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::
How should we IMAGINE tourism now that we have an opportunity to reset the way we do business?
Which CHANGES would you like to see? If any?
What are your CHALLENGES and CONCERNS?
What are your IDEAS and SOLUTIONS to make it through the pandemic AND into a sustainable and innovative future of tourism?
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.
IDEAS
After all this is over I wish there could be some type of travel focused event that involves getting people together to share their COVID-19 experiences and stories so that we can not only return to normal but come out of it as a better people and society collectively. I'm hoping that this will help open peoples eyes about how we need to change as a society and just how far we have truly strayed from our humanity. (March, 2020)
Student
United States
Explore #TourismFromZero perspectives
Different perspectives on the selected topic: ALL
Tourism business representative
Bosnia Herzegovina
Tourist
Singapore
Tourism business representative
Slovakia
#From Instagram
TOURISM MEANS
What I love about traveling is not the destination itself, but the feeling during the trip as well as the people you travel with. Although I visited some destinations several times, each time it was different. Friends, the time spent with them and the anecdotes that remain are what I love the most about every trip. (May, 2020)
Student
Serbia
CHALLENGES
After COVID-19, we will face challenges in rebuilding trust within our markets that it will be safe to travel again. There might also come other travel trends that do not pay our region the attention. Companies will be economically weaker and might not be able to develop their service and competence, and we might loose the momentum we had where companies were eager to work with sustainability. Many companies might drop prices and stop caring about which clients they get, as long as they get clients. This can be challenging for the general quality level of tourism business in our region. Higher unemployment can lead to emigration from our region, with the result that it will be challenging for the local places to attract new people and for companies to find the right competence. There might be less willingness to contribute to development and marketing of tourism from the public government's side, as they might loose faith in tourism. (May, 2020)
Tourism or convention office, event organizer
Norway
CONCERNS
Tourism will change but we don’t for sure know how and people won’t have enough spare income to afford trips and vacations. This will impact my employees and myself for longer than the pandemic and I am not sure how I can safe my employees positions (May, 2020)
Tourism business representative
Germany
IDEAS
Maybe we needed this pandemic to get our eyes opened. My generation, we were all born to see the world in rose-colored glasses. Our parents were able to give us everything we needed, we were allowed to go to school, to have enough to eat and to have many other privileges the generation before us did not have. And the only thing we are concerned about, was not seeing our friends or go partying for a month.
(Everything that is said above reveres to people living in my area) (June, 2020)
Student
Austria
I CAN OFFER
Data on youth travel responses to Covid 19 - now being published with WYSE Travel Confederation. (May, 2020)
Researcher, academic
Netherlands
I NEED
Up to date news in the industry, also some news related to employment/replacement (May, 2020)
Student
United Kingdom
SOLUTIONS
The best solution in my opinion is, that we have to digitize the workflow and learn to handle the e-progress. (December, 2020)
Student
Austria
EXPLOITATION
Some companies, especially in the medical and hygiene sector, have certainly been able to use the pandemic to their advantage. (October, 2020)
Student
Austria
OTHER / SPOTTED
I am really curios about how the Covid-19 pandemic will change our world and our society. I think we can learn a lot of things from the crisis and reorient new. But I am also concerned about how the world will change and which developments are going to happen in the future. I hope people think careful and learn from the crisis. (June, 2020)
