effect of ebola on tourism businesses

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‘No Ebola…still doomed’ – The Ebola-induced tourism crisis

Marina novelli.

a Tourism and International Development, School of Sport and Service Management, University of Brighton, Darley Road, Eastbourne BN20 8JA, UK

Liv Gussing Burgess

b The University of Brighton, UK

c School of Sport and Service Management, University of Brighton, UK

Brent W. Ritchie

d School of Business, Faculty of Business, Economics and Law, Queensland University, Australia

• • Explores the indirect spill over effect of a health induced crisis for tourism.
• • Research beyond the immediate response phase into recovery and resolution phases.
• • Employs Rapid Situation Analysis, over a 21 months research timeline.
• • Assesses crisis’ planning, response, recovery challenges in a developing country.

Many recent crisis and disasters affecting tourism have been studied, but few explicitly explore health related crisis in developing countries. This study analyses the effect of the Ebola Virus Disease Epidemic (EVDE) on The Gambia, where, despite no reported cases, EVDE had devastating consequences. A Rapid Situation Analysis is used to gain insights into responses to the EVDE, encompassing interviews with key stakeholders, field observations and follow up meetings with those involved in managing the crisis over 21 months. A crisis and disaster framework is used to understand the challenges encountered. Findings highlight the importance of consumer perception and preparedness and management failures’ consequences, contributing to the broader debate on the indirect threat of epidemics on tourism in developing countries.

Introduction

An event that suddenly transpires into an unfavourable situation is known as a crisis ( Laws & Prideaux, 2005 ). In recent years, many such crises have affected tourism (Breitsohl and Garrod, 2016) but despite the growth in the study of tourism crises, Mair, Ritchie, and Walters (2014) found that only four out of sixty-four studies conducted from 2000 to 2010 specifically related to health crises, while Jiang, Ritchie, and Benckendorff (2017) noted a focus on economic rather than health-related crises. Furthermore, the majority of these studies focused on crisis in developed countries. This study examines both the context in which the Ebola Virus Disease Epidemic (EVDE – later referred to as ‘Ebola’) outbreak occurred and its effect on tourism in the small developing nation of The Gambia. Despite no reported cases, tourism receipts more than halved for the 2014/2015 season ( IMF, 2015a , Gambia Tourism Board, 2015 ), leading to what is referred to as the ‘Ebola-induced tourism crisis’ (EITC).

Tourist decisions and destination choices are influenced by personal and physical security perceptions ( Lepp and Gibson, 2003 , Taylor and Toohey, 2007 ), which are often fuelled by media imagery of destinations ( Kozak, Crotts, & Law, 2007 ). Health related crises, such as epidemics, are prone to negative media coverage and graphic imagery, making them particularly challenging for the tourism sector to manage ( Schroeder & Pennington-Gray, 2014 ). The graphic images portrayed in media coverage, combined with a lack of the source markets’ geographical knowledge of Africa, has led to the entire continent being ‘generalised’ as being risky. Furthermore, destinations may be unaffected directly by a crisis, but the consequence of being within its physical proximity ( Henderson, 2007 ), can create a ‘spill over effect’ with damaging consequences ( Cavlek, 2002 , Ritchie et al., 2013 ).

It is important to study tourism crisis management in developing countries for two main reasons. Firstly, the impact of crises can be devastating for the tourism sector in developing countries due to an overreliance on tourism receipts ( de Sausmarez, 2004 ; Mansfield and Pizam, 2006; Ritchie, 2009 ). Declining visitor numbers, increasing unemployment, weakened profits, reduced investment, and less government revenue ( Henderson, 2007 , Ritchie, 2004 ) often exacerbate socio-economic conditions and may propel the country into a worsened state of fragility ( Novelli, Morgan, & Nibigira, 2012 ).

Secondly, managing the recovery following a tourism crises is likely to be impaired by the state of fragility associated with developing countries compared to developed countries. This is due to limited human and financial resources for tourism marketing and development, poor governance structures and lack of tourism planning ( Novelli et al., 2012 ). Furthermore, these destinations may rely heavily on outside support (i.e. NGOs, donors) for the development of their tourism industry ( Novelli, 2016 ), and even more so in their preparation and response to tourism related crises.

The limited literature on crisis management in developing countries includes a few studies on tourist risk perceptions ( Adam, 2015 ), on using online marketing to overcome risky stereotypes in Africa ( Ketter & Avraham, 2010 ), and on image repair when responding to crises in Africa and other developing economies ( Avraham and Ketter, 2016 , Avraham and Ketter, 2017 ). The majority of studies focus on crisis communication and recovery marketing – just one aspect of crisis management. Understanding how an African destination responds to a tourism crisis from a supply side perspective is therefore important and timely, as it has implications for other developing countries.

Although tourism crisis and disaster frameworks exist to better understand tourism crisis management from a supply side perspective (see Faulkner, 2001 and Ritchie, 2004 ), these too have been developed and applied mostly in a developed country context. Furthermore, these frameworks are prescriptive, and the majority of studies compare what happened with what should have happened. Further studies focus on response and recovery only ( Jiang et al., 2017 ), limiting our understanding of the effectiveness of strategies, especially when crises last beyond a few months and may have a significant impact.

This paper analyses the strategies adopted to stabilise and (re)position the destination based on a Rapid Situation Analysis (RSA). This included a retrospective review of personal diary entries, overt participant observations in the destination and semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders in The Gambia and the UK, conducted over a period of 21 months (November 2014 – July 2016).

Literature review

Health related crises.

Numerous studies focus on the impact of crises on tourism sectors with specific reference to airlines ( Henderson, 2003 ), hotels ( Israeli and Reichel, 2003 , Chien and Law, 2003 ), travel agents ( Lovelock, 2004 ) and restaurants ( Tse, So, & Sin, 2006 ). Other studies principally focus on terrorism, political instability and economic crises within specific geographical locations, for example the bomb attacks in Bali ( Putra & Hitchcock, 2009 ), Egypt ( Aziz, 1995 ), New York ( Enz & Taylor, 2002 ), September 11, 2001 ( Stafford, Yu, & Armoo, 2002 ), and the BP oil spill ( Ritchie et al., 2013 ) amongst others (see Jiang et al., 2017 ).

As previously argued, few studies have focused on health-related disasters or epidemics, such as the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in South-East Asia ( Dombey, 2003 , McKercher and Chon, 2004 ), the Foot and Mouth Disease in the UK ( Frisby, 2003 , Irvine and Anderson, 2004 ), influenza in Mexico ( Monterrubio, 2010 ) and bed bug issues ( Liu, Kim, & Pennington-Gray, 2015 ). During the last fifteen years, there have been a number of health-related crises that have caused risks to local communities and significant damage to the tourism sector ( Glaesser, 2006 , Kuo et al., 2008 , Smith, 2006 ). As travel and tourism can facilitate the spread of epidemics, global bodies such as the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) are increasingly interested in understanding the cause, evolution and risk of an infection ( Joffe and Haarhoff, 2002 , Mason et al., 2005 , Page et al., 2006 ); and advocating swift precautionary actions to reduce a health risk, often at the expense of complete scientific understanding ( Sunstein, 2005 ).

The SARS outbreak exemplified the link between travel, tourism and an infectious disease ( Henderson and Ng, 2004 , McKercher and Chon, 2004 , Washer, 2004 ), that spread globally through international tourists returning home after visiting affected areas ( Mason et al., 2005 ). In an unprecedented move in its forty-five-year history, the WHO issued a “general travel advisory”, the result of which was to effectively close many borders while discouraging tourism in the affected areas ( Smith, 2006 , Wall, 2006 ). Of the nine thousand people who contracted SARS, 870 died ( McKercher & Chon, 2004 ). China, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Singapore lost an estimated US$20 billion in GDP and three million jobs in the tourism sector ( Kuo et al., 2008 ). The WHO’s travel warnings, which labelled the condition as ‘pandemic’, together with the volume of media coverage and its sensationalist tone contributed to global panic ( Mason et al., 2005 , McKercher and Chon, 2004 , Joffe and Haarhoff, 2002 ).

Similarly to SARS, Ebola was characterised by sensational reporting by the media. Joffe and Haarhoff (2002) researched media depiction in the UK of an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and suggested that it was portrayed as an African health issue. Although previous cases of Ebola had occurred in Africa, the scale and impact had been contained with limited impact on the wider perception about whether it was safe to travel in the African continent ( Joffe & Haarhoff, 2002 ). The recent outbreak of Ebola in West Africa has had a different effect due to its scale and media attention. However, misrepresentation and public misconception about the geographical location of affected countries in Africa, negatively influenced international tourist arrivals to the entire African continent. Before the outbreak, Africa had experienced average increases in tourist arrivals of 5% per year in 2012 and 2013, but numbers were reduced by 2% in 2014 ( UNWTO, 2015a ), and a further 5% in October 2015 ( UNWTO, 2015b ).

Some commonalities in relation to the role of the media on risk perception can be found in the wider literature on crises caused by terrorism ( Law, 2006 , Santana, 2001 , Sönmez et al., 1999 ). Fear, loss of confidence in institutions, unpredictability and pervasive loss of safety may emerge during an epidemic ( Rittichainuwat & Chakraborty, 2009 ). While generally the media affects risk perception, an opposite reaction may occur as a result of a social process known as normalisation ( Ananian-Welsh & Williams, 2014 ). Existing literature states that repeated risk experience desensitises individuals to risk over time, as the concept appears normal, particularly with hazardous activities undertaken voluntarily ( Ananian-Welsh & Williams, 2014 ; Breakwell, 2014).

