At the end of 2019, COVID-19 spread rapidly around the world to become a global pandemic. Tourism and hospitality sectors were particularly hard hit with a virtual halt to travel, internally and across borders, with constantly changing rules intended to restrict movement and safeguard travelers. Throughout this period, we have tracked reactions by people, health advisors, and politicians worldwide, as infection rates and deaths from the virus rose or fell dramatically.
We explore how travel and tourism have been affected—both leisure and business travel; safeguards introduced to protect people and the planet; and whether this has resulted in permanent change to the way we travel in the future. For many within the industry, it has been an opportunity to review every aspect of global travel and to define a “new normal” for the future.
Keywords
travel; tourism; hospitality; leisure travel; business travel; COVID-19 virus; global pandemic; infection rates and deaths from COVID-19; vaccination programs; lockdowns; essential travel; all travel suspended; the Bucket List; traffic light system for safe destinations; enforced quarantine; future travel restrictions; travel agents; reopening visitor attractions; changing how we make bookings