Prof. Dr. Md. Wasiul Islam :
The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a novel virus which causes respiratory illness in humans and can spread from person-to-person. This COVID-19 is a new strain of Coronavirus which was not previously identified in humans. By this time many of us know more or less about the pandemic and its impacts on our daily life and the life to come in near as well as far future.
The COVID-19 has affected almost all the sectors in the world including travel and tourism sector which is considered as one of the biggest industries in the world which contribute more than 10% of world GDP and 10% in job markets along with its multiplier effects. It records over 1.46 billion international tourist arrival considering 3.8% growth in 2019 including over US$ 1.7 trillion revenue from international tourism exports in 2018. The growth of this sector is very promising (avg. 6% over last 10 years) which accounts over 7% of total global exports. Due to its cross-cutting and multiplier economic nature as well as deep social footprints, tourism is uniquely placed in an economy. However, pandemic COVID-19 outbreak has almost crashed this sector almost all over the world.
Tourism industry has seriously been affected by COVID-19 which has led UNWTO to revise its 2020 forecast for international arrivals and receipts. This industry is based on interaction amongst various sectoral people that’s why this industry has been affected worst. The world leaders of different sectors have already started to think seriously regarding the impacts of such pandemic outbreak, how to address these impacts and how to recover these impacts. Though it might be considered to make a recovery plan too early to start as we don’t know the exact extent of the devastating role of this COVID-19. However, it always better to keep our eyes on the current situation and predict the future to start the planning process.
In this regard, the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has strengthened its collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO). These two UN organizations recently met in Geneva, Switzerland to discuss further advancement of a coordinated response to COVID-19. Consequently, UNWTO urges for robust international leadership to fight against the virus. They also call for tourism to be included as a priority sector in future recovery efforts and calls upon the sector and travellers to address this challenge with sound judgment and proportionate measures.
According to a latest forecast, UNWTO estimated global international tourist arrivals could decline between 30-40% down from an estimated growth of 3-4% in 2020 as forecasted in early January 2020.This might incur a loss total of US$ 30-50 billion in spending by international tourists i.e., international tourism receipts. Moreover, global travel and tourism market is forecasted to incur a loss of 75.2 million jobs worldwide in 2020. The region that is predicted to incur the biggest loss from this pandemic is the Asia Pacific region which is predicted to loss around 48.7 million jobs. Of course, this prediction may need to be adjusted further depending on further severity and extent of pandemic COVID-19. Anyway, at present the health issue is the number one priority for all the world leaders and tourism is not out of it.
Tourism is considered as a thrust and potential sector of Bangladesh. The government, private, academic and research institutions are trying hard to develop and promote this sector. COVID-19 has created unprecedented challenges in such efforts like other countries. However, being a developing country and having very less to almost no social safety-net tourism sector of Bangladesh has seriously been affected. According to WTTC (2019), it is assumed that nearly 1.18milliondirectly and another 2.43 million Bangladeshi people are indirectly working in this sector who are affected by such outbreak which has severe socio-cultural, economic, environmental and institutional impacts. Our Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has recognised tourism, hospitality and aviation industry as one of the sectors most affected by the impact of this pandemic. Very recently it has been estimated that already tourism industry of Bangladesh has experienced a loss of BDT 5,700 crore since last January and the amount is likely to expand as tourism is more affected by such COVID outbreak.
According to a study (Knoema and The World Bank), travel and tourism sector generates the highest number of employment (944 jobs per 100 tourists) in Bangladesh than any other countries in the world. The direct contribution of this sector to employment was 1,180.5 thousand persons (2.2% of total GDP with 4.42% average growth since 1999). However, all types of (inbound, outbound and domestic) tourism have been seriously affected in Bangladesh amidst such pandemic. This caused complete loss of part-time and casual jobs due to so called ‘lockdown’ situation of the country. The inbound tour operators had to cancel their planned trips as well as the outbound tour operators which caused severe loss for these small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Such loss is yet to be calculated. It is predicted that the pandemic will have a significant legacy effects on this sector for up-coming several tourism seasons due to up-coming global financial recession.
These SMEs which consist of approximately 80% of the world tourism sector are envisaged to be predominantly affected by such pandemic COVID-19 outbreak. This outbreak might affect millions of livelihoods across the globe including significant number of vulnerable communities who are dependent on tourism as their source of livelihood.
Though the country’s focus currently is rightly on fighting against the health crisis and mitigating its immediate impacts, planning on how to resume the economy should start right now. Considering the above circumstances, it warrants to develop, plan and implement crisis management systems for tourism sector particularly focusing on COVID-19 to reduce the negative impacts due to its pandemic outbreak and assist in recovering from these crises. The activities and projects should be guided by the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism.