Thus, normalisation can explain why tourists return to destinations that are perceived as unsafe ( Morakabati, 2007 , Saha and Yap, 2014 ). Fletcher and Morakabati (2008) argue that tourists quickly return to destinations that have been touched by terrorism, as tourism demand is influenced by factors such as travel motivation, tourist type and tourism life cycle ( Plog, 2001 ). There does not appear to be any conclusive literature around the normalisation process and health epidemics. Health epidemics tend to be infrequent, yet can spread rapidly across geographical boundaries (i.e. SARS and influenza). Due to their infrequency and rapid spread, health epidemics can exert even more negative pressure on tourism demand than terrorism (Breitsohl and Garrod, 2016). Regardless of type, all crises need appropriate management so that the destination and tourism businesses can respond, recover, learn lessons, improve future planning and implement effective strategies.

Tourism crisis management

Handling the negative impact of crises can be achieved through crisis management; the process by which the impact of a crisis may be reduced and recovery supported ( Armstrong, 2008 , Glaesser, 2006 ). Crisis management can be defined as: “An ongoing integrated and comprehensive effort that organisations effectively put into place in an attempt to first and foremost understand and prevent crisis, and to effectively manage those that occur, taking into account in each and every step of their planning and training activities, the interest of their stakeholders” ( Santana, 2004, p.308 ). Devising and implementing successful crisis management policies and strategies are complex, due to the fragmented nature of the tourism sector, political and social context of the crisis location, as well as the unique characteristics and duration of each crisis ( Henderson, 2007 , Prideaux et al., 2003 ). McKercher (1999) argued that while many general crisis models provide management guidance for a particular crisis, these remain linear and fail to acknowledge complexity in responding specifically to health crises.

Crisis management must address the immediate challenge, ensuring the safety of tourists and the community, and sustaining and/or rebuilding the tourism sector (Burnett, 1998; Prideaux, 2004 , Speakman and Sharpley, 2012 ). Destinations need to engage with immediate and long-term planning, recognising how tourists typically react to a crisis situation ( Ritchie, 2004 ). As a crisis unfolds, the perspective towards the situation will differ based on the context and in turn, be influenced by culture, organisation and politics ( Pforr, 2006 ). Culturally shared beliefs about risks and precautionary standards, as well as the degree to which diverse outcomes are acceptable, also vary ( Beck, 2006 , Morakabati, 2007 ; Breakwell, 2014).

Strategies to handle crises will vary depending on time pressure, the degree of control and the scale of the event ( Ritchie, 2004 ). However, the decisions made during a crisis can be crucial to the overall long-term recovery of the destination and is especially important for engagement and management of the media ( Armstrong, 2008 , Beirman, 2003 ). Most tourism recovery strategies are reactive and generally include government aid packages; which (re)focus on domestic tourism and development of new niche tourism products, as well as cost-cutting measures by the sector as a result of a crisis ( Tse et al., 2006 , Enz and Taylor, 2002 ). Finally, destination recovery is highly dependent on the perception of risk, a field that is crucial to understanding what is important for tourists in relation to personal safety and security ( Lepp and Gibson, 2003 , Reisinger and Mavondo, 2005 , Taylor and Toohey, 2007 , Williams and Baláz, 2013 , Yang and Nair, 2014 ).

General crisis and disaster management theory, models and frameworks have been established to understand crisis and disaster management. These are prescriptive or descriptive, or a combination thereof ( Armstrong, 2008 ). Prescriptive models outline how a crisis should be handled based on pre-set standards, while descriptive models indicate how an event was actually handled (Burnett, 1998). Few case studies delineate the impact, recovery and lessons learnt from actual crises ( Paraskevas & Arendell, 2007 ; Hystad and Keller, 2006). Furthermore, such management strategies are devised and implemented within a political, cultural and social context, and process ( Prideaux et al., 2003 ) – such as a developing country.

A number of conceptual frameworks have been developed for the tourism sector, with the overall purpose of assisting destinations and businesses in managing a crisis at various stages. Ritchie’s (2004) prescriptive framework incorporates the lifecycle of a crisis or disaster alongside a strategic management framework. Ritchie’s (2004) framework ( Fig. 1 ) covers three main stages: (1) pre-crisis planning, (2) crisis response and recovery, and (3) resolution and future learning. While there are many parallels to Faulkner’s TDMF, Ritchie’s framework provides flexibility and feedback loops, recognising that diverse approaches are needed to manage crises; as each crisis differs in terms of impact, strategy and recovery period ( Armstrong, 2008 ). Further, Ritchie’s (2004) model can be applied to both crises and disasters, while Faulkner’s (2001) model was designed for tourism disaster management only. Ritchie’s (2004) model is used in this paper as a framework to understand the response to the EITC in The Gambia across the crisis lifecycle, as well as what strategies were used and how this compares with suggested approaches.

Ritchie’s (2004) Tourism Crisis and Disaster Management Framework (CDMF).

However, limited research has been used to test this prospective model in a developing country context. Further, the longitudinal nature of this research provides an opportunity to understand long-term recovery, and identify changes in crisis planning and preparedness for future crises in The Gambia and beyond – thus all three phases of Ritchie’s (2004) CDMF. The complete framework is specifically used to evaluate management responses within a health crisis and in a developing country context, addressing the gaps by examining the response of the Gambian government and the tourism sector to EITC.

Research context and methodology

One of the criticisms of tourism crisis management literature is that it does not provide enough detail on the background context of case studies ( Ritchie, 2009 ). Yet the broader social, economic and political context is also important. It can help understand the underlying vulnerabilities of the sector or country, the impact of a crisis and explain why certain strategies were implemented.

The Gambia, one of Africa's smallest countries nested within Senegal ( Fig. 2 ) with a population of just under two million, has few natural extractable resources, poor soil quality and relies heavily on foreign aid to balance its budget. Its predominant crop and main source of foreign currency are peanuts (Williams, 2015). Tourism accounts for 12–16% of The Gambia's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (Williams, 2015). It is the second largest foreign-exchange earner, employer and exporter, “accounting for more than US$80 million in earnings on average in the three years before the crisis” ( IMF, 2015a , IMF, 2015b ).

The Gambia in relation to Countries affected by Ebola Outbreaks (Source: Adapted from The Economist, 2016 ).

The Gambia's tourism sector was launched fifty years ago as a package winter-sun destination and still caters to a mass market wanting to escape Europe’s winter season (Bakker, 2011; Williams, 2015). Tourism in The Gambia is seasonal with approximately three-quarters of all visitors arriving between November and April, and staying, on average, for seven nights (Bakker, 2011). Most visitors arrive on charter airlines, like Brussels Airlines and Thomas Cook. In 2014 and 2015, The Gambia’s largest source market was the UK, which accounted for approximately 35% of all charter arrivals ( Gambia Tourism Board, 2015 ). Other key markets included the Netherlands, Sweden, Spain, and Germany. Nigeria was also developing into a significant regional source market (GTB, 2013–2015) supported by the regional Arik airline connection.

Over the past thirty years, tourism has faced several challenges including over-reliance on international charter flights and package visitors, limited range of tourism products, competition from other winter-sun destinations (i.e. Cape Verde, Egypt, Tunisia and the Canary Islands), high airport and fuel fees and insignificant domestic demand. In addition, periodic political instability, starting with the 1994 coup d’état and 22 years of subsequent dictatorship, and a more recent change in government in December 2016, has also impacted tourism. Despite these challenges, the destination has shown resilience and is widely perceived as more peaceful compared to other African destinations. In fact, Gambian tourism had been growing steadily before the regional Ebola outbreak ( Table 1 ), receiving 171,200 visitors in 2013, which was one of its most successful tourist seasons. This insinuated significant future growth to the public and private sectors resulting in increased investment in hotel facilities and bed spaces.

Tourist Arrivals by air 2010 – 2016 (Source: GTB, personal communication, 2017).

The EITC resulted in a rapid decrease in tourist arrivals, −60% in 2014 (Hussain, 2014) which was a significant shock to the sector, evidenced by a tourism direct GDP contraction from 9% to 5.1% and an estimated drop of −40% in direct employment from 49,500 to 29,000 jobs (WTTC, 2014; WTTC 2015). The IMF, 2015a , IMF, 2015b reported that The Gambia was not fiscally sound, due to a reduction in foreign currency earnings, which were accrued through tourism and the on-going EITC recovery process. This also highlighted broader national socio-economic challenges, which would hinder any pre- and post- Ebola crisis planning and management actions.

The Ministry of Tourism and Culture ( Ministry of Tourism & The Gambia, 2015 ) is responsible for tourism policy and planning, overseeing the Gambia Tourism Board (GTB), the National Council for Arts and Culture and The Gambia Tourism and Hotel Institute, and works in collaboration with several private and public stakeholders (i.e. Gambia Hotel Association; Association of Small Scale Enterprise in Tourism).

The Ebola outbreak

Ebola outbreaks have occurred in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, but this was the first time it surfaced in West Africa ( Fig. 2 ) resulting in its deadliest incidence since its discovery in 1976 ( BBC, 2015 ).

The outbreak was traced to Guinea in December 2013 ( Knapton, 2015 ). In March 2014, local hospital staff informed the Ministry of Health and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) of a mysterious disease causing fever, vomiting and diarrhoea with a very high death rate. Eventually, this illness was confirmed as Ebola by the WHO ( Regan, 2015 ). In August 2014, WHO declared an “international public health emergency” fearing that the rapidly transmittable virus might become a global epidemic ( BBC, 2015 ). The outbreak continued to escalate until January 2015, when the infection rate finally reversed ( BBC, 2015 ). In June 2015, WHO reported the lowest number of confirmed cases since May 2014 ( Table 2 ). Subsequently, the international community deployed resources to build hospitals and treatment centres.

Key Events during the ‘Ebola-Induced Tourism Crisis’ (Source: interviews; BBC, 2014a , BBC, 2014b , BBC, 2015a , BBC, 2015b , Telegraph,, 2014 , World Health Organisation, 2015 ).

