Recovery of Tourism after Covid-19 Pandemic (Novel Corona Virus)

We all are suffering from the effect of Novel Corona Virus which has disrupted our normal daily life and work. The most hit sector which is getting losses is Tourism sector. The time period is such that its been difficult to comprehend Recovery of Tourism after Covid-19 Pandemic. Traveling is now the last option for anyone now and surviving is the first. So, the main question popping in the mind is will tourism ever recover of the trust it lost among people around the world. In this article, we will examine various incidences which affected tourism globally, tourism recovered with more acceptance and more travel rate.

The numerous major disasters faced by Tourism globally and we all know it well recovered from them ( Natural, Outbreak of deadly diseases and Man-made disasters) are listed below :

1. Natural Disasters

• 2010 Haiti quake- The earthquake that hit Haiti on Jan. 12, 2010, may be a contender for the top 10 deadliest disasters. Even in a modern mass disaster, though, estimating the de

• 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami– A magnitude-9.3 temblor struck undersea off the west coast of Sumatra on Dec. 26, 2004, creating a massive tsunami that killed people in 14 separate countries. The overall death toll is estimated at between 230,000 and 280,000 people. In some places, especially hardest-hit Indonesia, the tsunami wave reached 98 feet (30 meters) in height. Indonesia had the highest death toll of any country,

• 1970 Bhola cyclone- This storm struck what is now Bangladesh (then East Pakistan), pushing up a 20-foot storm surge that funneled right over the low terrain bordering the Bay of Bengal, causing widespread flooding. A 1971 report from the National Hurricane Center and the Pakistan Meteorological Department acknowledged the challenge of accurately estima

• 2011, New Zealand, Earthquake– An earthquake, magnitude 6.3, shook the city of Christchurch and the town of Lyttelton in New Zealand in 2011. It set off a series of collapsing buildings, falling bricks, crumbling walls and tumbling boulders, resulting in 185 deaths. “Irreparable damage led to the demolition of several thousand homes, and large tracts of suburban land were subsequently abandoned,” according to New Zealand’s government.

• 2012, The United States, Drought– In 2012, “nearly two-thirds (65.45%) of the continental U.S. was covered by drought,” according to Brad R. Rippey of the USDA. Losses were largely agricultural: Crops were lost in part due to a lack of soil moisture, and livestock were lost, as “76% of the domestic cattle inventory was located in drought at the height of the 2012 dry spell,” writes Mr. Rippey. He also notes that “U.S. corn yield fell in three consecutive years for the first time since 1928-1930 and for only the third time on record.”

• 2011, Thailand, Floods– Thailand’s flooding in 2011 was caused by record rainfall during monsoon season — “the highest in the country’s 61-year precipitation record,” according to the Royal Meteorological Society. “Insufficient management of the main dams in Thailand led to overtopping and to the release of yet more water, further exacerbating the flooding, which caused extensive damage … to homes, sites of historical interest and to industrial estates run by large multinational companies (including Sony, Honda and Toyota),” the society also noted. Sixty-five of the 77 provinces were affected by the flood, and eight were declared flood disaster zones.

• 2017, Caribbean Islands and the United States, Hurricane Irma– Hurricane Irma “made seven landfalls, four of which occurred as a Category 5 hurricane across the northern Caribbean Islands,” according to NOAA. Hurricane Irma made landfall in the Florida Keys as a Category 4 hurricane and in the southwestern region of the state at a Category 3. The hurricane “affected at least nine U.S. states, turning streets into rivers, ripping down power lines, uprooting trees and cutting off coastal communities,” according to a CNN article, which also notes that it was “the strongest Atlantic basin hurricane ever recorded outside the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea.”

• 2017, Dominica and Puerto Rico, Hurricane Maria– Hurricane Maria hit Dominica as a Category 5 storm. The storm transformed to a Category 4 hurricane before it hit Puerto Rico. The entire island of Puerto Rico lost electricity, making it the “largest blackout in U.S. history and the second-largest blackout in the world,” according to Vox. It also took nearly a year to restore power to all residents. Whether or not the U.S. government would provide disaster relief and how much became a major political controversy after the hurricane, delaying the island’s recovery.

