Starting from Wuhan, China at the end of 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic has now been entered to the end of its second year. This disaster has apparently paralyzed the tourism sector. The movement of global tourists has been decreased very drastically to reach 78% or 1.1 billion (Inventure, 2020) due to the lockdown policy in tourism destinations. UNWTO estimates between US$ 910 to US$ 1,200 billion in losses to the tourism industry from the cessation of global tourist travel. International flights stopped and are followed by the interruption of the activities of related sectors in tourism destinations. In addition, it is predicted that between 100 and 120 million jobs are at risk of being lost or at least vulnerable to risk. More specifically, women workers who are the largest segment of workers in the tourism sector are at risk of losing their livelihoods.
International institutions have responded to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. For instance, UNWTO offers a road map that may be more rational for destination countries, namely: a) mitigating socio-economic impacts on livelihoods, especially women’s work and economic security; b) increasing competitiveness and resilience, including through economic diversification, by promoting domestic and regional tourism where possible, and facilitating a conducive business environment for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs); c) encouragement for innovation and digital transformation of tourism, including the promotion of innovation and investment in digital skills, especially for workers who are temporarily out of work and for job seekers; d) encouragement for sustainable development of green tourism that is resilient, competitive, resource efficient, and carbon neutral; e) coordination and partnerships to restart and transform the sector towards achieving the SDGs, ensuring tourism recovery and easing travel restrictions in a responsible manner. However, the implementation of these directives is not easy for every country, which has different levels of impact and community conditions.
Through this international conference, it is very important to identify the concept of transformation as well as anticipate the expected practice according to the tourism trend of the new normal era. More specifically, this conference includes discussion of post-pandemic tourism in three different levels, namely: macro level, with regard to state regulations and policies on tourism; meso level, related to governance, development direction and tourism management practices; micro level, related to changes in tourist behavior in traveling.
Post-pandemic is predicted to create a very strong disruption in the tourism industry. One of them is that the price of travel is getting more expensive than before, because the entire product chain must adapt to the New Normal. Significant increase in investment is a must in every tourism product chain. Aviation or rail transportation modes, for example, must adapt to the need for physical distance between passengers, so that passenger capacity will be reduced even though production costs remain constant, and even increase. The design of the passenger cabin itself needs to be rearranged. CHSE facilities should be added. All of them require additional costs that are not small. The effect of these additions will be charged to users or tourists. In short, post-defense demands have an impact on increasing tourist travel fares.
From the demand side, this is certainly one of the constraints to increasing travel volume. In addition to demanding high quality and guarantees on CHSE during pre-, during, and post-travel, tourists will be more selective or limit the frequency of trips. In addition, the long-term economic impact of the pandemic (unemployment and a decrease in household income) has resulted in both saving and buying potential tourists tend to be eroded in the relatively long term. The combination of the two is predicted to color the development of tourism in the post-pandemic.
There are big questions remain: are there strategic and creative actions taken to ensure the sustainability of tourism in the New Normal period. Questions can be specific to the following: a) what specific governance needs to be done by businesses to adapt to tourism in the post-disaster period; b) what new trends will emerge in the future development of tourism; c) the design of new products, markets and institutions that need to be created to open up new tourism opportunities in the post-demic period; and d) how will the tourist market construct future travel needs and styles? This question will be able to direct stakeholders to make the right tourism design in the post-demic period.