Deaths from Ebola also occurred in Nigeria (8), Mali (6), Spain (2), Germany (1), and US (1). Concern amongst the international community intensified as media coverage increased once Ebola had spread into the US and Europe ( Cullen, 2014 ). Thus, both within and outside Africa, misconceptions of risk during the epidemic led to unsuitable priorities and policies being set by governments. Africa became stigmatised as a continent, which was perceived as a potential source of infection leading to a reduction in willing volunteers offering help ( Rübsamen et al., 2015 ). The response by national authorities to control the spread of Ebola varied considerably. In April 2014, all flights to and from The Gambia to the three affected countries plus Nigeria were suspended. Most charter carriers halted their service to The Gambia and Brussels Airlines remained the only link from Europe throughout the crisis ( Telegraph, 2014 ). In the UK, entry information stations ( Fig. 3 ) and screening for passengers travelling by air and train in were introduced in November 2014 ( BBC, 2014 ) and continued until early 2016.

Public Heath England – Ebola Information at UK Airports and other Ports of Entry (Source: Novelli’s personal collection October 2015).

The UNDP (2015) estimated that as a result of Ebola, West Africa could lose US$3.6 billion per year between 2014 and 2017 due to decreased trade, closed borders, cancelled flights, reduced foreign direct investment and tourism. In fact, while the Ebola outbreak exacerbated an already vulnerable situation in The Gambia, it also spread fear, the repercussions which were widely felt in the tourism sector across the African continent ( Duckstein, 2014 , Paris, 2014 ).

Methodology

Drawing upon evidence emerging from a longitudinal cohort study conducted in The Gambia over 21 months – between November 2014 and July 2016, this paper reports on fieldwork undertaken in informal settings using a Rapid Situation Analysis (RSA) as the research methodology. The RSA is “a hybrid, participatory, bottom-up [qualitative and interpretative] research approach” ( Koutra, 2010 , pp.1016). Typically, the analysis of those on the ground allows for a more in-depth and defined understanding of the crisis and opportunities in relation to destination recovery and tourism development. RSA interprets and consolidates the feedback from local participants which, when shared back with the community, allows for reflection, ownership and transformation ( Koutra, 2010 ). As a result, the trustworthiness, representation and reliability of the research increased; as data is reviewed through probing questions with those providing the information. The RSA consisted of five stages:

• • Desk research (i.e. government statements, GTB and tourism providers’ website, press releases)
• • Retrospective analysis of field diary entries
• • Semi-structured interviews with identified research partners in The Gambia and UK
• • Overt participant observations during public and private sector workshops and meetings
• • Feedback through probing informal discussion and study refinement

The intention was to use this participatory research method to explore perceptions and practices of tourism stakeholders, and co-create knowledge and understanding with the research partners based in The Gambia and the UK. This was then consolidated through feedback received during the meeting held in the last stage of the field research (July 2016). It was deemed important to include stakeholders with differing levels of influence and interest, and geographical spread from the capital Banjul to the peripheral areas of Kartong.

Fieldwork in The Gambia commenced in November 2014 (the beginning of the high-season), and in December 2014 and December 2015 (the peak of the high-season). The research continued in the UK between May and August 2015, with follow up fieldwork occurring twelve months later in July 2016 to further assess the post-EITC situation. While field diary entries and participant observation records served as framing evidence of the EITC during the period under investigation; nineteen in-depth semi-structured interviews (see Table 3 ) allowed respondents to provide insights into their experience with the EITC. This facilitated data triangulation with field diary entries and participant’s observational findings.

Study Research Partners.

This study focuses on research questions that contribute to understanding how and why things happened, rather than testing a hypothesis with theory derived from generated data ( Hart, 1998 , Robson, 2011 ). As the aim of this study is to understand how people construct reality as they engage with their world ( Ritchie et al., 2005 , Robson, 2011 ); the social interpretation of recovery and repositioning of The Gambia following the crisis lends itself to a holistic inductive RSA approach, focusing on the entirety of destination recovery, as a series of complex inter-related pieces, rather than assessing individual parts ( Armstrong, 2008 ).

Identified research partners were approached by email for a phone, Skype or Facetime interview with twenty questions grouped according to Ritchie’s framework ( Fig. 1 ), which would drive the conversations and provide insight into their experiences (England, 1994). Open conversation was encouraged to establish rapport, which proved invaluable when analyzing and contextualizing the interview transcripts, in conjunction with retrospective diary entries and field notes. The interviews lasted between one to two hours and were conducted in English, largely in the research partner’s working environment (in The Gambia) and by Skype/Facetime (from the UK). They were audio recorded, transcribed and analysed using qualitative content analysis to “identify core consistencies and meanings” which structured the analysis themes ( Patton, 2002, p. 453 ). In order to maintain anonymity, research partners were coded as indicated in Table 3 . Photographic evidences supplemented the interviews.

Research findings

The key events occurring since the outbreak of Ebola ( Table 2 ) have had a significant impact on The Gambian tourism sector. The analysis of the findings emerging from the RSA are discussed using the three thematic areas in line with Ritchie’s (2004) CDMF stages: Crisis/Disaster Prevention and Planning; Strategic Implementation; and Resolution, Evaluation and Feedback.

This enables reflection on the literature in relation to what occurred in The Gambia and the usefulness of the model for other developing countries.

Crisis disaster prevention and planning

There was no environmental scanning or issues analysis and although some tour operators “raised the issue in spring 2014” (Gov5), both the public and private sector did not recognise the urgency as ‘no apparent proactive planning or strategy formulation’ (TRP2) was in place. “Over the past 30 years, the destination has coped with several challenges…for many it was a shock…many were expecting a bumper season” (TRP1). The lack of contingency and emergency planning, risk analysis or crisis preparedness was evidenced by “the inexistence of a crisis team even at the start of the crisis” (IC1). This indicated the state of play that generally characterises many unprepared destinations ( Beirman, 2003 , Faulkner, 2001 , Ritchie, 2004 ; Hystad and Keller, 2006). The increase in “the levy fee imposed in October 2014, despite the tourism crisis” (TRP1) was symptomatic of the local authorities underestimating the gravity of the EITC.

While every crisis is different, Ritchie (2004) and Henderson (2007) , advocate that destinations should proactively plan and formulate strategies, in order to facilitate rapid and effective decisions making; a crucial factor during the emergency stage. The lack of preparation and proactive planning evidenced in this study, ultimately resulted in The Gambia not recognising the crisis signals sufficiently early, and delaying the recovery process ( Paraskevas & Altinay, 2013 ).

A significant criterion for effective crisis management is being swiftly alerted to the possibility of such an occurrence, but while there was some awareness of a possible problem, the alert was raised by a few, but ignored by most (Gov5). However, the EITC was recognised as an “issue only in summer 2014 when bookings went down by 30% and £1 million in cancellations” (TRP1). This highlights the importance of having a clear two-way communication plan in place, whereby all stakeholders can be made aware of a possible crisis and, subsequently swiftly act upon such information with responsibility and authority. The over reliance on international tour operators compounded the issue of crisis identification, as they did not always share all information.

Strategic implementation

The strategic implementation phase consists of formulating and evaluating strategic options in order to mitigate and manage the crisis ( Armstrong, 2008 , Ritchie, 2004 , Sharpley, 2005 ). The first step was to prevent Ebola entering the country. Gambia’s Ministry of Health (MOH) initiated timely action through “Surveillance at border areas to screen nationals from affected countries entering the Gambia” (PR1). The fact that The Gambia only shares a border with Senegal that “was taking necessary precautions” (LSA2) was reassuring. To further secure the country from possible spread of the outbreak, the “banning of airline travel from Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia to The Gambia in May 2014” (PR1) was noted as a positive preventive measure.

With the imminent possibility of Ebola having a significant impact on the country, a National Task force comprising members from the United Nations (UN), MOH, MOTC, Ministry of Defence (MOD), non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and other stakeholders was set up to address the crisis. “Weekly updates on the status of the epidemic in affected countries by the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare through the support of the WHO” (Gov1) provided information about external events.

The tourism containment and recovery efforts of the taskforce were spearheaded by the MOTC. The scale of the unfolding EITC was evidenced by the termination of Thomas Cook’s entire Scandinavian programme and a 50% reduction of flights from UK and the Netherlands. Local tourism stakeholders (specifically hotels) started engaging in cost-cutting strategies to reduce the impact of the crisis on their businesses (Gov1). For example, a hotelier shared that he had cancelled hiring an operations manager and all seasonal staff had been placed on rotation (TRP2). The crisis was having an impact on the wider supply chain, with new hotel constructions being delayed or cancelled. Cost cuts included delaying investments in improvements and “working with suppliers to manage costs” (Gov5).

Alongside strategy formulation, evaluation and control, there is a need to manage and control communication. Addressing tourist perceptions of the destination's real and alleged risk is crucial in a crisis, which is partly achieved through communication and media management ( Armstrong, 2008 ; Beirman, 1998; Fuchs and Reichel, 2011 , Glaesser, 2006 , Henderson, 2007 , Kozak et al., 2007 , Sönmez and Graefe, 1998 ). This has been found to be particularly challenging in an African context ( Ketter and Avraham, 2010 , Avraham and Ketter, 2016 ). For The Gambia, it was a “very tricky situation as the whole of Africa was being put into the Ebola basket, impacting all destinations” (PR1). An immediate priority was “to try to counter the negative media coverage on the Ebola (outbreak)” (IDO1). There were many issues that the crisis communication strategy needed to consider. The GTB did not want its members “to become spokespersons on the Ebola outbreak and didn’t want to start linking The Gambia and Ebola when they [were] not actually linked” (Gov2). The fact that the destination was Ebola free created an additional dilemma in regards to communication (PR1).

