The Post-COVID-19 new normal tourism: Concerns and criteria

Document Type : Original Article

Author

1 Department of Tourism, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Sultan Qaboos University, Oman

2 Department of Tourism, Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, Helwan University, Egypt.

Abstract

COVID-19 is undoubtedly an unprecedented crisis that hit tourism heavily, which resulted in enormous losses on different fronts. To date, tourism stakeholders are uncertain about the duration required for tourism to recover fully. The present calls for a quick resumption of tourism to save the massive investments and the millions of jobs currently at risk are challenged by numerous fears and concerns. However, unlike the uncertainty regarding the recovery duration, there is a noteworthy agreement that pre and post-COVID-19 tourism will be significantly different, as both tourist products and tourists' characteristics will witness evident changes either temporarily or permanently. In this regard, this research aims to investigate the concerns of post-COVID-19 tourism as well as to identify the features of what is now well-known as "the new normal tourism". The research resulted in identifying some of the potential features of "the new normal tourism", such as the length of travel and the potential tourists’ characteristics.

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