Member-only story
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has assessed that the COVID-19 crisis provides an opportunity to rethink tourism for the future, noting that measures adopted today will shape the tourism of tomorrow.
Governments should thus consider the longer-term implications of the crisis, while capitalizing on digitalization, supporting the low carbon transition, and promoting the structural transformation needed to build a stronger, more sustainable and resilient tourism economy.
The pandemic has highlighted a pressing need to diversify and strengthen the resilience of the tourism economy, prepare for future shocks, address long standing structural weaknesses, and encourage a digital, low-carbon transformation toward stronger, fairer and more sustainable models of tourism development.
Many who work within or study the industry are also calling for a major reset to avoid problems like the negative impacts on the environment and local cultures caused by excessive and unplanned tourism. A reset, they say, should ensure that the industry that emerges on the other side of the pandemic offers greater benefit to local workers, economies and communities.
New trends for a ‘new reality’
The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) has identified four intertwined trends for the industry’s…
