What Have Been the Impacts of the Pandemic on the Global Hospitality Industry?

As the world grapples with a deadly pandemic, these sights and instances have been reduced to the future notions of a ‘Post Pandemic World’. As the relief measures and crisis mitigation steps have started to kick into the various sectors of the economy, stakeholders are on the strive towards managing finances and ensuring as smooth a revival from the economic fall out of the pandemic as much as possible. However, the global tourism and hospitality industry has suffered one of the deepest and irrevocable brunts of the pandemic. With the social, behavioural, and financial changes that it has brought with itself, COVID-19 has truly changed the way we live our lives, and the tourism or hospitality industries are bound to keep up, innovatively.

The constantly expanding global tourism sector was one of the major factors driving the growth of the hospitality industry before the coronavirus pandemic outbreak. The number of international tourist arrivals had risen continuously over the past decades and as per the growth projection made by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the number of tourist arrivals across the globe was expected to cross 1.5 billion by 2020. The factors affecting this constant rise in these numbers, before the pandemic struck, are multiple — ranging from the rise in disposable income over the decades, internet penetration and online banking, web-presence of the hospitality industry, overall global interconnectedness, and so on.

On the contrary, key factors affecting the decline in the market for tourism and hospitality services is the social distancing norms and other restrictions that have been out into place owing to the rise of the number of cases of the novel coronavirus, as well as the travel restrictions owing to the lockdown (air and otherwise). According to the UNWTO norms, the global hospitality industry is segmented on the following grounds — food and beverages, travel and tourism, lodging, and recreation. Of these, the travel and tourism sectors along with the recreation segment are largely declining due to the impositions of lockdown taking place across the world.

How is the Indian Travel and Tourism Sector Faring in the Pandemic?

According to Invest India, Travel and Tourism is the largest service industry in India was worth $234 bn in 2018. The industry has become the third-largest Foreign Exchange Earner in India with a 17.9% growth in Foreign Exchange Earnings (in rupee terms) in March 2018 over March 2017. According to The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), tourism generated $240 bn or 9.2% of India’s GDP in 2018 and supported 42.67 mn jobs which is 8.1% of its total employment. The sector is predicted to grow at an annual rate of 6.9% to $460 bn by 2028 which is 9.9% of GDP. Not only do these numbers define the scope and ambit of the hospitality sector in India but go at great lengths to give a picture of the large-scale disruption and adverse overarching impact to the industry that the pandemic is bound to exert. To put things further into perspective, 90 percent of hospitality loans might have to be declared Non Performing Assets (NPAs) after August 31 2020, as average occupancy remains dismally low at between 10-20 percent in the different hotel and resort segments of the industry, according to the Federation of Hotel and Restaurants Association of India (FHRAI). The Association has also written to the Union Finance Minister as well as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor, submitting a plea to consider the extension of the loan moratorium period that has been put in place till the month of August, by three months.

What is the Way Forward?

As several cafes and restaurants shut shop, hotels struggle to pay salaries to their employees, and layoffs gradually become the norm, the industry seems to be in the deep end. However, according to a few industry-experts and hoteliers, all hope is not lost. The industry is currently on its way towards recalibrating the services offered by it, and ensuring that exhaustive precautionary measures in the light of the pandemic are being taken into account.

Whether it is digital payments and bookings, or touchless call services, or even event halls and conference rooms that allow for social and physical distancing; innovation, resilience, and change are the three factors driving the revamp of the hospitality industry. “We are re-calibrating [and] localising supply chains, which will change the way we operate,” said Gurbaxish Singh Kohli, vice-president of the Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Associations of India, in conversation with Quartz. “Every fixed cost is being reviewed afresh. Each hotel will have its own review geared towards greater efficiency and making operations lighter.”

However, it cannot be denied that the hike is tough for the industry. As work-from-home culture catches up with the working class of India, corporations and companies are realising the power of remote work, and may even reconsider making their employees travel — a notion that is bound to create a dent in the coffers of the tourism industry. Furthermore, even if the travel restrictions have been lifted in the future, tourists and travellers will also be wary of taking trips due to pandemic-inertia, at least as long as the virus is here to stay. The impact is huge, and not yet predictable, on both revenue and supply chains in the industry, according to Deloitte. It is a matter of time before, either the industry is able to recoup and revive itself, or the pandemic changes the face of this sphere, forever.

