Indian Tourism Industry and COVID-19: A Sustainable Recovery Framework in a Post-Pandemic Era

Abstract

The COVID-19 outbreak has impacted the global business environment and has resulted in significantly challenging multiple industries across the business spectrum. One of the industries facing severe adverse consequences is the travel and tourism industry. This study aims to assess and assimilate the overall impact posed by this pandemic to the Indian tourism industry and propose a sustainable recovery framework that would provide a guideline to all the Indian tourism industry stakeholders to forge the way forward in the post-pandemic era. The study adopts a narrative literature review-based approach to arrive at a sustainable recovery framework based on the analysis and evaluation of the literature on the proposed topic. The study finds that the Indian tourism industry has been significantly impacted by the ongoing pandemic and has altered the functioning of all the stakeholders in the industry.

Tourism Sustainability and COVID-19 Pandemic: Is There a Positive Side?

“…As a strategy to deal with crises, tourism stakeholders responded with safety and quality management. This was viewed as a crucial element to dilute the sustained impact of the pandemic [8,47]. One of the most significant strategies to sustain tourism during the pandemic was the creation of "travel bubbles".…”

“…As observed by Marome and Shaw [4], the businesses in the service and tourism sector that account for a large proportion of jobs became financially insecure during COVID-19. A robust decline in the demand experienced by the tourism industry during the peak season of 2020 persuaded business organizations to respond through large-scale employee lay-offs [3,8,38,41,42]. With an enormous fall in tourism demand resulting from lockdowns and border closures, the pandemic has affected the well-being of local communities that majorly depended on tourism for their livelihood [15,43].…”

“…The tourism industry's response in terms of safety and quality management is an indispensable element to dilute the sustained impact of the pandemic [8,47]. One of the key efforts to foster safe corridors and sustainable tourism amid COVID-19 was the creation of a "travel bubble", an agreement between two or more neighboring countries to allow citizens to travel amongst themselves without quarantining [48].…”

“…Altogether, the RESPOND framework suggested by Pandey et al [8], i.e., restarting tourism, establishing protocols, stimulating demand, promoting coordination among stakeholders, operationalizing the new normal, nurturing new options, and developing digital solutions, should be adopted to sustainably recover from the economic, socio-cultural, and psychological impacts of the pandemic on various stakeholders. The adoption of the aforesaid practices can help in future crisis preparedness, and can thereby pave the way for a sustainable future for the tourism industry and its multiple stakeholders.…”

“…Unlike any other sector, tourism remained the most devastated sector of the global economy during COVID-19 [3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. The severe impact of the pandemic on all aspects of travel and tourism has exacerbated the already prevailing sustainability challenges [10][11][12].…”