This conundrum of whether and how to counter the incorrect portrayal of the threat of Ebola was not limited to the media but also to the travel trade. The crisis communication literature advocates a proactive approach to countering sensationalist media ( Ritchie, 2004 ; Hystad and Keller, 2006; Glaesser, 2006 , Henderson, 2007 ) and was endorsed by this comment: “The first thing in such a crisis is to communicate the right message in a convincing way” (IDO1). However, the GTB strategy did not address, disassociating the destination with the epidemic, but rather promoted a “business as usual” message. To this end, “the GTB distributed video clips that showed day to day normal life in The Gambia” (PR1); “sent [government] health updates to tour operators and travel media every few weeks” (Gov4); and “convened a press conference at World Travel Market 2015 in London and released a series of news-based interviews resulting in the CNN broadcasting The Gambia as ‘open for business’” (PR1). Collaborations amongst the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) members resulted in the launch of UNITEDWESTAFRICA (PR1); promoting the region with a unified voice to counteract the stereotypical sensationalist, and hysterical narrative about West Africa perpetrated by the global press, which has been widely acknowledged as an issue ( Avraham & Ketter, 2016 ).

Resource management and (re)allocation was focused on stopping a wave of cancellations by tourists, created by a lack of confidence in the destination by tour operators, who were concerned that they would be unable to fill their charter planes. There was a need to continue to attract tourists to the destination. Thus incentives to travel were created by “hotels discounting their rates by 20% and airlines providing subsidised seats”. Fiscal support was also introduced as “payments due to Government and GTB were deferred to help ease pressure on local businesses involved in tourism” (Gov5). A “reduction in landing charges was agreed by the Government and central funds were also made available to support GTB and TMC, to increase joint marketing support with tour operators from various source markets and raise further awareness of The Gambia as Ebola free” (PR1).

Within Ritchie’s framework, a multi-level collaboration is advocated between internal and external stakeholders. Although good collaboration emerged “once everyone agreed there was a crisis, this took a while” (Gov4). Reflecting the idea that a centralised leadership by an established authority would be beneficial ( Henderson, 2007 ), there was an expectation that the GTB would take the lead in emergency planning (RPP10). However, the disconnect between private and public sectors' understanding of the severity of the crisis resulted in disjointed recovery actions producing mixed results ( Beirman, 2003 , Ritchie, 2004 ).

Resolution, evaluation and feedback

Restoration of the destination to normality is the first step of the final stage of Ritchie’s (2004) framework. However, various stakeholders interpreted sector recovery differently. Most respondents viewed this qualitatively and generally aspired to a return to 2013/2014 tourist arrivals, or by setting higher targets in line with the government Vision 2020′s aspirational targets, viewed by some as optimistic. Promotion of the destination continued primarily with a focus on PR. The UK PR Agency team resumed its media visitation programme, intensified media liaison and increased visibility in more travel features (Gov1, Gov2, PR1); whilst “conducting several roadshows to share information about the destination” with the intention to re-instil confidence in the destination (Gov2).

Evidence emerged of a steep learning curve, and the numerous challenges posed by the crisis provided positive opportunities to seek change. “We have learned our lesson during the Ebola crisis and realised that tourism is a very fragile business. A crisis could emanate from other sources too…[and] working together rather than individually was more important than ever” (PR1). Despite the limited resources usually set aside for tourism, there is recognition of the importance of conducting risk assessments (IC1). To achieve this there is a “need to educate stakeholders on risk/reputation management” (LSA2), whilst also giving consideration to “the cultural context of the destination when looking at risk, decision-making and change” (IDO1).

As a result of this crisis, for which the destination was not at all ready, an emergency fund was created, to better prepare for future crisis. “This is based on a voluntary contribution by the sector, which may need to become a mandatory percentage based contribution” (Gov4). The development of a fund that is voluntary also raises questions about its effectiveness and commitment by sector stakeholders. The EITC exacerbated underlying vulnerabilities of the tourism sector in The Gambia, which is historically linked to fragile socio-economic conditions, industry structure and limited product. This still requires addressing, and there is clear recognition that the tourism product needed upgrading and upscaling (IC1, IDO1, LSA1), which will require time and major infrastructure investments (TRP2).

One core aspect that emerged from the EITC was the need for “regional collaboration to deal with health and other risks” (LSA1). While funds may be limited to engage in extensive and comprehensive crisis prevention and planning, one of “the real value of the crisis is when a crisis happens a second time, stakeholder may be better prepared to deal with the situation” (Gov4). Some funds may have been set aside to foster inter-country collaboration or to develop more effective communication strategies. Evidence of the latter was demonstrated during the transition of leadership between December 2016 and January 2017, where it appeared that The Gambia was able to communicate more effectively with the public, manage the political crisis, and negotiate the swift return of tour operators to full operations in just over a month.

Conclusions

Whilst most literature on African tourism crisis analyses terrorism, political instability and violence ( Aziz, 1995 , Fletcher and Morakabati, 2008 , Pizam and Smith, 2000 ), this study contributes to the limited knowledge on health and epidemic related crises. The longitudinal study, using RSA, enables a holistic examination of the planning, response and resolution phases of Richie’s (2004) framework. Reflecting on the experience of The Gambia’s response to the effect of the EITC provides lessons for other destinations encountering similar situations, especially in developing countries.

Heath related crises could influence tourist risk perception, resulting in a sudden decrease in tourism demand, with significant socio-economic repercussions, especially in tourism dependant countries. This paper also demonstrates that such events can occur in destinations not directly affected by an epidemic, with very severe consequences ( Beirman, 2003 , de Sausmarez, 2004 ; Mansfield and Pizam, 2006) exacerbating an already fragile situation, a problem found in many developing countries. It might be some time before The Gambia is able to make these vital changes to reduce its vulnerability to future crises.

The Gambia did not have a tourism crisis management plan in place or method of alerting it to possible crises, such as the EITC. It had to formulate a containment and recovery strategy as the situation unfolded. At the start of the crisis, The Gambia’s Ministry of Health implemented a series of initiatives to prevent Ebola from entering the country. Such measures, not only protect the local population, but help safeguard the destination’s perceived safety, an important consideration for tourists in their decision making ( Lepp and Gibson, 2003 , Sönmez and Graefe, 1998 , Taylor and Toohey, 2007 ). Thus, the issue of perception, destination image and communication, had to be carefully considered in The Gambia’s overall recovery strategy, especially when confronting images of Ebola being portrayed in the world media. The generalizability effect meant that the broader region, or even the whole continent, was negatively tarnished.

Ritchie’s (2004) CDMF provided a valuable framework to evaluate each phase of the EITC and to understand what occurred over the three main phases of the crisis. The benefits are the adaptability of the framework to reflect the specifics of each destination and crisis. This is especially important when considering the different issues faced by tourism stakeholders in developing countries, with related changes of emphasis to the framework suggested below.

The study supports the proposition that tourism destinations’ crisis and disaster preparation and planning are essential. In the specific case of The Gambia, the destination would have benefited from a comprehensive risk assessment to identify any substantial hazards associated with the Ebola outbreak. The GTB was the organisation responsible to take the lead in emergency planning, but did not have the resources or competency to do so. This was symptomatic of limited funds for risk assessment or crisis planning and, indeed, lack of awareness about the potential impacts of the epidemic led to ignoring the concerns voiced by some sector’s stakeholders.

Crises may be located in neighbouring countries, over which the host destination has limited influence and no direct control. A regional and cross boarder approach to tourism crisis planning may be beneficial to help prevent spill over effects from future crises, and to improve the capabilities of governments and the tourism sector to respond in a coherent and co-ordinated manner to any crises. Collaboration is outlined as vital in Ritchie’s (2004) CDMF for developing countries with limited resources and knowledge. This is especially important in both preparing for crises and managing their effects, an area that may require specific international donor agencies’ support for technology and knowledge capacity building. In this case, the private sector took a key leadership role in altering and managing the crisis. Whereas in developed countries, tourism crisis management is often led by the government, thus suggesting the CDMF could be altered for developing countries, to ensure relevancy, engagement and commitment, crisis plans should also be prepared involving multiple stakeholders within a country. A well-structured plan and task force committee can assist in earlier detection, which generally results in better response and faster recovery. Once completed, the crisis plan should be reviewed regularly, with training provided to key stakeholders.

In order to enable the sector to respond quickly and effectively in any future crisis, processes and financial resources need to be in place. In this instance, the establishment of an emergency fund, to be administered by the MOTC, to lead recovery efforts is a possible way forward, a solution not considered by Ritchie (2004) . However, the source and collection of such funds in The Gambia was yet to be finalised at the time the research was conducted. Given the high taxation, business operational costs, limited resources available and dependency on donors’ funding, any further contribution by the private sector would need to be carefully considered, as this may possibly reduce their competitiveness.

It is recommended that destinations should communicate promptly and openly about any crisis, and should ensure that accurate and regular information is disseminated. Although the GTB opted not to be openly vocal about Ebola, respondents felt that acknowledging concerns would have improved confidence to potential visitors during the crisis. Cost-effective communication tools, such as the internet and social media should have been effectively used to inform interested parties about the crises. The option of switching and developing other source markets, presented in Richie’s (2004) framework, proved to be not viable for The Gambia, given the limited nature of the product on offer.

Based on our findings, future research avenues can be identified. Firstly, this study suggests that a crisis affects investment and may cause further economic problems for tourism, especially in developing countries where capital may be scarce. Past research on tourism crisis management has not explored the impact of crises on investment choices and future research should examine this. Secondly, the communication message of ‘open for business’ may not be appropriate if the crisis is continuing in neighbouring countries ( Walters & Mair, 2013 ) and the credibility of such a message would need to be assessed alongside the development of possible ad hoc strategies. Finally, although lessons appear to have emerged from the EITC, there has not been any formal recording or sharing of the knowledge to date. Hence, further research is required on lessons learnt and more broadly issue of fragile destinations’ resilience at times of crisis.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to express gratitude to all the respondents who participated in this study.

Biographies

Marina Novelli ’s research focuses on tourism policy, planning and development in the developing world (University of Brighton, Darley Road, Eastbourne, BN20 7UR).

Liv Gussing Burgess ’ is a hospitality practitioner, with research interest in risk and crisis management.

