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The 2020 pandemic and previous years’ overtourism issues showed us both the benefits, the relevance, and the limits of the tourism, hospitality and leisure industries for society. We cannot foresee the future, but we can listen to challenges and start developing solutions.
So far we have received more than 900 responses in which these questions have been discussed::
In the name of the global tourism family, many thanks to every single one of you for the inspiring feedback. Your replies are summarized in the sections below.
Don't forget to share YOUR insights (for the first time or again, with new observations):
The 10 quotes below are updated every few minutes and elephant word-clouds are recalculated regularly based on your new survey entries. You have to refresh the page or revisit us every so often to see the changed content.
Freedom, openness, tolerance, globalization, (May, 2020)
Tourism for me means travelling to foreign or well-know places, where I can relax and unwind to forget the everyday life. (October, 2020)
Due to limitations resulting from the spread of the coronavirus, we made only two trips this year. We had to postpone other trips to next year. Part of the employees are still at home waiting for work. (August, 2020)
My concern is that a lot of tourism employees will be left out and forgotten for some time. But on the other hand, my concern is that after quarantine people will rush to all places possible and again fill all the carrying capacities of destinations. (April, 2020)
1) Get connected - even with "enemies" - in your destination. The weakest determines the faith of all players of a destination in a pandemic situation.
2) Get digital - digitalization helps to make tourism resilient.
3) Get human - do not focus on profit, focus on customers.
4) Create experiences instead of money traps. (May, 2020)
humor (April, 2020)
Information. Lots of information. We need to know what we can do to improve the situation and to help other people. (June, 2020)
I am from a small town in Virginia/Tennessee and one of my favorite restaurants has impressed the community throughout this pandemic. They are an upscale restaurant offering foods from sushi and stir fry to burgers and tacos. Tuesday nights are half price sushi nights- the community's favorite. While the dining area has been closed, they are still offering their deals on their respective nights. By offering their special on delivery and to-go orders, they received as much business as a normal day. To my benefit, once they were overwhelmed with the number of orders in the afternoon, they honored the deal prices the next day to those they couldn't accommodate on Tuesday. They even offered their Tuesday deal on Sundays, as they saw the huge success of it. They have even began to sell gallons of beer and margaritas, pints and quarts of their soups, etc. Things that they don't normally do. The greatest help to the community has been the restaurants ability to buy things such as toilet paper, paper towels, sugar, flour, etc. in bulk and sell at a breakeven price to customers. These are things that are sold out in grocery stores and are in high demand. They are able to take advantage of their suppliers and help get the community what they need, even without the desire to make a profit off of it. I know that there are many customers and community members that are impressed with the way the restaurant is handling this crisis and are thankful for their efforts! (March, 2020)
There have been cases I heard of where companies would apply for financial support from the government, even though they where not entitled to get it and had no real need for it. (June, 2020)
I support the initiative, but I am afraid we cannot save tourism until the virus spreads. (August, 2020)