Markus PILLMAYER, Munich University of Applied Sciences, Germany
Celine CHANG, Munich University of Applied Sciences, Germany
Katrin EBERHARDT, Munich University of Applied Sciences, Germany
The COVID-19 pandemic has considerable impacts on the tourism industry. Destinations, organizations, and employees are strongly affected. Currently, international air traffic has its focus on recovery (IATA, 2022), tourist attractions are partly reopened while some events are still rescheduled, and employees are leaving their companies. These circumstances show the exorbitant and immediate consequences for the industry, a rapid recovery is not to be expected. Due to this, the topic of resilience comes into focus and the industry needs to intensively address issues such as destination resilience and stakeholder collaboration to establish a functioning disaster management for further upcoming disasters and crisis (Filimonau & De Coteau, 2019).
In order to examine the situation in the federal state of Bavaria in Germany, the research project „COVID-19 and the Bavarian Tourism Industry – Crisis Management, Resilience Factors and Recommendations“ is funded by the Bavarian State Ministry of Economic Affairs. Tourism is an important industry in Bavaria, as it provides jobs for 501,000 employees and generates a turnover of €20.3 billion (Bay. StMWi, 2022).
As a basis for the research project, interviews with a focus on topics such as crisis management, resilience and the impact of COVID-19 in destinations were conducted with experts from the tourism industry, politics and the scientific community. The topics were discussed again in focus groups with two or three participants, so they were able to refer to each other. The data of the qualitative research is analysed by using MAXQDA. In addition, a further analysis based on a questionnaire will be conducted.
Selected results and a resilience model according to Prayag (2020) help to identify resilience factors for destinations in crisis situations. The outcomes depict how resilience can be fostered in tourism destinations and businesses and how stakeholders can be brought together to collaborate in critical situations.
Mots clés : COVID-19 Pandemic|Tourism Industry|Destination Resilience|Resilience Factors |Crisis Management
A104420KE