Over the last months, since being declared as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020, the impacts on the political, social, and economic system, with no precedents, caused a global crisis to which the world is trying to respond in order to recover from a crisis that remains unpredictable due to the high contagiousness characteristic of the virus [1].According to WHO, the virus has spread to 115 countries, and almost 4,300 people have died in two months and on March 11, 2020, COVID-19 is called a pandemic disease [2]. Humanity was suspended for a couple of months, in the socalled lockdown. People stayed at home and the economy went through one of the most complicated periods ever. The tourism sector has stopped its activities due to business and leisure travel cancellations. Hotels closed doors, for the first time, since they had open to the public. Planes, instead of filling the skies, filled the airport parks. Tourism professionals start to work from home using technologies to continue their activities. Tourism is very rewardable to crises, like diseases, financial breakdowns, or wars in complex times. It is one of the activities that suffer the most of the direct and indirect impacts of these crises. In 2020, the world met a brand-new pandemic in the twenty-first century [3], so now it is important to S. Almeida ( )
Purpose - To better understand the impact of COVID -19 on the tourism sector, with a focus on the hospitality industry, and how these changes will affect the sector and business responsiveness. Design - This is research focusing on the COVID-19 impacts on the hospitality sector in Portugal. The study reports in detail how a group of experts perceived this critical situation caused by the pandemic. Methodology - For data collection, a focus group was conducted with six experts in the field. A thematic analysis was conducted to interpret the data and NVivo software was used to organise and define the themes. Findings - Experts emphasised the massive collective dismissals in large hotel chains, the possible loss of 50 million jobs in the tourism sector, and the negative impact on the entire value chain. The low occupancy rate had a negative financial impact, as total revenues in the sector plummeted by more than 70% compared to the previous year. This pandemic required significant adjustments from operations to ensure safe operations. Participants not only stressed the importance of motivating and bringing teams together, but also described strategies to increase employee engagement. Another area of growth during the pandemic was food delivery platforms. Originality of the research - This is the first time research describing economic, financial, organizational, operational, and technological impact of COVID -19 on the hospitality industry. Hopefully these study results will help hotel and restaurant managers better plan their strategy following this pandemic.
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