The COVID-19 Pandemic and Its Impacts on Tourism Business in a Developing City: Insight from Vietnam

Abstract

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.

The impact of leadership competences, organizational learning and organizational innovation on business performance

“…This sector has witnessed an increasing trend over the years thanks to the inheritance of history, tourist attractions and high level of service providers. Vietnam has received a huge interest from both domestic and international tourists for the past 20 years and is expected to grow even more rapidly and prosperously in the future (Huynh et al, 2021). However, the unexpected and severe effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have forced T&H businesses to temporarily close or even shut down, which led to several consequences, including decline in tourism revenue, severe loss of profit and human capital, and increase in unemployment rates (Quang et al, 2022).…”

“…The findings of this study are expected to explain how well these Western concepts fit the context of T&H firms in Vietnam, and to add to body of knowledge on these domains. Third, while there have been several studies discussing negative influences of COVID-19 on T&H firms (Huynh et al, 2021;Quang et al, 2022), empirical studies that focus on crisis response of these firms have been lacking. By revealing leadership competences, organizational learning, and organizational innovation as determinants of superior business performance, this research seeks to provide practical implications and organizational developmental policies for leaders in T&H firms to improve leadership competences and adopt these management practices in light of possible future crises.…”

Development of Initiated Bankruptcies in Slovakia and the Czech Republic

“…In addition, Pálovics et al (2021) found that shock and stress were associated with reporting bankrupcty in the future. Another factor may be the COVID-19 pandemic (Bozkurt & Kaya, 2022;Huynh et al, 2021). All these factors should also be taken into account in the conditions of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.…”

The Tourism Sector Stakeholder Collaboration Role in Post-COVID-19 Economic Recovery of Central Java, Indonesia

“…The tourism sector is a sector that provides a multiplier effect on other sectors (Khan et al, 1990;Naseem, 2021;Thommandru et al, 2021). In 2020, the global tourism sector experienced a severe hit due to COVID 19 and suffered the highest economic losses compared to other economic sectors (Huynh et al, 2021). Like other countries, Indonesia has experienced a tremendous hit due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused a decline in economic growth and an increase in the number of poor people (Olivia et al, 2020).…”