How are tourism businesses adapting to COVID-19? Perspectives from the fright tourism industry

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has seriously impacted the global tourism industry, effecting the livelihoods of millions of tourism workers and disrupting host communities. Current research in tourism management has focused on understanding the economic, social and political impacts of the pandemic. This professional perspective aims to examine operational adaptations that businesses in the fright tourism industry have adopted under the COVID-19 pandemic circumstances. The study collated industry association press releases, undertaking content analysis to examine the changes businesses employed to adapt during the pandemic. Findings suggest that businesses made a variety of operational changes, such as changing queueing, diversification of props and changes to make-up hygiene, allowing these businesses to survive pandemic imperatives.

The trinomial health, safety and happiness promote rural tourism

“…The academic interest in studying these elements lies in two fundamental aspects. The first is that both dimensions are highly relevant in the decision-making process of tourists when choosing which establishment to stay in during their holidays [ 122 , 123 ]. Secondly, both attributes significantly improve the satisfaction of both internal and external customers [ 124 ].…”

Resilient business strategies in the German hospitality industry and its viability

“…For these reasons, alternative business strategies were and are necessary to stay in business. Frequently cited business strategies of the hospitality industry during the COVID-19 pandemic were hygienic measures, the use of new communication technologies and close relationships with external stakeholders (Gkoumas, 2022;Kahveci, 2022;Le & Phi, 2021;Schwaiger, Zehrer & Braun, 2022;Weidmann, Filep & Lovelock, 2023). Furthermore, managers implemented marketing strategies via social media or adopted apps and self-service technologies (Hemmington & Neill, 2022;Kuckertz et al, 2020;Madeira et al, 2021;Schwaiger et al, 2022;Wut, Xu & Wong, 2021).…”

Contemporary sustainability themes in tourism and hospitality during and post COVID‐19: Critical review and a step strategies forward for post the pandemic

“…Some of the notable research works include ‘significance of resilience for the tourism industry in the context of COVID‐19 (Altshuler & Schmidt, 2021)’, ‘destination resilience and innovation for advanced sustainable tourism management (Della Corte et al, 2021)’, ‘resilience and transformation of community‐based tourism in Brunei Darussalam (Noorashid & Chin, 2021)’, ‘COVID‐19 and tourism resilience (Prayag, 2020)’, ‘a resilience‐based framework for reviving tourism industry post‐COVID‐19 (Sharma et al, 2021)’, ‘small hospitality enterprises’ resilience and sustainable tourism development (Sobaih et al, 2021)’, ‘how are tourism businesses adapting to COVID‐19? perspectives from the fright tourism industry (Weidmann et al, 2022)’, and ‘building resilience in the eco‐tourism sector (Soliku et al, 2021)’. After going through these and related studies, we suggest that prospective researchers explore how various aspects of resilience, namely, destination resilience, community resilience, and organizational resilience, may exert a positive influence on the sustainability of the tourism and hospitality sector in a post‐COVID scenario.…”

“…The collaborative efforts of industry, academia, and government need to formulate more resilient policies and social protection systems that promulgate the culture of investing in education, skills training, and healthcare to bolster the basic foundations of sustainability. Weidmann et al (2022) noted that tourism and hospitality enterprises adapted their operations, and these adaptations ranged from modification of cancelation policies to staff rotation, staff reduction, staff furloughing, price reduction, product diversification, and suspension of operations. Among different strategies, their innovative adaptations to the queuing process and experience design elements (incorporation of plexiglass partitions at touchpoints, using better sound instruments, offering fewer touch points and confined premises, necessitating personal protective equipment, etc.)…”