In our previous column, we shared the idea expressed by numerous academics and other observers of the international reality, that the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic would allow us, as few times in the recent history of world tourism, to face the crisis as an opportunity. The progressive recovery of international flows and the measures that countries and tourist destinations have taken leave us with evidence that the lessons the pandemic would provide us, to promote a more sustainable tourism development process, are still not clearly visible.
Our conclusion is that the magnitude of the economic impact caused by the effects of losses derived from the almost total reduction in traveler movements, prevents even discussing restrictive measures that attempt to reduce or limit flows to regulate the pressure that tourism activity exerted on the most visited ecosystems at the end of 2019. This will be even more complex to discuss in regions that have a high dependence on tourism and with a high contribution to GDP, such as Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC, 2021).
However, it is possible to assume that measures will have to be taken to ensure safety conditions in terms of hygiene and health in tourist facilities and sites. This will be reflected in urgent decisions, new agreements, coordination mechanisms, and inter-institutional protocols that will attract tourists’ attention, stimulating micro-scale forms of behavior that can lead to better practices for the sustainability of the places visited and for building more favorable relationships between visitors and the local population.
In its recent report on the pandemic’s impact in the region, ECLAC (2021, p.95), estimated that in the short term, there will be a “substitution of the global for the local, a dimension that had not been sufficiently exploited in many Latin American countries and that, due to the type of experience it offers, should necessarily include the receiving community. This contrasts with large resort tourism in which there is not necessarily a connection with the host communities.”
In this context, the application of concrete actions that ensure the integrated participation of municipal authorities, civil society, the private sector, academia, and the private sector in formal instances of tourist destination management, emerges as a necessary route, although not sufficient, to redirect the traditional trend of tourist development. A Governance perspective under a Quintuple Helix approach is only the starting point to promote changes in decision-making, at a turning point that a crisis context is conducive to reflecting on, before we face the next holiday season.
The post-COVID-19 scenario can contribute favorably to the review, for example, of the indicators with which we usually evaluate our success, those that in the publications of official tourism organizations mainly focus on the traditional variables that we have analyzed throughout the period of intensive tourism growth since the 1950s. That is, demand, income, investment, employment, or contribution to GDP, which reflect a dimension, although relevant, very limited in terms of sustainability.
It is evident that as the international vaccination coverage reduces limitations for the full opening of borders, reactivation will accelerate, and we will have to ask ourselves again, What lessons have we capitalized on in terms of destination management, after these two mandatory years of confinement?
