Tourism Destination Management in a Post-Pandemic Context

Global Issues and Destination Management Solutions

Vanessa GB Gowreesunkar, Shem Wambugu Maingi, Hiran Roy, Roberto Micera, Vanessa GB Gowreesunkar, Shem Wambugu Maingi, Hiran Roy, Roberto Micera

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781800715134
• Topic: Commerce
• Subtopic: Industrie de l'hôtellerie, du voyage et du tourisme

2020 has left an indelible mark on the history of travel and tourism worldwide leaving tourist destinations with long-term lessons to learn from the impacts of COVID-19. Tourism destinations are looking for new guidelines and original research that offer management solutions to deal with the damage wrought by the pandemic.

Tourism Destination Management in a Post-Pandemic Context gives an enriching insight into the issues and challenges faced by tourism destinations during and after the pandemic, exposing emerging trends and proposing novel management solutions in order to develop coping capacities of destinations and build resilience against the effects of potential future pandemics

Drawing on lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic, this expansive collection presents cases and competency frameworks to advance theoretical and empirical knowledge in the management of destinations post-pandemic.

Part 1:
Destination Management Post Pandemic

Chapter 1

The Recovery Tactics of the Tourism Industry Amid COVID-19 Pandemic Conditions in the Baltic States

Agita Livina, Galina Bukovska, Ilgvars Abols and Gavinolla Mahender Reddy

Abstract

Purpose: The COVID-19 pandemic has created shock and turbulence for the tourism industry in Baltic states such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. To recover from the situation, tourism service providers had to act accordingly to maintain and sustain the tourism sector during and after the pandemic. The objective of the study is to analyse strategies adopted by Baltic states during and post pandemic times to recover the tourism industry.

Design/Methodology/Approach: The qualitative research method is based on survey and expert opinion of stakeholders of tourism in Baltic states. Further authors used content analysis of country and industry statements, articles, video stories, lectures and meetings.

Findings: Conclusion shows that there are several similarities in the recovery tactics of tourism by the government and other stakeholders amid the COVID-19 pandemic which include opening of borders among three countries for travellers, ability to jointly seek a solution for transformation, a common understanding between various tourism service providers. Non-governmental organisations demonstrated their power in influencing political decisions to adopt recovery strategies of tourism.

Originality/Value: This study provides a greater understanding of the state of tourism in Baltic states during the pandemic in general and the role of stakeholders in the process of recovery of tourism. The study provides the basement for continuing deeper research of COVID-19 influence on tourism in the Baltic states.

Keywords: Stakeholders; tourism industry; COVID-19; Baltic states; recovery tactics; transformation

Background

Travel and tourism was always associated with several risks, challenges and significant shocks (Steene, 1999). The COVID-19 pandemic is one such crisis impacting greatly on the world economy including tourism (He, Niu, Sun, & Li, 2020; Lee, Olasehinde-Williams, & Akadiri, 2021). European Union member states including Baltic states have imposed several restrictions including lockdown, due to the communicable nature of the pandemic; unfortunately travel and tourism is one of the major victims of the pandemic (He et al., 2020). Restrictions were put in place, such as cancellation of flights, closing of hotels and tourist destinations and so on (Chang, McAleer, & Ramos, 2020). COVID-19 brought several issues on the labour market such as loss of jobs and challenge of maintaining businesses (Açikgöz & Günay, 2020).

To mitigate these impacts there is a need to adopt necessary strategies to sustain the tourism industry (Lee et al., 2021). In this regard, several governments started to provide economic support packages for their citizens and business entities as well as long-term measures to save jobs (Açikgöz & Günay, 2020). UNWTO called for the governments to act on tourism industry recovery plans to mitigate the issues (UNWTO, 2020). Recently media and government reported several impacts and recovery actions in Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania; however, there has been no systematic study to provide a detailed understanding on the strategies and tactics in the literature yet. Considering the situation, tourism service providers in their respective countries had to act accordingly to maintain and sustain the tourism sector during and after the pandemic.

Aim of the chapter is to analyse strategies adopted by Baltic states during and post pandemic times to recover the tourism industry. Baltic states are chosen as a study as they have beenthriving socially, economically and politically strong countries for the past several years (Woog, 2015), and tourism is one of their important sectors (Druva-Druvaskalne & Līviņa, 2014). For several years Baltic states have lucratively collaborated in promoting and managing tourism (Smith, 2015). These countries are blessed with a long history of rich cultural heritage and natural beauty (Dook, 2019) which are the major resources of tourism. The study approach is based on mixed method using the information obtained from stakeholders of tourism in respective countries and semi-structured interviews with tourist service providers.

The structure of the chapter includes the following: The first part provides theoretical insights on the pandemic and recovery tactics. The second part elucidates on Baltic states as a tourism destination. The third part deals with the methodological approach, followed by discussions and conclusion on recovery tactics and adoptive strategies.

Literature Review

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has been an important topic and serious concern as the world is under a health emergency (Khan, Haleem, & Javaid, 2020). Since the past several months the pandemic has caused significant distress on society and economy across the globe, leading to loss of employment, economic benefits and revenue; the travel and tourism industry has been particularly affected the most (Bashir, Benjiang, & Shahzad, 2020).