• 2008, China, Earthquake– Sichuan, a province in southwestern China, registered a 7.9 magnitude earthquake. “Landslides, power failures and fallen mobile phone towers left much of the affected area cut off from the outside world and limited information about the damage,” according to The New York Times. The earthquake killed nearly 90,000 people, including at least 5,000 students, some of whom were trapped in their schools, and damaged more than 12,000 schools in Sichuan.

• 2017, The United States, Hurricane Harvey– In 2017, Hurricane Harvey, a Category 4 storm, hit the Louisiana-Texas border. The storm broke the U.S. record for rainfall from a single storm, and numerous “known human carcinogens were among the dozens of tons of industrial toxic substances released into surrounding neighborhoods and waterways following Harvey’s torrential rains,” according to the Associated Press. Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria all occurred in the same year and contributed to 2017 being “the most expensive year on record for disasters,” according to The Texas Tribune.

• 2005, The United States, Hurricane Katrina– Hurricane Katrina, a Category 3 storm, hit New Orleans, Louisiana. Levee and floodwall failures led to more than 1,800 fatalities not only from damages in Louisiana, but also in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi. The event also set off a series of 59 tornadoes across the span of just six days that tore across nine states from the Gulf Coast to the Ohio Valley.

• 2011, Japan, Earthquake and Tsunami– In 2011, Tohoku, Japan, experienced a magnitude 9 earthquake, followed by a tsunami and hundreds of aftershocks. The disaster resulted in extensive damages, including to infrastructure, agricultural land and housing: “The number of houses considered to have been totally destroyed or half destroyed were 128,530 and 240,332, respectively,” according to an analysis of the damages. The earthquake also led to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, exposing power plant workers, disaster responders and the general public to radiation: “The appearance of increased levels of radiation [were identified] in some local food and water supplies,” after the nuclear disaster, according to Britannica.

• 2019 Amazon rainforest wildfires– The season saw a year-to-year surge in fires occurring in the Amazon rainforest and Amazon biome within Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Peru during that year’s Amazonian tropical dry season.[5] Fires normally occur around the dry season as slash-and-burn methods are used to clear the forest to make way for agriculture, livestock, logging, and mining, leading to deforestation of the Amazon rainforest. Such activity is generally illegal within these nations, but enforcement of environmental protection can be lax. The increased rates of fire counts in 2019 led to international concern about the fate of the Amazon rainforest, which is the world’s largest terrestrial carbon dioxide sink and plays a significant role in mitigating global warming.

2. Outbreak of diseases

• FLU PANDEMIC- Influenza (1968)– A category 2 Flu pandemic sometimes referred to as “the Hong Kong Flu,” the 1968 flu pandemic was caused by the H3N2 strain of the Influenza A virus, a genetic offshoot of the H2N2 subtype. From the first reported case on July 13, 1968 in Hong Kong, it took only 17 days before outbreaks of the virus were reported in Singapore and Vietnam, and within three months had spread to The Philippines, India, Australia, Europe, and the United States.

•  SARS(2003)– First identified in 2003 after several months of cases, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome is believed to have possibly started with bats, spread to cats and then to humans in China, followed by 26 other countries, infecting 8,096 people, with 774 deaths. SARS is characterized by respiratory problems, dry cough, fever and head and body aches and is spread through respiratory droplets from coughs and sneezes. Quarantine efforts proved effective and by July, the virus was contained and hasn’t reappeared since. China was criticized for trying to support.

• HIV/AIDS PANDEMIC (AT ITS PEAK, 2005-2012)– First identified in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1976, HIV/AIDS has truly proven itself as a global pandemic, killing more than 36 million people since 1981. Currently there are between 31 and 35 million people living with HIV, the vast majority of those are in Sub-Saharan Africa, where 5% of the population is infected, roughly 21 million people. As awareness has grown, new treatments have been developed that make HIV far more manageable, and many of those infected go on to lead productive lives.

