COVID-19 Impact on Travel and Tourism

Abstract

The travel and tourism industry has emerged as one of the largest and fastest-growing industries worldwide in terms of economy. The contribution of the travel and tourism sector is significant in the overall gross domestic production of the country. It helps the country to raise the foreign exchange, generates employment, and improves the infrastructure of the country. It offers a better living standard for local people and helps in the social-cultural exchange of the country. The government is continuously making policies, emending policy, regulations for the sustainable development and maintenance of the travel and tourism sector in the country. This sector is adversely affected in the past year due to COVID-19 pandemic. The current COVID-19 has emerged as a highly infectious disease. The virus was first reported in Wuhan city of china and spread throughout the world in less than 3 months and was declared as a global pandemic by the world health organization (WHO). It has seriously affected all industries and become a global threat to small and medium-sized countries. This pandemic has a major impact on the Indian travel and tourism industry. The industries in different sectors of the economy are expecting 38 million jobs lost. There is a decline of 68% in the occupancy of rooms in hotels by the end of March 2020. The restaurant industry is expected of 50% drop in the customer. It is expected that 50% of the restaurant were closed and the Indian association of operators estimated a total of 85 billion loss in travel and tourism due to travel restrictions. The aviation industry also predicted a 27000 Crore loss in the year 2020-2021. The international and the domestic sector boundaries were closed in 2020 due to which travel and tourism came to halt. Also, this study examines the implications for the sustainability and setting of the travel and tourism industry in India