The tourism industry is highly sensitive to the turbulent situations, particularly to the COVID-19 pandemic (Chang et al., 2020). Crisis management in the tourism industry is an immediate concern over the economic and financial aspects, and the same has been observed in the events such as 11 September 2001 (Hall, 2010). Several countries have implemented stimulus packages to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic crisis (Bashir et al., 2020). Chang et al. (2020) provided several strategies to transform the tourism sector from crisis to recovery and also lead to an opportunity for sustainable development of tourism by monitoring the demand, ‘prioritizing segments and anticipating changes in tourist behaviour’ and ‘ensuring relationships with a range of distribution companies’; providing the links between potential visitors and destinations.

A study mentioned the importance of adoption of theories of complex adaptive systems for better destination development (Hartman, 2020). Another study revealed that the tourists are more interested to visit agritourism-related activities and were considered as a best choice during the pandemic (Wojcieszak-Zbierska, Jęczmyk, Zawadka, & Uglis, 2020). Sharma and Nicolau (2020) mentioned the need for the concerns in connection with the cruise industry and that there should be assistance to the industry from the government side. Part of the recovery and rebuilding process, it is important to give consideration of the bio-security to the tourists by incorporating automation technologies for the benefit of their safety and health (Ivanov, Webster, Stoilova, & Slobodskoy, 2020). It is also important to adopt a cognitive approach and provide emphasis on shared emotions to build emotional attachment, which stimulates tourist intention to visit (Hang, Aroean, & Chen, 2020).

Intensity and the impact of the pandemic vary from place to place depending on the socio-economic situations of the destination or country (Collivignarelli et al., 2020). It is important to learn and implement the recovery strategies from experience to improve the long-term viability of tourism products, destinations and enterprises (Chen, Huang, & Li, 2020). The COVID-19 crisis is an opportunity for the tourism business to transform the mindset of thinking, target groups for the tourism business and standards for tourism business performance (Sigala, 2020). In this study, we will analyse the experience of transformation from the Baltic states.

Baltic States and Present State of Tourism

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are three independent countries in the North part of Europe located on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, also called as Baltic states. Table 1.1 provides a description of the Baltic states.

Table 1.1. Description of Three Baltic Countries.

Feature of Characteristics	Estonia	Latvia	Lithuania
Population 2020, thousands	1,329.0	1907.7	2,794.1
Area, km^2	45,227	64,589	65,300
Length of coastal areas, km	2,549	498	262
Number of hotels and similar establishments, 2018	418	342	387
Number of beds, thousands, 2018	34.1	26.5	30.9
Net occupancy rate of bedplaces and bedrooms in hotels and similar accommodation, 2019	48	43.3	44
International tourism arrivals, thousands, 2018	3,234.00	1,946.00	2,825.00
Tourism revenue, (USD billion) 2018	2,332.00	1,057.00	1,419.00

Source: Eurostat (2020a & b), The World Bank (2020a, 2020b).

The peak tourism season lasts in all three countries mainly from June to August. Surprisingly it was observed that the number of domestic tourists that visited Estonia increased in the summer of 2020 compared to 2019 (Statistics Estonia, 2020). Unfortunately, Lithuania's residents used tourism accommodation by 52.9% less compared to June 2019 (Official Statistics portal of Lithuania, 2020) and Latvia's residents used 69.2% less in May 2020 compared to May 2019 (CSB, 2020a). In July 2020 there was an increase by 1.9% of Latvia's residents' use of tourism accommodation compared to July 2019 (CSB, 2020b) because of lifting the emergency situation of COVID-19 in July 10, 2020. According to A Gustovskis from Kurzeme Regional tourism association in Latvia, it was a great summer for the tourism industry in Kurzeme as the domestic visitors and also those from neighbouring countries increased.

Baltic states were the first to open their borders and created the so-called ‘Baltic Bubble’. From 15 May 2020 onwards, the residents of Baltic states had the right to travel in Baltic states without restrictions. Statistical data show that there is a significant increase in the number of tourists who visited Latvia, with an average of 60% from Lithuania, Estonia and Finland (CSB, 2020b), compared to the previous year. However, the number of tourists from high-priority markets like Russia and Germany decreased insignificantly in the summer of 2020. Passenger turnover in July 2020 at the Riga International Airport dropped by 77.5%, as compared by the same period in the previous year (CSB, 2020c). Tallinn Airport (Estonia) has dropped 74.1% of passenger turnover in August 2020, as compared by the same period in 2019 (Tallinn Airport, 2020). Three airports are operating in Lithuania: Vilnius Airport, Kaunas Airport and Palanga Airport. During 2019 three air gates in Lithuania served 6.5 million passengers. In August 2020 all three air gates served 34% of the flow of passengers for the same month of 2019 (Vilnius Airport, 2020).

Tallinn is a hub of sea traffic which has a crucial impact on travelling particularly to North European countries such as Finland and Sweden. Total number of passengers in Tallinn Airport has dropped by 58.7% in January to September 2020 as compared by the same period the previous year. Travellers from Latvia are using Tallinn Airport a lot as an opportunity to visit Finland and Sweden. Only 24.6% of Latvian citizenship holders dropped in this year via Tallinn Airport, while 84.6 holders were of Swedish citizenship (Port of Tallinn, 2020). Table 1.2 shows the significant decisions made by the respective governments of Baltic states in connection with tourism.

Table 1.2. Overview of M...