• H1N1 Swine Flu pandemic: 2009- The 2009 swine flu pandemic was caused by a new strain of H1N1 that originated in Mexico in the spring of 2009 before spreading to the rest of the world. In one year, the virus infected as many as 1.4 billion people across the globe and killed between 151,700 and 575,400 people, according to the CDC. The 2009 flu pandemic primarily affected children and young adults, and 80% of the deaths were in people younger than 65, the CDC reported. A vaccine for the H1N1 virus that caused the swine flu is now included in the annual flu vaccine.

• West African Ebola epidemic: 2014-2016– Ebola ravaged West Africa between 2014 and 2016, with 28,600 reported cases and 11,325 deaths. The first case to be reported was in Guinea in December 2013, then the disease quickly spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone. The bulk of the cases and deaths occurred in those three countries. A smaller number of cases occurred in Nigeria, Mali, Senegal, the United States and Europe, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. There is no cure for Ebola, although efforts at finding a vaccine are ongoing. The first known cases of Ebola occurred in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1976, and the virus may have originated in bats.

• Zika Virus epidemic: 2015-present day- The impact of the recent Zika epidemic in South America and Central America won’t be known for several years. In the meantime, scientists face a race against time to bring the virus under control. The Zika virus is usually spread through mosquitoes of the Aedes genus, although it can also be sexually transmitted in humans. The type of mosquitoes that carry Zika flourish best in warm, humid climates, making South America, Central America and parts of the southern United States prime areas for the virus to flourish. 

• COVID-19 (THE NOVEL CORONAVIRUS): 2019-present day- Started around December 2019, in the region of Wuhan, China, a new (“novel”) coronavirus began appearing in human beings. Famous knowln as Covid-19, a shortened form of “coronavirus disease of 2019.” This new virus spreads incredibly quickly between people, due to its newness – no one on earth has an immunity to Covid-19, because no one had Covid-19 until 2019. While it was initially seen to be an epidemic in China, the virus spread worldwide within months. The WHO declared Covid-19 a pandemic in March, and by the end of that month, the world saw more than a half-million people infected and nearly 30,000 deaths. The infection rate in the US and other nations was still spiking.

3. Man-made disasters

• 11 September, 2001– The massive terrorist attack in New York when 19 terrorists from al-Qaeda, hijacked four commercial airplanes, resulted in heavy deaths, injuries to people along with destruction of the famous building The twin towers.

• 12 October 2002- The Bali bombings occurred in the tourist district of Kuta on the Indonesian island of Bali. According to an audio-cassette Osama bin Laden stated that the Bali bombings were in direct retaliation for support of the United States’ war on terror and Australia’s role in the liberation of East Timor.

• 11 March 2004- The Madrid train bombings were nearly simultaneous, coordinated bombings against the commuter train system of Madrid, Spain, three days before Spain’s general elections.

• 07 July 2005– Being referred as 7/7, there were a series of coordinated terrorist suicide bomb attacks in central London which targeted civilians using the public transport system during the morning rush hour.

• 26 November 2008– 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamist militant organisation based in Pakistan, carried out a series of 12 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks lasting four days across Mumbai.

• 15 April 2013– The bombs exploded about 12 seconds and 190m apart near the marathon’s finish line. The explosion killed 3 civilians and injured an estimated 264 others.

• On 17 August 2015, a bomb exploded in Erawan Shrine in Bangkok, killing 20 people and injuring 125.

• 13 November 2015– Three suicide bombers struck near the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, followed by suicide bombings and mass shootings at cafés, restaurants and a music venue in central Paris.

• 27 October 2018- On the morning of 27th October 2018, 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh lost their lives and 6 others were injured when gunman, Robert Bowers, opened fire during the morning’s Shabbat services.