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Historical Context

Observations have shown that with the onset of the Age of Discovery in Europe, increased interest of Russia and China in Central Asia somewhat led to the breaking away of India’s connections with the region. Even after Independence, India’s foreign policy majorly focused on its immediate neighbours, or solidarity-based relations with the African countries, or even robust economic ties with Russia — but, the partitioning of the Indian subcontinent and the distancing of the region geographically did play a role in the deterioration of the relations with the region from India.

Further, in the post-Cold War era, after the Soviet Union split Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in the 1990s, India took upon the task of developing its relations with the resource-rich region while also undertaking its own domestic economic reforms of bringing about liberalisation, privatisation, and globalisation. Former Indian Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao visited four out of the five republics – Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in 1993, followed by Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan in 1995. In addition to the collective values that India shared with the countries, collective development and economic growth, as well as formulating approached to combating common threats such as terrorism, religious extremism, and crime that these nations shared with India. A few experts also believe that the stage which was set by these conversations was even reflected in India’s Look North policy of recent times. 

Despite the historical links with the Central Asian Economies and India moving quickly to establish diplomatic ties with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan after their emergence as independent countries almost three decades ago, trade has not grown beyond $2 billion, with them. In recent years, foreign-affairs analysts have begun observing what they call the “New Great Game” in Central Asia — Russia, the US, European Union (EU), China, Turkey, Iran and India are all trying to assert their power and hegemony in the region. Not only does the region provide for a large market, but it also has prospects for developing hydropower, fossil fuel resources, and other lucrative prospects. According to experts, India, for its part, has so far chosen to take the ‘constructivist’ approach. This entails a strategy of, interests are not solely based on economic or strategic benefits but attempt to involve an intersectional and even culture-oriented involvement.

Current Developments

India’s continued interest in Central Asia can be attributed to the geopolitical relevance of the region due to three factors — Chinese presence and influx in the region through its expansionist infrastructure projects like the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a continued historical context of Russia’s dominance in the region, and the overall regional security dynamic. Keeping these in mind, India had unveiled its Connect Central Asia Policy in Bishkek in 2012 in order to draw attention to the expansion of the region’s economic interests in congruence with India’s plans of integrating its external neighbourhood.

The lack of connectivity of India with the region of Central Asia has been a long withstanding issue in this context. For instance, the long-delayed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline, backed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), was first proposed in the mid-1990s and all four actors officially signed an intergovernmental agreement in 2010. But, since then, the project has been stalled due to the status of Afghanistan and mistrust between India and Pakistan.

To combat this connectivity gap, India has undertaken positive action in the past as well quite recently. India, Iran and Russia signed the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) agreement which aimed to offer connectivity between India and Central Asia through Iran. As is noted by this resource, while the INSTC is routed via Iran’s Bandar Abbas port, India has also explored the possibility of connecting with Central Asia via Iran’s Chabahar port and thereafter overland corridors passing through Afghanistan. The importance bestowed by India to the Chabahar port, despite the uncertainties which the US-Iran tensions bring to the conversation, can be accorded by the budgetary allocation to the project, which is amounting to INR 1 Billion in 2020-21 announcement.

Way Forward

Since China has been able to leverage its geography, finances and population to ensure that its projects can contribute toward making its dream of a new and improved Silk Road a reality, India is also committed to expanding the scope of its economic relations with the region. India has immense potential in developing small and medium scale industries in the region which is presently being provided through India’s program of ITEC (Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation). The ITEC programme covers information technology, management, journalism, diplomacy, entrepreneurship, and banking. New Delhi also signed the Strategic Partnership Agreements (SPA) with three of the five nations of the Central Asian Economies — Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan — in order to stimulate defence cooperation and deepen trade relations.

As a report in a Russian newspaper observed, “Indian presence in the region should balance the growing Chinese influence and prevent it from becoming the region of Beijing’s undivided dominance.” This idea can be brought to effect by India by leveraging its membership at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

India and the Central Asian Economies can prioritize energy, pharmaceuticals, automotive, agro-processing, education, urban infrastructure and transport, civil aviation, IT and tourism sectors to strengthen economic links. The Central Asian economies and India have had a long history of association which can be efficiently revived to mutual benefit by the means of strategic and economic cooperation and connectivity, both notions that can be leveraged by the stakeholders in a post-pandemic world.

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According to Ramesh Kumar Pandey, an Uttar Pradesh cadre Indian Forest Service officer, the positive and discernible changes in the population and health of big cats in the country is a result of a combined approach on both verticals – that of policy changes as well as strategic enforcement and security enhancement measures. 

