There has been a noteworthy advancement in technology and medicine over the past centuries, while deadly diseases such as influenza and malaria still exist significantly till this day. Some diseases have been dealt with success while others are found only in certain geographic areas, and others have the ability to spread quickly from an initial limited outbreak leading to what is known as an epidemic or pandemic (Delivorias & Scholz, 2020). While an epidemic may affect a specific area, a pandemic refers to an infection in a large scale affecting many nations. In the 20th century, there were three influenza pandemics which were named ”Spanish flu” in 1918-1919, “Asian flu” in 1957-1958, and “Hong Kong flu” in 1968-1969. Recent years have seen at least six large-scale outbreaks—hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, severe acute respiratory syndrome, H5N1 influenza, H1N1 influenza, Middle East respiratory syndrome, and Ebola virus disease epidemic (Qiu et al., 2017). There will always be lots of suffering and loss of lives, but we have to understand the economic implications as well.
Coronaviruses, the pandemic in general, are a family of viruses that circulate among animals, but can also be found in humans (Delivorias & Scholz, 2020). According to the European Parliamentary Research Service (2020), a new virus strain that had not been previously identified in humans, was detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan. This novel (new) coronavirus caused symptoms such as fever, cough, shortness of breath, muscle pain and tiredness. This could evolve to more serious cases such as severe pneumonia, acute respiratory distress, sepsis and septic shock that could lead to death (WHO, 2020). There is no vaccine to prevent the 2019 coronavirus disease, and no cure has been found yet. While at a global level, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared a public health emergency of international concern at the end of January 2020, as infections were spreading rapidly within China (Delivorias & Scholz, 2020). Though the obvious and first sector to get impacted is the health sector. Another sector impacted heavily is the tourism sector, having impacts on both travel supply and demand. This includes a risk of a weaker world economy, geopolitica, social and trade tensions, as well as uneven performance among major outbound travel markets (World Tourism Organisation). Considering the nature of the novel coronavirus, the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) is working in tandem with the WHO to predict its potential economic impact. The UNWTO (2020) upon assessment, estimated that the impact of coronavirus could have a loss of international tourist arrivals by 20% to 30% in 2020. However, the estimations by the UNWTO are based on latest updates, there can be changing constantly. This could mean that there could be losses between US $300-400 billion, setting five to seven years’worth of growth to be lost due to the novel coronavirus.
India’s real gross domestic product (GDP) decelerated to its lowest in over six years in the third quarter of 2019-20, and the spread of the COVID-19 posed new challenges (KPMG international, n.d). The steps taken to contain its spread, such as nationwide restrictions and complete lockdown of states, brought economic activity to a standstill. Due to this, the three main contributors to GDP, private consumption, investment and external trade have been affected. India’s tourism and aviation sector has been the first industry to be hit. The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC, 2020) estimated the crisis to cost the tourism sector at least USD22 billion, and the travel sector to shrink by 25 per cent in 2020, resulting in a loss of 50 million jobs. Similarly, the Air Transport Association (IATA, 2020), estimated losses between USD63 billion and USD114 billion. Finally the KPMG international organisation stated that Indian tourism and hospitality industry would have a job loss of 38 million, which is around 70 per cent of the total workforce (KPMG international, n.d).
One of the implications and the aim of this paper is to study the impact travel and tourism have for India, in the context of the novel coronavirus outbreak. This paper aims to examine the loss of revenue of the tourist industry and it’s related industries such as airlines, hotels/restaurants, national parks/tourist hotspots. In terms of responses, the study will review international and local efforts and compare the results. The research will also consider the financial impact on the global market in addition to India, due to the loss of a ton of savings. This loss in savings would make people apprehensive to travel even after the situation gets better. The fourth aim would be to study the psychological impact of people. Finally, the study will also investigate the demographic impact on Indian tourism.