How Corona is changing tourism
Ways out of the crisis and the transformation of travel were the focus of the Tourism Day hosted by Tourismus Marketing Baden-Württemberg TMBW on Tuesday. Against the backdrop of the massive impact on tourism, industry representatives discussed how the Corona pandemic is changing travel and what tourism providers must do now to respond to the changing conditions.
"The Corona crisis is a watershed for tourism, the likes of which have never been seen before," said Baden-Württemberg's Tourism Minister Guido Wolf. Never before in the past decades had the travel industry faced comparable challenges.
Nevertheless, there is also reason for optimism, he said: "In recent months, our tourism stakeholders have demonstrated their creativity, solidarity and innovative strength to a high degree. What has been set up here in the shortest possible time in terms of initiatives and campaigns to save the industry has impressed me deeply. I am therefore confident that with good ideas and creative solutions we can also be successful in a changed travel world."
Tourism to Corona: a sketch
An idea of how travel and tourism could develop with and after Corona was then outlined by sociologist and futurologist Andreas Reiter in his keynote address. He divided the future of travel into two phases, the current transit phase and a post-pandemic phase.
"In the transit phase, reduction reigns supreme," says Reiter. The travel radius and expectations of guests are manageable, and basic motives such as freedom, nature and safety, "small, manageable worlds," are decisive for the travel decision. At the same time, the transit phase brings a boost in digital innovations that enable a vacation with distance as well as regulated time windows for experiences without crowds.
For the post-pandemic phase, Reiter expects a new growth spurt for tourism: "The bustling life is returning and with it the unbridled desire to travel." Smart visitor management, however, which was tried out during the pandemic, will be maintained afterwards. Social distancing is being replaced by a new yearning for haptic experiences, communal experiences and extraordinary experiences. "People are looking for places that hold the unpredictable, the surprising and the magical as a vacation promise - a precious narrative in a world that has become predictable and therefore boring due to algorithms and artificial intelligence," Reiter said.
