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.
I NEED
State aid. (August, 2020)
Tourism employee
Slovenia
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
When I decided to enrol into Faculty for Tourism Studies, I did not think a lot about tourism in general, just the facts that I like to travel and work with people were enough. After a few years, I got a job as a tour representative on different destination and a guide as well. What I loved about it the most is that locals, after some time, start treating you as one of their own and not as a simple tourist, which is something that a lot of people are trying to achieve while traveling. (May, 2020)
Student
Slovenia
CHALLENGES
Predicting how things will change (May, 2020)
Researcher, academic
Netherlands
CONCERNS
My biggest concern is how some people handle this whole pandemic. Sorry to say that but I think it is pathetic that there are people out there, who are seriously comparing our situation now with the situation people had to face during the World War two. Our situation nowadays is nothing compared to the situation back then. Now the world has to fight a virus, back then they had to fight man against man. I´m quite sure, that none of us can even imagine how horrible this time was and I´m quite sure that none of us wants to know. If I´m being honest a comparison like this is embarrassing and very disrespectful. (December, 2020)
Student
Austria
IDEAS
The chance to give goods a ninth value. Maybe this is our chance to redefine pricing and for example make flights more expensive, trains cheaper, services more valuable to make the job more attractive, travel as a luxury again and not as a matter of course. (April, 2020)
Student
Germany
I CAN OFFER
I am trying to help old people from our village to go to store for them and get them what they need or help them order things from online store beacause many of them dont know how to do it. (March, 2020)
Student
Slovenia
I NEED
Cheap credit with low or no participation of own money, funding for tourism developement, higher value of 'de minimis' for one company, more help from NTO to promote out destination. (May, 2020)
Tourism business representative
Slovenia
SOLUTIONS
For me the best solution at that time was simply to make the best of it and rethink my lifestyle. I realized how important social contacts are and how little we actually appreciate it. I followed the rules and in the end I can say that I did everything I could to get through the pandemic quickly. (December, 2020)
Student
Austria
EXPLOITATION
Global airlines and hotels holding back payments or only providing credits to customers, yet laying people off, and seeking bailouts. (April, 2020)
Researcher, academic
Canada
OTHER / SPOTTED
I think that the fact tourism is highly affected is not that big of the problem. Yes it’s true that people won’t travel during the epidemic, but when everything is over, people will travel again, they won’t just stop. Maybe this is a great chance for everybody to see how much we all can do to help restore Earth, not just in tourism, but in the whole industry sector. (March, 2020)
