Covid-19 and the Tourism Industry.
There is no doubt that Covid-19 has had an extremely negative effect on the tourism industry. With all the lockdown restrictions and the world trying to deal with this new Pandemic, tourism in South Africa saw a 72.6% decrease in 2020 according to StatsSA. The uncertainty around when the boarders will open, when the industry will start growing again and if it’s worth trying to get into the tourism industry now has caused many people to hold off on studying tourism. Although all these concerns seem valid, we need to see the positive side of this and grab the opportunities now while we can. In this blog we are going to explore why now is actually a great time to study Tourism.
The New Normal.
We are almost 24 months into this pandemic and the tourism industry is starting to pick up massively from where we were 2 years ago. This has given most people in the industry time to prepare and customize their tours and locations to better suit the new regulations and accommodate people’s fears and space requirements. In South Africa, we have already seen an improvement of around 128,000 monthly international tourists between July and October this year. According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, they state that:
“travel & tourism’s contribution to GPD could rise by 40.9% (more than $450 billion) by the end of this year, followed by a year-over-year increase of a further 30.9% ($480 billion) in 2022”
Across the globe, we are seeing more and more people taking precautions and getting vaccinated to bring us closer to the world opening again. We have already seen most countries opening its boarders to vaccinated people which is great news for the tourism industry and a good reason to get vaccinated and start preparing for a career in the industry.
Why Will Tourism Increase?
With the world being such a small place before Covid and the ability to travel taken for granted, many families were scattered across the globe because they knew that it was only a quick flight away and could go visit them whenever they wanted. Living in the UK while your family was in Johannesburg was almost the same as living in Cape Town while your family in Durban and was almost as easy to fly from country to country as it was from Province to Province. Little did we know that 2020 made this gap so much larger and many families have now gone years without the ability to see each other.
People who normally travel for the love of it are sitting at home, itching to get out and others who have put off going overseas are now going to jump at the opportunity. Travel companies and tourism hot spots have taken a huge knock on their income and will start pushing out phenomenal deals and try convincing as many people visit as they can.
Soon life will go back to normal, so take this opportunity to study with us and get ready for a life of adventure.
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