TOURISM MEANS

Tourism for me means to travel and see new places in the first place. Whether I’m only visiting a nice village or a city in Austria for a couple of days or take a trip around the world for a longer time, tourism is a way to explore. The other big part of tourism is to get to know new people, new cultures and explore different styles of living. Since I myself am a huge fan of travelling and experience as much as possible, tourism is a key thing in my life and hopefully will never get lost in those times. (October, 2020)

Student

Austria

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

A new wave of infections, new restrictions on movement and travel. I'm worried about the collapse of the agency, the loss of the job. (August, 2020)

Tourism employee

Slovenia

IDEAS

All my writing at the moment is exploring how we respond. This was my previous article: https://news.wtm.com/a-future-template-for-resilience-how-we-can-repurpose-tourism-and-champion-local-areas/

My next one, published later this week, looks at how we maintain solidarity during the challenging times ahead. It will also be on WTM's website. (April, 2020)

Inventor, consultant

France

I CAN OFFER

Insights & experience on Asian countries (May, 2020)

Tourist

Singapore

I NEED

More measures by the state to encourage and support tourism activity. (July, 2020)

Tourism employee

Slovenia

SOLUTIONS

Off the topic more personalized school system would drastically develop our country in a decade. For sure there would be more tourism and sustainability experts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqTTojTija8 (April, 2020)

Student

Slovenia

EXPLOITATION

The media partly exploit the situation of the pandemic to get attention and generate sales. However, the media is not aware, or perhaps unfortunately they are - even sadder that this hype in the media - can make the population sick. (October, 2020)

Student

Austria

OTHER / SPOTTED

It's been about 30 years since I started this job. I have experienced the collapse of the Internet bubble, the Lehman shock, the Great East Japan Earthquake, and so on. Marketing techniques such as sales measures, cost control, and attracting customers during these times are the know-how of tourism that cannot be learned in normal times. (June, 2020)

Researcher, academic

Japan