Tracing the Policy Changes 

The most important and significant legislation in India which aims to safeguard the lives of wildlife in the country is the Wild Life Protection Act, 1972. It was enacted for the protection of plants and animal species since India had only five designated national parks at the time of its enactment. Among other reforms, the Act established schedules of protected plant and animal species; hunting or harvesting these species was largely outlawed and further in 2002, the Act was amended to make its enforcement further strict in nature. The Act provides for the protection of wild animals, birds and plants; and for matters connected therewith. Its enforcement and extension cover the whole of India. It has six schedules that give varying degrees of protection to the various flora and fauna, of which Schedule I and part II of Schedule II provide absolute protection to the species as offenses under these are prescribed the highest penalties. 

Up to April 2010, there had been 16 convictions under this act relating to the death of tigers. 

The Amendment of the Wild Life Protection Act not only made the prison sentences and penalties harsher, in case of wildlife crimes, it also mandated for the creation of two additional bodies – the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB), and the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) under the aegis of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) at the central level to take upon an international and security-driven approach towards wildlife crimes such as poaching, smuggling, and illegal trade across the nation and its boundaries, as well as establish Project Tiger – an initiative to ensure targeted and method-driven conservation approaches, especially contextualized keeping in mind the Royal Bengal Tiger. 

Further, this initiative was extended to other megafaunal species such as Rhino and Elephants as well. 

Case Study: Pilibhit Tiger Reserve, Uttar Pradesh

The two major threats to big cats and in particular tigers in our country are poaching and anthropogenic factors. The latter in turn lead to a plethora of issues and conflicts in most Tiger Reserves and forests of the nation. 

One such conflict is the man-tiger conflict. Man-tiger conflicts are an extreme form of human-wildlife conflict, which occurs for various reasons and has claimed more human lives than attacks by any of the other big cats. A fact to note in the context of tiger attacks in India is the difference between a man-killer and a man-eater tiger, reasons such as starvation, reduced prey base, old age/illness tend to drive a tiger to be a man-eater. Human conflicts with the tiger are the most difficult to manage and incur large losses, the tiger being the flagship species of Indian fauna and a part of the mega-faunal species that include elephants, rhinos and leopards as well. 

Uttar Pradesh ranks eighth amongst the states of India inhabited by the endangered Royal Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris) with two hundred plus tigers of varying age categories calling it’s three tiger reserves (Amangarh, Dudhwa and Pilibhit) their abode. On an average, four to five people lose their lives in Man-Tiger encounters in Uttar Pradesh each year The fact that ties these two pieces of statistics together is that although there is a steady yet sure rise in the number of tigers in the tiger reserves of Uttar Pradesh, their unprecedented interaction with humans is also on the rise, highest in any state of the country. Being the most populous state of the country, Uttar Pradesh, with its burgeoning population has provided ample ground for the occurrences of man-tiger conflicts in regions with overlapping populations of human and wildlife. Such cases have become more rampant and in the villages on the fringes of the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve in the past few years. In 2019, a tiger was even lynched by a group of men due to spite and poor information. 

However, of late, technological approaches have reduced the number of such conflicts in the region. The forest officials have been using technological aids to assess the location, movement and activity of animals, including drones, tracking devices and camera equipment. They have also Establishment an instant response mechanism and modus operandi in place, with inputs from locals, social workers, vets and biologists with adequate funds and gear to deal efficiently with emergencies. 

Enforcement and Curbing Wildlife Crime 

Considering the complications of poaching and the high-risk jobs of forest officials – especially the field workers such as forest watchers and forest guards, Ramesh Pandey introduced a mobile application in his department to phenomenal results. Within a year of its introduction, M-STrIPES, which stands for Monitoring System for Tigers-Intensive Protection and Ecological Status, has been instrumental in catching 200 poachers in a patrol field that covers 2,50,000 km. 

The model of M-Stripes was developed by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) in 2010. However, it was only in 2018 that it was transformed into a mobile application. “India is home to close to half of the world’s Tiger population, and it was in our hands to protect them,” Pandey says. 

As habitat fragmentation and shrinking of habitat due to construction or other obstructions in the forest area and encroachment in forest lands by the people on the fringes, leading to pressure on the limited available natural resources in our national parks become more rampant by the day, it is essential for our forest communities to come together in collaboration to create sustainable and secure habitats for all. India’s leading two-pronged approach of policy and enforcement has made indelible imprints on the pages of the conservation story, yet we still have a long way to go – from dealing with people’s antagonistic behaviour towards animals to combating notorious wildlife criminals. 