Adam Jones ’ research focuses on corporate social responsibility in tourism, travel and hospitality.

Brent W. Ritchie ’s research focuses on risk management in tourism, particularly crises and disasters’ planning, response and recovery at organizational and destination level.

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A comparative evaluation between the impact of previous outbreaks and COVID-19 on the tourism industry

International Hospitality Review

ISSN : 2516-8142

Article publication date: 25 January 2021

Issue publication date: 14 June 2022

The main purpose of this study is to make a comparative evaluation of the impacts of previous outbreaks and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on the tourism industry. COVID-19 appears to have disrupted all memorizations about epidemics ever seen. Nobody has anticipated that the outbreak in late December will spread rapidly across the world, be fatal and turn the world economy upside down. Severe acute respiratory syndrome, Ebola, Middle East respiratory syndrome and others caused limited losses in a limited geography, thus similar behaviors were expected at first in COVID-19. But it was not so. Today, people continue to lose their lives and experience economic difficulties. One of the most important distressed industries is undoubtedly tourism.

Design/methodology/approach

This study is a literature review. In this review, a comparative evaluation between the impact of previous outbreaks and COVID-19 on the tourism industry has been made based on statistics and previous research studies.

The information and figures obtained show that COVID-19 and previous outbreaks have such significant differences that cannot be compared. COVID-19 has been one of the worst to live in terms of spreading speed, the geography where it spreads, loss of lives and negative effects in the whole area.

Originality/value

It is noteworthy that COVID-19 is very severe in terms of death cases and also its impacts on the economy compared to other pandemics. It remains to be argued that COVID-19 can also be a reference in terms of possible new outbreaks in the future, and is an effective actor in determining future strategies.

• COVID-19's impacts

Ozbay, G. , Sariisik, M. , Ceylan, V. and Çakmak, M. (2022), "A comparative evaluation between the impact of previous outbreaks and COVID-19 on the tourism industry", International Hospitality Review , Vol. 36 No. 1, pp. 65-82. https://doi.org/10.1108/IHR-05-2020-0015

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Gulcin Ozbay, Mehmet Sariisik, Veli Ceylan and Muzaffer Çakmak

Published in International Hospitality Review . Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

Introduction

Epidemic diseases that have been experienced at different periods and in different levels of violence, especially in the 20th (1918, 1957, 1968) and 21st century (2003, 2009, 2012, 2015), cause significant changes in human and social life ( Mills et al. , 2004 ; WHO, 2020a ). It is stated that the number of “influenza A” outbreaks have been 10 in the last 300 years ( Osterholm, 2005 ). Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is the third serious outbreak caused by a coronavirus ( Wang et al. , 2020a ). Flu outbreaks are always described as a major global infectious disease threat ( Osterholm, 2005 ), spreading rapidly and causing deaths of millions of people worldwide ( Mills et al. , 2004 ). Outbreaks with a lethal force cause many socioeconomic problems such as serious economic stagnation, social and political turmoil, unemployment, poverty, food insecurity in addition to the direct impact as the loss of life ( Yeganeh, 2019 ). Developing strategies such as case isolation, home quarantine, closure of schools and workplaces, travel restrictions to alleviate the severity of a new outbreak are considered as the global public health priority ( Ferguson et al. , 2006 ; Yeganeh, 2019 ). Mills et al. (2004) warned that if a pandemic similar to 1918 is experienced, the number of cases will increase rapidly due to increased travel, and subsequent deaths will double approximately every three days. Jayawardena et al. (2008) emphasize that the key point is planning, and previous outbreaks are important in this regard.

Pandemics cause a great deal of economic damage and loss of life. There are even explanations that the number of potential deaths is more effective than a nuclear bomb ( Nigmatulina and Larson, 2009 ). Osterholm (2005) points out that loss of life will be devastating even in a mild pandemic, and that the world economy will have to bear several years of turmoil costs. The economies of countries not affected by the epidemic also suffer due to the fear of the disease ( Yeganeh, 2019 ). It is known that the economic cost of infectious epidemics is greater than the sum of direct health effects. Outbreaks have an economic impact on macro and micro dimensions with production factors in various sectors ( Keogh-Brown, 2014 ). An epidemic also has indirect costs, and these costs arise from the possibility of the public becoming ill and the risks posed by the epidemic ( Smith, 2006 ). Pandemics do not affect all people in the same way. Especially people in the low-income group suffer more. The “Black Death” in the 14th century has reduced the global population by one-third, and death cases had been seen the greatest in poor people ( Ahmed et al. , 2020 ). This is also valid for countries. Compared to high-income economies, the effects of outbreaks on the national economy, security, health insurance policy, legal frameworks and investment flows are felt more in low-and middle-income countries ( de Francisco et al. , 2015 ).

The tourism industry is more affected by epidemics because of travel restrictions imposed by governments cause reductions in both domestic and international travel. Therefore, the travel and accommodation sectors are described as the sectors that were first damaged in an outbreak ( Bharwani and Mathews, 2012 ; Menon and Goh, 2005 ). Tourism revenues and the share of tourism in gross national product decrease due to outbreaks ( Pine and McKercher, 2004 ; Jayawardena, 2008 ; Keogh-Brown and Smith, 2008 ; Bhati et al. , 2016 ). Tourism enterprises and destinations, which are vulnerable to epidemic diseases, should prepare and implement integrated strategic plans ( Bhati et al. , 2016 ; Cahyanto et al. , 2016 ; Jayawardena, 2008 ).

Studies examining the effects of epidemic diseases in the tourism industry can be listed as follows: Jamal and Budke (2020) , Hoque et al. (2020) , Dinarto et al. (2020) , Acar (2020) , Kim et al. (2020) , Yang et al. ( 2020) , Lock (2020) , Haque and Haque (2018) , Bhati et al. (2016) , Cahyanto et al. (2016) , Sifolo and Sifolo (2015) , Ketshabile (2013) , Bharwani and Mathews (2012) , Zengeni and Zengeni (2012) , Lee and Chen (2011) , Min et al. (2011) , Avcıkurt et al. (2011) , McAleer et al. (2010) , Wu et al. (2010) , Yanni et al. (2010) , Tufts (2009) , El-Sayyed et al. (2008) , Kuo et al. (2008) , Henderson and Linh (2007) , Chuo (2007) , Lee and Warner (2006) , Page et al. (2006) , Yeoman et al. (2006) , Page et al. (2006) , Wall (2006) , Luo and Tan (2005) , Kim et al. (2005) , Zeng et al. (2005) , Valette et al. (2004) , Pine and McKercher (2004) , Breda (2004) and McKercher (2003) .

Epidemic diseases frequently experienced in history of humanity both caused significant loss of lives and have many psychological, economic and sociological effects. It is accepted that each new outbreak will serve as a reference in terms of the pandemic that will come next. In order to make inferences about the effects of COVID-19 on the tourism industry, the situations that occurred in previous outbreaks should be analyzed. The main purpose of this research is to explain the effects of COVID-19 and previous epidemics on the tourism economy. For this, a comparative evaluation will be made in terms of the impact and mortality rates of epidemic diseases, and the effects on economic structure and unemployment. In the first section of the study, previous epidemics were examined, and their economic effects were presented. In the next section, COVID-19 and its economic effects are emphasized, and finally, the damages of epidemic diseases to society and economy are evaluated comparatively.

Pandemics in the past and their effects on tourism

Microorganisms having a history of millions of years have caused many negative and positive events through historical process. While various organisms and mainly bacteria, prepare ground for beneficial works such as converting animal and plant residues into micronutrients, converting consumed foods into digestible nutrients, fermenting cheese and wine ( Gilliland, 1990 ), they have also caused for many diseases treatment of which is difficult, at the same time. As with the settled lifestyle hunting and collections were replaced by agriculture, this has caused for people to be more interacted with soil, animals and plants. As a result of this situation, passage of microorganisms from existing soil, animals and plants to humans have pioneered for various diseases to come out. Barberry disease coming out with domestication of the dog, diphtheria and tuberculosis coming out with soil domestication of anthrax, are only a few of the outcomes emerging as a result of this interaction. Furthermore, as forests and natural living areas are destroyed and transformed into settlement areas as being parallel to the increase in population, it was caused for creatures such as mice, lice, fleas and ticks being present in these areas to get in contact with humans. As a result of this, biggest epidemic of history such as plague has emerged ( Nikiforuk, 2018 , pp. 19–28).

Flu outbreaks (Spanish, Asian, Hong Kong, swine)

Spanish flu , having high spread rate (it has taken this name as it has spread from Spain to France ( Porras-Gallo and Davis, 2014 ), is one of the epidemic diseases, which has caused most number of death incidents in the near past. Although there are variations as per research outcomes, it is predicted that the disease was spreaded to nearly 500 million people, and it has caused the death of more than 50 million people ( Rosenwald, 2020 ). As a big increase has occurred in tourism activities following Second World War, the impact of this disease on other sectors rather than tourism has also been among the research topics. Spanish flu has caused for daily life and economy to come to the point of stopping in many countries. In his study, Ammon (2002) has stated that due to this disease, many schools were closed in Geneva, and also meetings and all events (sports, theaters, etc.) have been restricted. Karlsson et al. (2014) have stated that Spanish flu have caused for economical life to come to the point of stopping in Sweden. In this study, it is stated that due to the disease, incomes have reduced and that poverty rates have increased. In a study conducted by Garrett (2007) in the USA, it has been mentioned that this disease has caused for many enterprises to shutdown in the USA and for the operating enterprises to have works being reduced as per the rates of 40–70%. It is underlined that the daily loss of enterprises is around the values of 10,000–15,000$.

