masih et al, 2020 ), and tourism sector and hotel businesses in Marmaris ( Bayat, 2020 ) has been researched in the literature.…”