COVID-19 and African tourism research agendas

Abstract

COVID-19 has triggered a burst of international scholarship concerning the reshaping of tourism and the resetting of tourism research agendas. The aim of this paper is to tease out some implications for reorienting the African tourism research agenda from 2020 and beyond. Arguably, an appropriate African research response to COVID-19 in the context of tourism must embrace a genuine transdisciplinary approach and draw in researchers who would not, historically, have operated in the tourism space. Seven key themes are discussed namely, market confidence; dependence on international long-haul tourists; supporting regional and domestic tourism especially VFR travel; redefining communitybased tourism; informal sector resilience; climate change; and, addressing present-mindedness in African tourism scholarship.

The Impact of a Global Crisis on Areas and Topics of Tourism Research

“…Insurance and subsidy programs for employees; support the survival of the hotel and airline industry [3,[13][14][15][16][17] Play the function of the informal sector Cooperation between the informal sector and government departments; provide microfinance; provide bank insurance [18,19] Prioritize actions Quick response to the tourism industry in crisis [13,15] Formulate public policy Prohibit or restrict the arrival of giant cruise ships and promote the development of small cruise ships; issue policies to support the aviation and hotel industry; government supervision of policy implementation [12,20,21] Table 5. Government crisis management: after the crisis.…”

“…Support domestic and regional tourism Adopt tax reduction measures for domestic tourism; provide digital coupons to support tourism; reduce dependence on long-distance tourists and support regional and VFR (visiting friends and relatives) tourism [18,22,23] Restore market confidence Use big data to investigate the perception of tourists; ensure the safety of destination travel [22,24,25] Carry out intergovernmental cooperation Establish common standards and sanitation agreements between governments, and set up international safe tourism border areas [21,26] Redefine community-based tourism Redefine and reposition the tourism industry according to the rights and interests of local people; ensure the participation of indigenous people and protect their right to know; incorporate indigenous values into national tourism policy planning [18,27]…”

“…In addition, the government should also improve the infrastructure and service quality of domestic tourism to attract tourists. The challenge for the tourism industry in most developing countries is that accommodation and others usually focus on the international market (five-star hotels, high-end hunting trips) but there is a huge gap between them and other services applicable to domestic and regional travelers, according to Rogerson and Baum [18].…”

“…Third, for significantly raised community-based tourism in many developing countries, the community needs to consider whether it should reorganize its tourism products, re-adjust its products to adapt to new (possibly domestic) markets, or exit the tourism industry completely to adapt to the changing needs of tourists after COVID-19, according to Rogerson and Baum [18]. Higgins-Desbiolles [27] proposed that the government needs a community-centric tourism framework, that is, to redefine and position the tourism industry based on the rights of local communities and local people.…”

“…Similarly, Li et al [29] also proposed that after the crisis, destinations should investigate the perception of the tourist market to understand the market. In view of tourists' fear of the safety of destinations, Rogerson and Baum [18] claimed that clearly ensuring the health and safety of employees and consumers and setting penalties for violations of health and safety will greatly enhance tourists' sense of security in their destinations. In addition, travel service providers should use social media to actively stimulate consumption and actively predict risk assessments.…”