Flu outbreak which has occurred on the date being closest to our time has been swine flu . The virus which came out in Mexico in 2009 has caused for the loss of more than 200.000 people ( Moran and Del Valle, 2016 , p. 2). The pandemic, which has also affected tourism sector negatively, has caused for cancelation of holiday and airway reservations on a large scale ( McKibbin, 2009 ). Swine flu outbreak has affected tourism activities of many countries negatively. Page et al. (2011) , have stated that due to swine flu loss of 1.6 million tourists was experienced in England in 2009. Furthermore, it was mentioned in this study that swine flu outbreak has caused for a revenue loss of 940 million sterling. In the study they carried out in Brunei by Haque and Haque (2018) , it was mentioned that swine flu outbreak has caused for the loss of nearly 30,000 tourists and revenue loss of $15 million in this country. When it is considered that Brunei is a small country, the mentioned losses reflect that the outbreak has caused a significant impact in this country. Among the countries being negatively affected with respect to tourism activities, Mexico where the pandemic has come out, ranks at the forefront. Garg (2013) mentioned that due to swine flu outbreak, many touristic organizations have been canceled, and that tourism enterprises have been shutdown. Besides, the leading global traveling agencies have canceled all of their reservations in Mexico during the period of outbreak, and many countries, mainly Argentina and Cuba, have suspended their flights to and from Mexico.

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)

It is an infectious disease with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) origin that cause for human immune system to collapse. HIV attacks immune system of the body, and by penetrating to CD4 (white blood cells), thus weakens the immune system. Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) has caused for the death of more than 32 million people to date. AIDS has influenced tourism industry, having an important place in Southern African economy, to be negatively affected. In his study, Ketshabile (2013) has mentioned that the disease has caused for the economical growth in Southern African region to get reduced by the ratio of 25% in the period between 1980 and 2000s. In this same study, it is being stated that the biggest impact of AIDS on tourism was related with the loss of qualified labor force. The study of Strydom and Carolus (2010) also supports this outcome. In the relevant study, it is mentioned that AIDS has caused for a big unemployment problem to arise in Southern African region.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)

Coronavirus originated severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) which has come out in China in November 2002 is a disease showing rapid spreading and high level of death incidents. This rapidly spreading disease has reached to 26 countries and has been transmitted to more than 8,000 people ( Wilder-Smith et al. , 2020 ). Although SARS has shorter period of survival as having less number of cases and incidents when compared with other diseases, it is known that it has caused negative economical impacts. In China, tourism has been one of the sectors being mostly affected from this outbreak. Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai, the three biggest cities of China, have been shown as the regions where economical impact of disease was observed the most. While SARS especially caused for travel cancelations in these cities and for low occupancy rates such as 1.6% in these cities, this outbreak caused for a loss worth of 2.8bn dollars in Chinese tourism sector ( Breda, 2004 ).

Besides China, SARS outbreak also affected the economy and tourism negatively in different countries and regions. Siu and Wong (2004) have stated that in Hong Kong, total number of visitors reduced as per the ratio of 63% in March–April 2003. Pine and McKercher (2004) mentioned that in Singapore and Hong Kong, in the approximate period of four months during SARS pandemic, the share of tourism within gross national product reduced as per the ratios of 41–42%. It is known that the loss in gross national product in Southeastern Asia in the year 2003 amounted to 18bn dollars ( Bhati et al. , 2016 , p. 150). In his study titled “Getting prepared for the next pandemic” and dated 2005, Osterholm attracted attention in particular that even in case of a small pandemic, loss of lives would be tremendous and that its cost to the global economy would be high, and that this economical confusion period would continue for a couple of years. Dwyer et al. (2006) indicated that the outbreak has caused for hotel and travel cancelations in Australia, and that it has negatively affected the tourism activities in Australia. In their study which Jayawardena et al. (2008) prepared to provide strategical hints for destination and hotel managers by determining the impact of SARS outbreak on tourism sector, they have emphasized that there was a need for an integrated plan with regards to this type of crisis that could come out. It is mentioned that due to SARS the total loss in tourism revenues incurred in Toronto between months of March and July was worth 342.5m dollars, and that major part of this loss originated from accommodation. In the week of April 27, 2003, when the sharpest fall was observed, it was predicted that the hotels in Toronto incurred a revenue loss with the rate of 75% when compared with the same period in 2002. With respect to employment, it is known that 12,100 people, who were employed mainly in accommodation and food and beverages sector in Toronto tourism industry, lost their jobs and working hours of some of the workers were reduced ( Jayawardena et al. , 2008 , p. 335).

Tufts (2009) has examined Hospitality Workers Resource Centre (HWRC) which has been established as a model for hotel management unions by the union named Local 75 in order to provide services for accommodation enterprises' employees, who have lost their jobs in Toronto following SARS outbreak. The center was opened in January 2004, nine months after the crisis has started, but it was closed in October 2004. According to HWRC records, 4,490 visits were realized by 1,022 people between January and August 2004. Employees in the accommodation sector were faced with long-term unemployment in the years of 2003–2004, their debts have accumulated and when they have returned to their work, they were mainly included in part-time working system, whereas they had to work for lower wages.

Chuo (2007 , p. 91) has emphasized by considering the possibility of outbreak can reoccur, following the period after the SARS incident, it was required for managers in tourism industry to derive lessons about how they should protect their guests if such a situation would arise, and they had to develop survival strategies. Menon and Goh (2005 , p. 382) mentioned that following SARS incident, the ministries in Singapore carried out important studies and that they have put in their efforts in order to resuscitate the country.

It is a fatal disease which has first come out in the African continent, and which was discovered in 1976 in Democratic Republic of Congo. The disease gets its name from Ebola River in Congo. Ebola, is a disease that the impacts are continuing, has also spread to the continents of Asia, Europe and America, besides Africa. Because of the vaccine for the disease is developed, its spreading has been taken under control ( Anis, 2019 ; CDC, 2020a ). Ebola has influenced economies and tourism activities of countries in African continent and mainly those in Western Africa, negatively. Although the outbreak was observed in Western Africa, a perception was raised as if it was spread to whole African continent ( Maphanga and Henama, 2019 ). Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea were the most economically affected countries by the outbreak. The outbreak has caused a contraction in economical growth of these countries. Besides, due to the outbreak, the World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended cancellation of flights to African countries and leading global airline companies have canceled their flights by complying with this recommendation. This situation has negatively affected tourism, having an important share among total revenues ( Sifolo and Sifolo, 2015 ). Anis (2019) stated that Nigeria was among the countries being most impacted by the Ebola outbreak in the tourism industry. In the relevant study, it has been stated that in April 2004 the hotels in Nigeria were faced with reservation losses as per the rate of 75%, and Ebola caused a loss of 8bn Naira (nearly US$21m) in the Nigerian economy.

Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)

Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) is a coronavirus originating respiratory track disease which has first come out in Saudi Arabia in 2012. MERS, which showed a lower spreading when compared with other pandemic diseases, has caused for 858 death incidents being approved as of the year 2019, whereas 780 out of these death incidents have occurred in Saudi Arabia ( WHO, 2020b ). The Saudi Arabian government has worked to ensure that the outbreak does not hamper the Hajj and Umrah organizations ( BBC, 2014 ). The biggest reason for the spread of MERS disease outside of Arabia is expressed as people returning from Hajj and Umrah and transmitting the disease ( Pavli et al. , 2014 ). Besides the Arabian Peninsula, one of the countries being affected from the outbreak has been Korean Republic. MERS influenced accommodation, food and beverages, and transportation sectors negatively in Korean Republic. Joo et al. (2019) , explained that MERS outbreak has caused for Korean Republic to incur loss of 2.1 million tourists, and the revenue loss of 2.6bn dollars.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) and its impacts

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemics known as a general health crisis that has caused challenges for mental resilience, and has been the biggest outbreak since the SARS outbreak in 2003 ( Wang et al. , 2020b ). The epidemiological novelty of COVID-19 (the SARS-CoV2), which caused by a strain of coronavirus, revealed our lack of preparedness given its sudden and rapid spread that many governments around the world caught unprepared ( Djalante et al. , 2020 ). The epicenter of the disease was the city of Wuhan, particularly has a live animal market which was closed afterward. First called “severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)” due to its genetic similarity to SARS (the outbreak of which was seen in 2003), on February 11, 2020. Several clusters of patients with pneumonia of unknown cause were reported in late December 2019 in Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei province, China. It was later identified to be caused by a new coronavirus (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, or SARS-CoV-2) ( Zhu et al. , 2020 ) and the WHO (2020c) named it “Covid-19” ( Ali, 2020 ). The WHO named the disease caused by the virus COVID-19, which refers the type of virus and the year it emerged. The WHO declared that the virus is a pandemic ( Ali, 2020 ).

The constant spread of the pandemic, unfortunately, continues to negatively affect the areas of economic–social life, especially the health system of countries. Initial public health guidance for workers during the 2019–2020 COVID-19 pandemic was focused on ensuring workers stay home when sick, minimize nonessential travel and practice good hygiene in order to slow the transmission of disease between workers and community members ( CDC, 2020b ). As the number of cases continued to grow, and community transmission was apparent, subsequent guidance focused on encouraging all workers to work from home, with many workplaces adopting a work from home requirement ( Frenkel, 2020 ; Weise, 2020 ). In many countries, schools were closed or provide fully online courses ( Samuel and Walsh, 2020 ; Education Week Map, 2020 ), retail establishments closed or work with severely reduced hours, and bars and restaurants either closed or moved to a model of takeout and delivery only ( Testa et al. , 2020 ; Hussain et al. , 2020 ). This public health guidance, while necessary for halting the spread of a global pandemic such as COVID-19, can have drastic effects on workers ( CDC, 2020b ).

The initial primary impact of COVID-19 is on the supply side. Factory closures in many countries and contraction in macroeconomic supply of goods and services, moving the global economy from point “a to point b” – lower output, higher prices or what is known as “stagflation”. In order to understand the economic effects of this pandemic, it is necessary to take a look at the supply-demand situation. Assessing the macroeconomic impact of COVID-19, a good starting point is the observation by Deloitte 4 that “Covid-19” could affect the global economy in three main ways: by directly affecting production (supply), by creating supply chain and market disruption (supply) and by its financial impact on firms and markets (principally, demand) ( Maital and Barzani, 2020 ).

