By Christiana Ioannou
The Coronavirus pandemic has not only claimed lives worldwide, but also, it has seized businesses across the globe, holding them ransom.
After the coronavirus was declared a pandemic in March 2020, many businesses consequently folded in as a result of the announcement of the lockdown. The first industry that got it worse is tourism and parks.
If you’re a wanderlust, you would know how much great companies that run these businesses make considering how many other tourists centers that you visit each month or year and how much you’re charged for such visits. Since the pandemic spreads like wildfire when people are so gathered together, the tourism businesses were the first to be struck by the mighty, devastating blow of the pandemic.
Aviation industries had to close as many countries banned and still ban travellers from coming in. While several businesses could move from on-site work to remote, the aviation industry first has to comply with the principles of the government of concerned country pertaining to tourism and also have to close, because they cannot work from home. Well, the only possibility is probably when teleportation is actualized, which is likely not going to be so soon.
Consequently, many of these businesses cut down the salaries of their workers, while a number of them laid off the workers. These are actually attempts to stay afloat and survive the damaging impacts of the pandemic, but it in turn affects many of the laid off workers and families.
According to SelectUSUA.gov, the travel and tourism industry generated over $1.6 for the US economy in 2017. And across the nation, the industry offered over 7.8 million people employment opportunities in the same year.
Fast forward to 2020, there was 42 percent decline in the travel industry in 2020 compared to what was generated in 2019. This was not only caused by restrictions imposed on people who travel for vacation, it also affects people who travel for business purposes.
China, which is the world’s most populous country, also suffered a worse fate from the pandemic. According to Statista, the China had 62 percent revenue from tourism in the first half of 2020, but by the second half of the pandemic when things started getting hard,
In the same year, flights from the United Kingdom were banned by many countries across Europe, America, and even in Africa. And earlier this year, the new strain of the virus forced many countries to restrict flights from the United Kingdom. Also, the authority of the country as forced to announce a lockdown.
This implies that as it is in both China and America, the United Kingdom tourism is not safe from the scorching scourge of the pandemic. If we flip data open, we realize how much the tourist business sector has suffered.
BBC NEWS once reported that as at August 2020, it was reported that the “UK could lose £60m a day as tourism slumps.” With all these, it’s can hardly been doubted that even people’s visit to TripAdvisor would automatically reduce because there’s no way that people who are on a lockdown would be travelling considering travel.
In conclusion the coronavirus pandemic has had adverse effects on the travel and tourism business factors across the world. The major contributing factor for this is the lockdown. Since government officials had realized that the pandemic is more spread where people are gathered, they imposed a lockdown on citizens and prevented influx of foreigners. These steps are projected as efforts to curbing the spread of the virus. However, they are also very telling when the slump of the travel and tourism industry business becomes a topic to discuss.