The COVID-19 pandemic has generally destroyed the global tourism industry and threatened the recovery of destinations in developing countries facing more challenges from increasingly serious waves of the pandemic. Although many studies have attempted to measure the general impacts of COVID-19, very little research has been conducted to assess its overall impact on specific tourism destinations throughout many waves of the pandemic. This research aims to explore how a tourism economy in a developing country context has been damaged after many waves of COVID-19. A typical emerging city in Vietnam experiencing three waves of the COVID-19 pandemic was selected as a case study. The study recruited 40 representatives of tourism-related organizations for in-depth interviews, while 280 questionnaires were distributed to participants from different tourism organizations. The findings indicate that the majority of tourism businesses in the examined case study seriously suffered from the pandemic, and very few tourism-related enterprises were able to recover after the first wave of infection. Unfortunately, the tourism business sectors were found to be on the brink of bankruptcy or facing permanent shutdown after the third wave. All tourism enterprises generally appeared to experience a sharp drop in the number of customers, tourism revenue, service facilities and exploitation, as well as employee downsizing, but the degree of downturn differed among the examined enterprises. Among the tourism enterprises, travel agencies and the accommodation sector were found to suffer the greatest economic losses compared to other stakeholders. In general, the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the tourism business in Vietnam is a big concern, which may require a timely economic policy response and financial scheme to better support local enterprises in coping with the challenges during post-pandemic recovery.

Despite the stagnant status of the tourism industry due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the efforts to reopen the tourism destinations as green zones in Vietnam have paid off with some encouraging achievements. This inspires other green zones to consider a more adaptive approach to the ongoing pandemic crisis. However, little is known about the pandemic crisis management and tourism destination recovery. Therefore, this study selected Can Tho city as a case study to explore how a tourism destination as a green zone can recover during pandemic waves. Different methods were utilized in this study, including document analysis, field observation, and semi-structured interview. The findings generally indicate that a green zone could recover their tourism business under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings highlight the critical relationship among key stakeholders and the leading role of the central government toward pandemic prevention and control. The early response to the crisis from the local governments was found to be decisive, and the policy-related measures facilitated the removal of potential barriers and alleviated the crisis consequences. In addition, the involvement of the tourism industry in an adaptive way has contributed to the quick recovery of the green zones’ tourism business. Importantly, the adaptive transformation from the tourism enterprises in a visionary way was found to be essential to the empowerment of their organizational resilience during the pandemic crisis. The lessons learnt from this study also bring valuable experiences for other tourism destinations and elicit a new approach to co-living with the ongoing pandemic in a sustainable way. Theoretically, this study provides a better understanding of tourism management and destination recovery during the global pandemic crisis. In addition, the research also adds many important practical implications for the tourism industry and the related stakeholders to foster tourism revitalization during and after the pandemic in a more sustainable way.

Despite the devastating impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the global tourism industry, a few countries have attempted to foster their local tourism economies’ recovery by offering distinctive mechanisms which facilitate their safe tourism destinations to restart domestic tourism operations during the pandemic waves. However, there has been little research investigating how different sectors of a local tourism system, particularly in a developing country, seriously suffer from the pandemic crisis but gain encouraging revitalization from the pandemic shocks. Therefore, this study employed Can Tho city as a case study to examine the holistic impact of COVID-19 on different sectors of the local tourism industry and explore the key factors/players contributing to the resilience empowerment and adaptive recovery of the local tourism system. As such, a semi-structured interview approach was employed in this study to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. The study recruited 40 representatives of tourism-related authorities at different levels and 280 managers of different tourism sectors in the local tourism industry. The findings generally reveal the disastrous impacts of the pandemic on the local tourism industry across all tourism sectors but show an unexpected recovery of tourism businesses during the pandemic crisis. The integrated findings also highlight the pivotal role of local governments in crisis governance and destination recovery support during and after the pandemic waves. Similarly, the proactive engagement of local enterprises was found critical toward rebuilding their organizational resilience, and such adaptive transformations were essential for tourism business recovery in new normal conditions. The economic policy response and effective financial schemes were common expected measures toward the tourism industry’s recovery in the post-pandemic crisis.