The pandemic coronavirus COVID-19 is the greatest challenge we have faced since World War Two.

Since its emergence in Asia late last year, the virus has spread to every continent in the world except
Antarctica.

But this pandemic is much more than a health crisis, it's also an unprecedent socio-economic crisis.
Troubling every one of the countries it touches, it has the potential to create devastating social,
economic and political effects that will leave deep and longstanding scars.

Coronavirus, now globally carrying the status of a pandemic, has led to a worldwide crisis with its effects
on the hospitality industry. The hospitality industry has never experienced this sudden downturn.
Putting the human at the center of the situation, the virus generates deep fear, confusion, and impacts
us in a deeply emotional way that this generation has never felt. Of course, on top of this, physical
confinement is aggravating the situation.

The effect of COVID-19 on hospitality industry can be observed in all the regions including North
America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Rest of the World. Many hotels had reported a sudden increase in
cancellations for both individual reservations and group events. Additionally, since the origin of the
COVID-19 outbreak, many cities in the Asia Pacific are on complete lockdown, which is in turn restricting
the growth of the hospitality industry.

On a business level, the impacts of the crisis have reached every industry in the world, with the travel
and tourism taking a massive hit. The travel restrictions on international flights have caused the global
airline industry billions of losses. Many hotels find themselves empty and looking to fill the once full
lobbies and rooms. Nevertheless, the grave situation has given space for worldwide solidarity with many
hotels around the world providing accomodations for medical staff, first responders, or hospital patients
not suffering from coronavirus not only the Hotels provide their services but also the food service teams
and chefs worldwide are mobilized in order to arrange free meals to the medical staff while putting
themselves at risk in order to battle the crisis.

Governments also plays a huge role in saving the hospitality industry. Government in some countries
have promised aid tallying millions towards rescuing all types of local businesses hit by the Coronavirus.

Entities such as bed & breakfast, hostels, pubs & clubs, cafés, restaurants, bistros and beach bars to
name a few, shall be heavily affected by the change in the supply chain, the lesser demand, some of
them might partially or even fully shut down until the recovery can take place.

The hospitality industry will have to learn to function in a way not seen before because of these heavy
impacts. Regaining customer confidence will be the first step in overcoming the crisis, as the relationship
between each brand and consumer starts by building trust. Strict sanitary and hygiene measures shall be
applied, with new practices put in place to monitor and control the environment in which the business
takes place.

As in all crisis situations, to reassure them of the safety in their decision to start travelling again, the
communication should take the lead role in reaching out to the customers in a gentle and non-
aggressive manner. The business should promoting in a positive manner, showing the benefit to the
customer and providing the travelers with a light at the end of the tunnel. The players of the industry
should consider how to emotionally and sensitively receive the travelers once confined in their homes
after the lockdown is lifted.

Due to the heavy worldwide impacts of COVID-19, the humanity shall walk into a new era of a post-crisis
world which would require the players of the industry to improve their approach towards the new
traveler which will allow for new concepts to be developed aiming to benefit the society in need of
emotional retreats and focusing on psychological wellbeing.

According to UNWTO 2020, due to the pandemic, the world’s economy was shut down almost
overnight. The pandemic has put the hospitality industry with a new challenge. Strategies to stabilize the
COVID-19 curve such as community lockdowns, social distancing, stay-at-home orders, travel and
mobility restrictions have resulted in temporary closure of many hospitality businesses and greatly
decreased the demand for businesses that were allowed to continue to operate. The restaurants were
asked to limit their operations to only take-outs. Restrictions placed on travel and stay-at-home orders
issued by the authorities led to sharp decline in hotel occupancies and revenues. However, the
reopening process has slowly begun and authorities have started to ease restrictions, for example, allow
dine-in restaurants to reopen at a reduced capacity with strict social distancing guidelines, and gradually
reduce restrictions on domestic and international travel.

As of now the hospitality industry is slowly recovering, the COVID-19 crisis continues to exert profound
impacts on how hospitality businesses operate. Hospitality businesses are expected to make necessary
changes to their operations in the COVID-19 business environment to ensure employees’ and
customers’ health and safety, and enhance customers’ willingness to patronize their business.

The Hospitality industry on the employer level is also challenged due to this Covid-19 pandemic. With
the new approach to remote working, businesses shall have to adapt to the emerging trends in the work
practices. The employee wellbeing should be put even higher in the priority list and the efficiency of
current work models will have to be reevaluated. With the long-term confinement starting to show
effects on people, "permanxiety" — the near-constant state of anxiety travelers experience due to
geopolitical events, climate change and other local issues - will have to be taken into account when
asking staff to get back to traveling to the countries recently recovered and previously considered as
high risk.

As much as the travelers depend on the hospitality industry to be understanding, the businesses are also
in need for the right decisions made by the public. Agreement from both parties should be cleared that
the world travel should be rescheduled and not cancelled. Companies and the consumers should be
mutually sensitive and respectful.

In conclusion, it is noticable that COVID-19 has left a big void in the hospitality and tourism industry that
will be filled in due time as it is not the first time that the economy had to go through this. Previously,
the hotel industry had to deal with different crises and viruses such as the SARS virus in 2003. But, one
step at a time it picked up it's pace and made it back to what it was before the virus occurred. It is of
utmost importance to understand that the pandemic is only temporary and will sooner or later fade
away. Thus, businesses must plan for the future, as well as take steps to reduce long-term effects left
behind by the virus to drive a faster recovery.