**Abstract**

The rapid spread of Covid-19 has had far-reaching consequences for people's daily lives in almost all parts of the world. Furthermore, it creates a negative impact on trade and economic activities, which further has spillover social problems, including unemployment and poverty. Moreover, in the tourism sector, millions of people lost their jobs, and hundreds of airlines are nearly bankrupt. This chapter is intended to investigate the link between the outbreak of Covid-19 and its effect on the tourism sector. The discussion reveals that due to the Covid-19, tourism sector declined sharply, but it provides an opportunity to transform our polluted world into a green one, which will have a significant and positive impact on global tourism in upcoming years. Finally, the chapter provides practical implications and recommendations, which will help policymakers to formulate an eco-friendly mechanism in the tourism sector.

**Keywords:** tourism industry, Covid-19, environmental sustainability, post-Covid-19 world

### **1. Introduction**

If we look at history and especially last century, there were some remarkable incidence happened which leave every lasting impact on our daily life. Moreover, these incidence changes our overall behaviors, as well. Among these incidents was an era of the First and Second World War, then the cold war and 9/11. However, the invention of recent technologies such as mobile phone communication, artificial intelligence, and the internet of things profound effect on our daily life. Besides all wars and inventions, the ongoing pandemic crises of Covid-19 will have permanent and everlasting impacts on our lives, even if we can control it immediately. In terms of economy, due to pandemic crises of Covid-19, IMF predicts that the world economy would contract with 3%; however, the revised estimated figure for the contraction of the global economy is 4.9 to 5.5% in 2020. One of the critical factors, which decline rapidly due to Covid-19, is the tourism sector.

According to the estimate, the international labor organization tourism sector created approximately 330 million jobs worldwide, and it is 10.3% of the total global employment. The tourism sector creates jobs; promote local economic development

and culture. In terms of career, it contributes to direct and indirect jobs for young people and women. Globally, tourism is an essential source of employment. There are some distinctive characteristics of the labor market. In general tourism industry is labor-intensive. Furthermore, approximately 54% of posts are taken by the tourism sector by the woman and young people, which makes the industry inclusive.

The expected loss for 2020 in the tourism sector can be estimated by analyzing the figure of the previous year, as in 2018, approximately 1407 million international tourist arrivals were recorded, which generate total tourist receipts amount 1480 billion dollars. Similarly, the tourism sector also provides a significant amount of indirect employment, such as in construction and infrastructure development, and even a long chain of the supply chain of food and drinks is also associated with this sector. Many staff in the tourism offices, airlines, aircraft, hotels, restaurants, shopping centers, and various tourist attractions often has direct interaction with visitors. Below give **Figure 1** indicate, inbound tourist expenditure recorded in 2018 by top tourist destination in the world.

It is not the first time where the world is experiencing a pandemic outbreak. In the past 20 years, the earth had also experienced two regional pandemic crises, SARS 2004 and Ebola 2014. Both pandemic disasters did not affect the airline and especially the tourism industry. However, due to the Tsunami 2004, the tourism sector of Far East Asian countries. The 9/11 incident did not account for the massive decline in the airline industry. Give below **Figure 2** present, these incidences and overall flight operations.

In the European Union, it is expected that 13 billion people might lose their job due to Covid-19, and in terms of revenue, it is approximately 12 billion per year.

**Figure 1.**

*Inbound tourism expenditure of 2018 by top tourist destinations. Source: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.*

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of Europe.

**Figure 2.**

*Opportunities and Obstacles in the Global Tourism Industry: A Story of Post-Covid-19*

The key drivers of the tourism industry in Europe are the local festivals, trade fairs, sports events, and concerts. Therefore due to Covid-19 in many tourist places, hotels, restaurants, bars, and theme parks already closed. Similarly, sports events like the Euro 2020 football championship already postpone until 2021. Likewise, on the other hand, at the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak, many tourists faced difficulty with returning home due to the border controls in massive countries

The primarily purpose of this chapter is to explore the nexus between the impact of Covid-19 and tourism. Furthermore, this chapter explains the overall impact of

Tourism also has an indirect economic effect, in addition to incoming tourism expenditures. Tourism employs workers, ports, and airports as well as a wide variety of intermediate inputs, including financial services, education, food and alcohol, and domestic transport. According to IATA estimation, as compared to April 2019, 80% fewer flights were recorded in 2020 due to the Covid-19 outbreak. In terms of numeric values, the estimated monetary loss recorded in the airline industry is 84.3 billion and 2020. Furthermore, according to IATA estimation, regular international flight schedules will start working until 2023–2024, whereas

In terms of survivor crises of the Covid-19 outbreak, three kinds of potential threats have been indicated by 2020, the United Nations Conference on Trade and

According to the above table, each scenario indicates the annual tourism expenditure is reduced as productivity shock. Similarly, on the other hand, the social effect on the output of the other products and sectors also hit massively in each of the scenarios explained in the table, such as food, drink, logistics, and construction. However, in the case of a moderate scenario, for four-month, the global economy reduced by 1.2 trillion US dollars. Intermediate for eight-month it reduces 2.2 trillion US dollars. In the last, in case of a dramatic scenario, the world would experience a loss of 3.3 trillion US dollars in terms of GDP (2020, United Nations

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.93683*

tourism and lockdown on pollution as well.

*Impact of major crises on the global tourism. Source: Gössling et al. [1].*

domestic flights will soon be restored.

Conference on Trade and Development).

Development. These scenarios are listed below in **Figure 3**.

**2. Covid-19 and tourism**

*Opportunities and Obstacles in the Global Tourism Industry: A Story of Post-Covid-19 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.93683*

**Figure 2.** *Impact of major crises on the global tourism. Source: Gössling et al. [1].*

The key drivers of the tourism industry in Europe are the local festivals, trade fairs, sports events, and concerts. Therefore due to Covid-19 in many tourist places, hotels, restaurants, bars, and theme parks already closed. Similarly, sports events like the Euro 2020 football championship already postpone until 2021. Likewise, on the other hand, at the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak, many tourists faced difficulty with returning home due to the border controls in massive countries of Europe.

The primarily purpose of this chapter is to explore the nexus between the impact of Covid-19 and tourism. Furthermore, this chapter explains the overall impact of tourism and lockdown on pollution as well.