Note that the second-round impact of a global epidemic will result in moderate to major contractions in demand. As supply-side disruptions close factories and places of work, consumers will cut back on their spending, shifting demand curves inward, reducing GDP, boosting unemployment and moderating price rises.

Tourism is susceptible to the effects of pandemics because it is based on the interaction among people ( UNWTO 2020a ). As a result, tourism is one sector that has borne a lot of the impact of COVID-19. The United Nations World Tourism Organization ( UNWTO 2020a ) mentions that the COVID-19 pandemic is a big challenge for the sector and requires reliable and impeccable leadership that will prioritize tourism during the recovery phase. Many countries are already enduring the negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, in Thailand, the collapse of the Chinese market has provoked a sharp drop in business as many flower sellers, drivers of the “red car” minibuses, traditional dancers and others have reported a reduction in their monthly income by half, while the informal association of tour guides in Thailand is of the view that 25,000 people have lost their jobs ( Head, 2020 ). These are mostly small businesses that do not often have adequate funding to survive, but are vulnerable to the vicissitudes of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the USA, it is estimated that the city of Louisville alone lost an estimated $57.6m because of cancellations occasioned by COVID-19. As such, there is a worry around the world about the sector's growth prospects in many countries worldwide ( Coomes et al. , 2020 ).

Comparison of previous pandemics with COVID-19 in terms of effects on tourism economy

Pandemic diseases are defined as events that cause high level of costs for individuals and communities, the outcomes of which cannot be predicted but which can repeat themselves. While pandemic diseases can come out in different forms, they can influence various different organs of the body. But respiratory track diseases have an important share among other epidemic diseases. It is known that with regards to this type of respiratory track diseases being frequently observed through the history, epidemics and pandemics have a destructive force that disrupts the community and economy severely and which cause severe level of costs on global scale. Especially their impacts on the health and services sector are immense ( Moran and Del Valle, 2016 , p. 2; Ponnambalam et al. , 2016 , p. 1). The pandemic causes very severe level of losses in relation to the performance of tourism sector in the country being impacted ( Bhati et al. , 2016 , p. 150). For example in the study being conducted by Kim et al. (2020) , the impact of epidemic diseases on the restaurant sector have been examined an it was revealed that the diseases influenced brand confidence, advertisement and service varieties in a negative way.

Outbreaks in the past, many of which are in the 2000s, are still in people's memory. Outbreaks like MERS and Ebola may not be remembered as very important since they are limited to the local spreading area. However, the risk of death of a person with MERS infection is higher than SARS and COVID-19. The link between these three viruses is probably all of them transmitted from animal to human. However, while SARS and COVID-19 can be easily transmitted from person to person, this feature of MERS is known to be more limited. Table 1 shows the location of pandemic and epidemic diseases, date of occurrence, number of infections and deaths. This table provides a general pandemic assessment. It is observed that there is no continuity of diseases as a result of mutation or recovery (except COVID-19 as of May 5, 2020). From the 21st century, an increase in the detection or emergence of diseases has been observed.

The effects of previous pandemics and COVID-19 on the economy, especially unemployment, are presented in Tables 2 and 3 . As can be seen from the table, the unemployment rate increased during the flu epidemic in 2009 (it should be noted that it will have an impact on the financial crisis in 2009). It cannot be said that there was a serious increase in unemployment rates in other pandemic periods (except COVID-19). Unemployment rates for COVID-19 cannot be given in Table 2 , because the pandemic continues and unemployment rates are not disclosed by governments.

However, the report prepared by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (April 2020) states that there will be sharp declines in the economy in 2020, and consequently increases in unemployment rates and the number of businesses closed. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Lock (2020) estimates that the global travel and tourism market will result in 100.8 million job losses worldwide in 2020. The regions that are expected to suffer the most are the Asia–Pacific (63.4 million) and European (13 million) countries, respectively.

In this research, especially the relations between pandemics and tourism economy are emphasized. Especially tourist arrival, destination selection, expenditure, etc. topics attracted the attention of researchers ( Kuo et al. , 2008 ; McAleer et al. , 2010 ; Cooper, 2006 ; Zeng et al. , 2005 ; Blake et al. , 2003 ; Rossello et al. , 2017 ; Dinarto et al. , 2020 ; UNWTO, 2020b ). Cooper (2006) points out that the number of tourists will increase rapidly when the current threat is reduced, in his study of Japanese tourism and the SARS outbreak. Kuo et al. (2008) , in their study on SARS and Avian influenza, they found that Asian tourism demand was heavily damaged by SARS rather than Avian influenza. However, it is stated that if this flu type develops in a way that it can be passed from person to person, bird flu may be a potential threat to international tourism. Rossello et al. (2017) emphasize that if this outbreak is eliminated in countries affected by Ebola, there will be an increase of five million in international tourists and 375 million in tourism revenues. Another study states that the Indonesian tourism industry suffered around $500m per month due to the COVID-19 outbreak ( Dinarto et al. , 2020 ). UNWTO (2020b) estimates a $300–450bn decrease in international tourism revenues for 2020. In addition, it is stated that the arrival of international tourists decreased by 4% due to the global economic crisis in 2009 and this rate was around 0.4% in the SARS outbreak in 2003. As a result, direct and indirect unemployment in the tourism industry is expected to increase in the near future ( Koirala and Acharya, 2020 ). However, it is also argued that continuing adverse conditions can offer the tourism industry an opportunity to reorganize and restructure ( Giampiccoli and Saayman 2016 , p. 3; Mtapuri and Giampiccoli, 2020 ).

It is known that the risk of an infectious disease being observed in a destination constitute the most important reason why people change their travel plans ( Kozak et al. , 2007 ). For this reason, in cases of epidemics where tourism sector cannot develop a standard measure and remain defenseless, industrial and corporate disaster management studies should be done as based on duration, control level, degree of harm being caused and the number of people being affected ( Bhati et al. , 2016 , p. 149). This particular is also closely related with awareness situations and measures of employees in relation to this type of epidemics. Tourism industry is very quickly influenced from pandemic diseases and travel advices, and restrictions are brought up by the government officers. This situation causes for decreases in both domestic and international travels and as an outcome of this, the demand for accommodation sector is negatively affected from this situation ( Bharwani and Mathews, 2012 , p. 421). Travel and accommodation sectors attract attention as being the sectors that incur losses first in case of an epidemic ( Menon and Goh, 2005 , p. 376). When it is considered from this aspect, it can be stated that applications with awareness and precaution purposes against the disease could mitigate such losses or that they could relatively avoid them.

During the epidemics periods, consumers do not wish to travel and demand for hotels decreases. This reduction causes for important financial losses throughout the world and gives rise to long-term negative impacts. In this regard, the study carried out by Zemke et al. (2015) about what level of charges could be acceptable to be paid if disinfection processes are applied in hotel cleaning and especially in the rooms together with advanced cleaning methods attracts attention. As a result of the study, it has come out that youngsters and women could pay for higher charges in the hotels where disinfection processes were applied. Especially during epidemic periods and afterward, this type of applications could contribute to increase mobility in the tourism industry.

In their study, Jamal and Budke (2020) have evaluated tourism in a world where there is a pandemic, with respect to local and global responsibility. It is emphasized that governments and the stakeholders in tourism industry should consider the costs, risks and impacts of global environmental hazards on traveling and tourism even more. In the study, two major drivers of change experienced in tourism in 21st century are climate change and global emergency health cases, and COVID-19 is given as an example for global emergency health cases. Many countries publish the measures required to be taken by the open tourism enterprises during the period of COVID-19 outbreak.

Özatay and Sak (2020) , attract attention to the tourism enterprises that shutdown with the application of social distance measure within the scope of COVID-19, and they emphasize that the enterprises should not reduce their employee numbers by getting government support. They mention that this global outbreak will cause a deep economical contraction, and that there will be a decrease in gross national product. It is stated that against a global event two types of attitudes could be demonstrated, whereas the first one of these would be considering the event to be similar to an earthquake and to take action after it is finished. Other type of attitude would be developing measures that could keep all enterprises open against the situation, the ending of which cannot be definite.

The epidemic diseases that started with the 1900s have created social, cultural and economic effects as well as health problems and deaths. While the outbreaks had created their effects within the time they occurred, these effects – especially in the economy – continued after the outbreak had completely ended. The main epidemics that have had a significant impact on the tourism industry are Ebola, SARS and COVID-19. The economic effects of flu outbreaks remained lower than Ebola, SARS and COVID-19. Flu outbreaks have shown their effects mostly on social life ( Ammon, 2002 ). Among the flu outbreaks, swine flu was the disease that most affected the economy and tourism activities. While the disease primarily affected the agriculture and transportation sector, it caused the cancellation of holiday and airline reservations in Mexico and the USA ( McKibbin, 2009 ).

Although Ebola, and SARS outbreaks caused economic losses, they did not cause high fluctuations in unemployment rates. In the Ebola epidemic, the unemployment rate in West African countries was around 24–25%. In the SARS epidemic process, the unemployment rate of the countries affected by the epidemic varied between 6 and 7%. In 2009, when the swine flu epidemic occurred, the unemployment rate in Mexico, Canada and organisation for economic co-operation and development (OECD) countries increased compared to previous years. But it is not correct to say that the main reason for this increase is the epidemic. The global economic crisis in 2008 is the main reason for the increase in unemployment rates ( OECD, 2020 ).

All outbreaks in the past have caused economic problems along with health ( Yeganeh, 2019 ). While the fight against outbreaks is an important cost, the fact that industrial production has come to a halt worldwide causes significant economic losses. COVID-19, which appeared in the world in December 2019, was declared as a pandemic by the WHO in a very short time due to its high transmission rate. For this reason, governments around the world have started to take many measures especially since February 2020. Social isolation comes first among the measures taken. To ensure social isolation, many workplaces have been closed and travel has been restricted ( Ferguson et al. , 2006 ). Today, all sectors and industrial organizations in the countries continue to experience the negative economic effects of the outbreak strongly. Pandemic also continues to adversely affect the labor market, education system and sociocultural life ( Koirala and Acharya, 2020 ).