In this regard, an integrated, functional and participative ‘Tourism Recovery Plan’ (a strategic document that describes how an organization can quickly respond effectively if an incident or crisis affects a business aiming to shorten the recovery time and minimise losses) warrants to be prepared where the following recommendations may be considered:
o Tourism needs to be a part of national recovery plans due to pandemic COVID-19 outbreak.
o The of loss in travel and tourism sector is essential to assess in order to prepare a priority list of necessary actions with required time frame to make the recovery plan realistic.
l The percentage of this sector in GDP loss of Bangladesh should be calculated to understand the situation better.
l Understanding the potential contributions and ability (economic growth, creating jobs and transforming lives, social harmony, cultural development, environmental amelioration, empowerment, etc.) of tourism to recover from such crisis should be recognized before preparing this tourism recovery plan.
l Lifting travel restrictions to Bangladesh as soon as the health emergency allows, promoting visa facilitation (allowing more on-arrival visas for the tourists), enhancing marketing, consumer confidence and their satisfaction in order to speed up the recovery process.
l Research-based solutions for safeguarding Bangladesh’s tourism economy during future pandemics and other crises need to be provided to the policy makers to take decisive actions.
l Empirical research needs to be undertaken to assess the economic damage (due to the pandemic) to the local communities who are dependent on tourism for their livelihood.
l Tourism demand and supply should be assessed in a realistic manner. Actions should be taken to fulfil the predicted gap between tourism demand and supply.
l Poverty is likely to be increased where tourism and remittances play an important role. It is also a sturdy reminder of the interconnectedness of the world and the importance of global cooperation to end this COVID-19 crisis and to be better prepared for the future crises.
l Needs more quality job opportunities for the young, energetic, challenging and enthusiastic university graduates to make tourism sector more attractive and competitive.
l Women should be more encouraged to this sector to facilitate their empowerment opportunities.
l This sector needs to be more dynamic and supported by modern ICT facilities.
l A good and healthy working climate in tourism sector should be ensured.
l The recovery plan should address the issues of sustainability to advance and promote tourism sector.
l More emphasis to be given on the sector’s contribution to the ‘Sustainable Development Goal’ agendas and to construct resilience learning from the lessons of the current crisis.
l Recoverymeasures and incentives to be planned and implemented in strong coordination between and among the national, international, donor, research and other relevant organizations.
l Guidance and support for recovery measures among the public, private and other concerned tourism stakeholders are required.
l Needs adequate financial and political support and recognition for recovery measures targeting the affected stakeholders of tourism sector.
l Should lead the wider economic and social recovery plan.
l Taxbreaks for tourism-based businesses, reducing the cost of electricity, natural gas, cutting interest rates, providing grants to the seasonal/casual workers.
l Tourism development needs a human capital base that is: abundant, highly qualified, highly motivated, able to gain the economic benefits from tourism.
l Provide more human resource (both soft and hard skills) development facilities for the people working in tourism sector to make them more competent to serve the best to their guests to maximize their income.
l Should include tourism resilience plan to assist tour operators, travel agents and local tourism entrepreneurs to assess and mitigate risks related to tourism.
l COVID-19 outbreak has created some opportunities for us which should also be explored and plan accordingly under this recovery plan.
l According to UNWTO (2020), travel and tourism sector has highest growth in the emerging economies (6.1%) which are much higher than developed economies (1.9%). Being an emerging economy member country, Bangladesh has immense potentials for tourism development which needs judicious and integrated tourism planning to implement.
l Tourism sector of Bangladesh is basically based on domestic tourists. However, there are immense potentials of inviting international tourists who are fond of Bangladeshi history, culture, hospitality and natural beauty. Tourism products and services should especially be planned to target these international tourists which can foster our socio-economic condition.
l Needs to take proper actions to make the tourist destinations attractive, safe for both domestic and international tourists, excellent hospitality and tourism services, comfortable and enjoyable accommodation, safe and hygiene foods and drinks.
l Bangladeshi people are generally not environmental and health consciousness. Even the educated persons are lack of such consciousness and education. Tourism can play an important role by its virtues to build such environmental and health consciousness and education.
l The experiences of such recovery plan of other countries need to be availed to enrich our plan.
l Needs a predefined monitoring and evaluation process (with the checklist) and cell to assess the post COVID-19 tourism recovery strategies and their implementations i.e., their impacts (both positive and negative), lessons and learning from these implementations, and prepare revised recovery plan.
(Dr. Md. Wasiul Islam, Professor, Forestry and Wood Technology Discipline, Khulna University; e-mail: [email protected])
