Lessons from COVID-19 can prepare global tourism for the economic transformation needed to combat climate change

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic led to the cessation of almost all international travel in the first half of 2020. A return to pre-pandemic growth patterns will take time and depend on the depth and extent of the recession sparked by COVID-19. The recovery phase will overlap with global efforts to deal with the evolving climate crisis. For the tourism industry to thrive in a future world it must look beyond the temptation of adopting strategies based on a return to the pre-COVID-19 normal of the past and instead seek to understand how it should respond to the emerging transformation of the global economy to carbon neutrality. Many of the lessons that emerged from the pandemic can be applied to strategies to deal with climate change. Of most interest is the success of strategies such as “flattening the curve”. Application of similar strategies plus adoption of the circular economy model to wind back Green House Gas emissions will help avert the global environmental disaster that will occur if global temperatures continue to increase. These strategies point to what a future carbon-neutral economic production system might look like, the path to which could offer the tourism industry numerous opportunities to transform from the current model that favours a high resource consumption model to one that is environmentally friendly and resource neutral.

摘要

新冠状病毒肺炎（COVID-19）导致2020年上半年几乎所有国际旅行的中止。若想恢复到病毒爆发前的旅游增长模式需要一些时间, 而且取决于新冠状病毒引发的衰退的程度和范围。未来从病毒复苏的阶段, 全球同时还需努力应对不断演变的气候危机。为了在未来世界中蓬勃发展, 旅游业必须抵制想要回归到新冠病毒爆发前常规发展模式的诱惑, 转而寻求理解自身该如何应对全球经济向碳中和方向的新转型。从这次新冠爆发中汲取的许多经验教训都可以用于应对气候变化的战略中。其中最令人感兴趣的是例如”压平曲线”这样策略的成功。应用类似的策略, 外加采用循环经济模式来减少温室气体的排放, 将有助于避免全球气温持续升高所带来的全球环境灾难。这些策略指明了未来碳中和经济生产系统的样貌, 这为旅游业提供了许多机会, 使其从目前高资源消耗的模式转变为环境友好和资源中立的模式。

Keywords:

• COVID-19
• circular economy
• economic recovery
• climate change
• pandemic
• flattening the curve
• transformation
• geopolitics

关键词:

• 新冠状病毒肺炎 (COVID-19)
• 循环经济
• 经济复苏
• 气候变化
• 流行病
• 压平曲线
• 转型
• 地缘政治

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bruce Prideaux

Bruce Prideaux is the program director of the Masters of Sustainable Tourism Management. He has a wide range of research interests including sustainability issues, climate change, coral reef tourism, protected area tourism, rural tourism, remote area tourism and waterways.

Michelle Thompson

Michelle Thompson is a lecturer in tourism at CQUniversity in Cairns, Australia. Michelle’s research is focused on the development of tourism in agricultural regions. Other research interests include regional tourism development, nature-based (reef and rainforest) tourism and agri-tourism.

Anja Pabel

Anja Pabel is a lecturer in tourism at CQUniversity in Cairns, Australia. Her research interests include tourist behaviour, marine tourism, coral reef tourism and humour research.