Covid impact

Early 2020, a group of HTH researchers started working with PACE Dimensions on scenarios for the development of the Covid-pandemic, and the potential recovery afterwards. In the first months of 2020, many predictions foresaw a swift, so-called V-shaped recovery, an idea that seemed mainly based on how tourism destinations had recovered from earlier pandemics or disasters, such as SARS or terrorist attacks. However, our scenarios identified multiple uncertainties in the development of the pandemic itself, and its potential ramifications for consumer confidence. As a result, the future of travel and tourism could either be a slow recovery if these variables would play our favourably, but also a more permanent slow down if they would not.

Several students conducted research around the perspective of different companies or subsectors, such as business hotels, MICE or low-cost airlines. Our own scenarios were published in the Journal of Tourism Futures