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Confinement in homes, and lack of steady incomes, seems to have been fostering tensions and frustration in households and strain due to concerns over health and security. The lockdown is also putting women in isolation with violent partners, with nowhere to turn to for help. In India, the National Commission for Women has reported a 200 per cent increase in the reporting and stress call numbers of domestic violence on their helpline in the month of June alone.

Even before the lockdown was imposed, domestic violence was one of the most prevalent violations of human rights and a key impediment to the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with one in three women have experienced it at some point in their lives. Economist Amartya Sen has estimated in 1990 that more than 100 million women are ‘missing’ — that includes those that never lived because of sex-selective abortions and infanticide, child neglect and maltreatment. That number was revised in 2015 to 136 million – this just shows how females have been subject to violence, at times even before they are born, at an alarmingly high rate.

Furthermore, it is essential to address that violence against women not only affects individuals, but also households, families and communities. However, the only way to change this stark reality is to hold the aggressors accountable and ensure that the problematic social norms that perpetuate the instances of violence are also tackled in an inclusive manner. The SDGs act as an apt framework to work off of, in order to shape a violence-free world – here’s how:

SDG 1: No Poverty

Women’s work – in agriculture, in communities, and at home, fuels economies and yet, isn’t regarded as ‘economic activity’. The exposure of females to incessant discrimination and mistreatment at the workplace makes them vulnerable and susceptible to gender-based violence. Women and girls are four per cent more likely to live in poverty and poor living conditions, a risk that rises up to twenty-five per cent as we factor-in other inequalities. Financial independence for women creates new opportunities and avenues for them to reject typical gender norms and leverage independence against violent partners. It also helps them to create a mentality of freedom and a sense of self for themselves. As a result, the reduction in poverty proves to be a catalyst towards enabling women in societies.

SDG 4: Quality Education

An estimated 246 million girls and boys experience school-related violence every year and one in four girls say that they never feel comfortable using school washrooms, according to a survey on youth conducted across four regions by the United Nations. Quality education is essential to ending violence against women. Educated girls are more likely to make their decisions towards family planning and managing finances, it is fundamental for the development of aspirations and skills, and children of educated women are more likely to have been safeguarded against malnutrition and illiteracy. Educational exposure also enables women to get access to leadership and decision-making opportunities. Hence, it propels them into a cycle of development that helps them create barriers to economic violence at home or in their communities.

SDG 5: Gender Equality

According to a 2018 report by United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in India, 18 per cent of women and girls aged between 15 and 49 years of age have experienced physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner or family member in the past twelve months. Further, someone is known to them – every day kills more than 137 women around the world. These figures represent a fraction of the discrimination against women in terms of opportunities, wealth, inheritance, safe access to public spaces, lack of decent work, and safe and healthy environments of living, learning, working, and engaging with their communities. These inequalities leave them extremely vulnerable to gender-based violence.

SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth

Unsafe and poor working environments affect women regardless of their age, location, income, careers, or social standing. As of 2020, 18 countries have laws that enable husbands in preventing their wives from going to work. UN Women estimates that the economic costs of violence and harassment amount to US$12 trillion every year. As of 2018, 59 countries do not have laws protecting women from sexual harassment in the workplace. Economic growth cannot be achieved without the inclusion of women and their contribution to sustainable development in an empowering work environment.

SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

In developing countries, concerns of safety and restricted access to public transport reduce the probability of women participating in the labour market by 16.5 per cent. As the processes of urbanization and industrialization catch up to tier two and tier three cities, the UN estimates that more than 5 billion people will reside in cities by 2030. This becomes an essential notion to address in the light of crimes against women that are prevalent in most urban regions. Further, there is widespread human rights abuse in many industries, such as fast fashion, many of which employ women in majorities. Women may be subject to exploitation in such circumstances and need to be safeguarded against such instances.

SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

In 37 countries, rape perpetrators are exempt from legal prosecution if they are married to, or subsequently marry the victim. Improving access to justice for survivors, and strengthening the legal framework against violators is an essential step towards making justice accessible for women – be it against violence, sexual misconduct at the workplace, or any crime against them. It is further imperative for women to mobilize and advocate support for their personal rights and those of their communities. This can be done digitally, individually, or at any level.  

Conclusion

At this point in time, COVID-19 is already testing humanity in unprecedented capacities. The shadow pandemic that we have had to face additionally is a mirror to the kind of societies we have built for ourselves so far. As we emerge from the pandemic, we must renew the outlooks towards inequalities and factor them into our responses to create a more equitable and sustainably sound world.

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