Peak holiday season is gone due to COVID-19, tourism industry struggles 

The traditional summer vacation — the longest holiday period for many because of the academic calendar in India — has been thrown out of gear and the industry is at a loss over how to mitigate the crisis.

In addition, India’s top-performing foreign source markets for tourism — the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, China, Japan, Singapore, Russia, Italy, and Spain — have been severely impacted by COVID-19 and people from there are unlikely to travel before the next financial year. With reduced connectivity and stringent travel restrictions likely for the rest of year, things are unlikely to pick up, the federation says. It has appealed to Chief Ministers to come up with State-specific packages, apart from waivers in utility charges, GST and other cess.

Matter of safety

Another question is how many people will be willing to travel once the lockdown ends. “People will not make investments now, no matter how lucrative. The thing with a pandemic is that nobody has the answers right now, not until a vaccine is found. But not everyone is going to stay locked down till next year either. Some people who are frustrated will want to travel,” he said.

The sector expects major shifts when this happens, including a preference for domestic and short-distance travel. In addition, the industry is expecting ventures to market themselves as being “COVID-19 safe”, providing atmosphere for social distancing and high priority to hygiene.

Source – The Hindu