With the rapid spread of COVID-19 from China to the world, both other countries and various organizations have begun to disclose measure packages. In addition to general information, the WHO has published a guide for the measures that tourism businesses should take during the COVID-19 epidemic process. The most important factor that comes to the fore in the guide is to arrange both the personnel and the guest environment according to the social distance rules ( WHO, 2020a ). This will lead businesses to host fewer guests and thus employ fewer staff members. In this period, both businesses and employees are expected to suffer a significant loss of income.

Similar results were obtained in the studies examining the social and psychological effects of pandemics that occurred in previous years. For example, Blake et al. (2010) report that epidemic diseases cause anxiety in employees and this anxiety causes job insecurity. Another reason for job insecurity in individuals is that the pandemic is described as “serious”. Savaş and Tanriverdi (2010) stated that, 60.3% of the participants of their study related to the swine flu, which disease also seen in Turkey, said that they have considered a serious epidemic. However, since the population of this research is composed of healthcare professionals, the level of awareness of the disease is assumed to be at this level. The COVID-19 outbreak has been brought under control in many countries as of May 2020. The spread of the disease has begun to slow down outside of the USA, Russia and Brazil ( WHO, 2020e ). Controlling the epidemic allowed countries to enter the normalization process. Within the scope of normalization, the measures taken in the first months of the epidemic are removed in a controlled manner.

Although the number of cases and the rate of increase decreased in the second quarter of 2020, the number increased again in the third quarter. The continuation of the outbreak will cause the measures taken for tourism enterprises to continue. Continuation of prohibitions for international flights and intercity travel will cause to lose income and employment in the tourism industry.

The public, who referred to the pandemics in the past, probably had an optimistic viewpoint on the effects of COVID-19. But the whole world has suffered greatly in all areas, and seems to continue to suffer for a while. Undoubtedly, as in all areas, historical data are a reference in pandemics. However, COVID-19 was a heavy and violent lesson. The world, which has not experienced such the loss of life and economic devastation for a long time, has begun to believe that everything should be reconstructed. Unlike other pandemics, COVID-19 becomes a new type of virus, with its rapid spread all over the world, creating more than 1.92 million (January 2021) casualties and upsetting the economy. Of course, this pandemic will end someday. However, the losses it creates will continue to affect the whole world for a long time.

On the other hand, uncertainties regarding pandemic continue to cause anxiety in people and economies. Due to this anxiety, both the health and economy will continue to have difficulties in returning to the past. Although COVID-19 is relatively controlled, the measures are expected to continue all over the world. This means that problems will continue in all areas. When this study is prepared, the effects of the pandemic was decreasing but continuing. A well-known fact is that COVID-19 is very different from others and that new future outbreaks should also be addressed with this reference.

Information on pandemic diseases

Source(s) : IMF, 2020 ; OECD, 2020

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Corresponding author

About the authors.

Gulcin Ozbay is an Assistant Professor of Food and Beverage Management Gastronomy and Culinary Arts at the Tourism Faculty at the Sakarya University of Applied Science. She holds PhD degree from Sakarya University (Turkey). She is a researcher on food and beverage management, food and beverage service, national and international gastronomy. Her publications have appeared in journals, such as Anatolia: A Journal of Tourism Research , International Journal of Management Economics and Business , Journal of Tourism and Gastronomy Studies . Her books are published by Detay Publishing Co., Turkey.

Mehmet Sariisik is a Professor of Food and Beverage Management Gastronomy and Culinary Arts at the Tourism Faculty at the Sakarya University of Applied Science. He holds PhD degree from Aydin Adnan Menderes University (Turkey). He is a researcher on food and beverage management, food and beverage service, food cost control, national and international gastronomy. His publications have appeared in journals, such as Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research , International Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Administration , African Journal of Business Management and Journal of Global Strategic Management . His books are published by Detay Publishing Co., Turkey.

Veli Ceylan is a research assistant in Food and Beverage Management Gastronomy and Culinary Arts at Sakarya University of Applied Sciences, Tourism Faculty. He is also a graduate student at Gazi University Department of Gastronomy and Culinary Arts. He is a researcher on gastronomy, food habits and food sociology.

Muzaffer Çakmak works as a Research Assistant at Istanbul Gelişim University, Department of Gastronomy (Turkey). He is a PhD Candidate student at Sakarya University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Tourism, Tourism Management. He has publications in national and international areas. His research interests include gastronomy, food and beverage, tourism management.

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A health care worker dons protective gear before entering an Ebola treatment center in Sierra Leone earlier this month. The U.S. State Department has issued a travel warning about non-essential trips to the country.

Tourism Falling Off in Africa, Far Beyond the Ebola Zone

A recent surge in travel to Africa has come to a grinding halt.

At first, the travel agent couldn't believe it.

Thirty members of an extended family from Long Island, New York, had booked an African safari for July 2015. The cost: $197,000.

Then, the Ebola epidemic. Panicked, the family recently decided to delay the trip until 2016.

Even though their destination, South Africa, is more than 3,000 miles from West Africa's Ebola zone. And even though the tour operator charged them a $20,500 fee for rescheduling in 2016.

"People are being a little bit unreasonable—they're treating Ebola like the modern version of the plague," says Julia Jacobo of Cook Travel , the New York-based agency that booked the trip. "People don't want to go to Africa at all. They don't distinguish East Africa from West Africa, even though it's a gigantic continent." (See " Mapping the Spread of Ebola .")

In West Africa, Ebola has killed more than 4,900 people, with more than 13,700 cases reported, almost all in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, according to the World Health Organization . The WHO warns that there could be as many as 10,000 new cases a week in the region by year's end. (See " Tracking a Serial Killer: Could Ebola Mutate to Become More Deadly? ")

But there have been no confirmed Ebola cases in East Africa, or in most of the continent.

A map on the website SafariBookings.com , the largest online booking site for African safaris, shows distances from the Ebola outbreak area to other parts of the world, noting that "East and southern Africa, where most safaris are conducted, are just as far from the outbreak area as Europe or South America."

Not to mention that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health agencies have repeatedly said that Ebola is not an airborne disease and that only those who come in contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person can catch it.

But such messages don't appear to be swaying thousands of leisure and business travelers who were planning or considering travel to Africa—anywhere in Africa—and who are now postponing or canceling their trips.

About half of the more than 500 safari operators surveyed by SafariBookings.com in late September reported declines in bookings of 20 to 70 percent.

Small Risk, Big Continent

Trip cancellations and new flight restrictions couldn't have come at a worse time for Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa welcomed a record 33.8 million tourists in 2012, according to the first World Bank regional report on the industry, issued last year.

The World Tourism Organization 's 2014 global travel report said tourism to Africa rose 6 percent in 2013 and had predicted a 4 to 6 percent bump this year, though no one is expecting that anymore.

The world's second largest continent is bigger than Europe, the United States, and China combined, but since the virus was declared a global health threat in August, business and leisure travelers have tended to view Africa as a single country that they are determined to avoid.

"It's very serious," said Wouter Verger, founder and managing director of SafariBookings.com. "We have seen impacts like this, but it's usually confined to a single country."

Kenya, for instance, saw a drop-off in tourism after last year's terrorist attack in a Nairobi shopping mall that left at least 67 dead.

A WHO warning in August that Kenya was a "high-risk" country for the disease was enough to convince Korean Air to suspend flights there.

Kenya's Indian Ocean beaches, meanwhile, are deserted, and high-end safari operators report sluggish reservations.

"Some people are saying, 'I need to figure out whether in three months' time, is it going to be spreading? Will it be in Tanzania or Kenya by the time I get there?'" said Edwin Gayla, a managing partner at Asia to Africa Safaris .

Tanzania's hotels have reported a 30 percent drop in business, while 2015 bookings have plummeted 50 percent.

"August was projected to be our best month ever, but it became the worst of the last two years," wrote João Oliveira, whose company runs tours in Tanzania, in East Africa, in a comment on SafariBooking.com.

A report last month by the Tourism Business Council of South Africa found that 55 percent of tour operators, travel agents, and other tourist-dependent companies have seen a negative impact on their business.

In North Africa, Cook Travel reports canceled trips to Egypt and Morocco, which has asked to put off the African Cup of Nations soccer tournament scheduled there for early 2015. Moroccan organizers cite Ebola fears among the hundreds of thousands of soccer fans expected to attend.

Warnings, Restrictions, Fear

West Africa has been even harder hit.

The U.S. State Department has issued travel warnings about non-essential trips to Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. Many other countries have instituted travel bans into and out of West African nations, even though the WHO has said that travelers are at low risk for infection . (See " Amid Ebola Panic, Separating Fact From Fiction .")

A poll conducted by the Association of Corporate Travel Executives at a recent global conference in Copenhagen found that 41 percent of attendees said their companies had restricted travel to Sierra Leone, Guinea, Senegal, or Nigeria. Nearly half supported a travel ban to Ebola-hit countries in West Africa.

"Companies are liable for the welfare of business travelers, to the point of minimizing every practical risk," said Greeley Koch, the group's executive director.

South Africa has imposed a travel ban for noncitizens arriving from high-risk countries in West Africa.

The world's fastest growing tourism market, Asia, has seen huge fall-off in interest in and travel to Africa, including to regions far outside the Ebola zone. Many Asians remember the 2003 SARS outbreak and the more recent and deadly H1N1 pandemic. (Related: "Graphic: As Ebola's Death Toll Rises, Remembering History's Worst Epidemics." )

At Asia to Africa Safaris, which counts Hong Kong and Singapore as its biggest markets, 10 percent of clients have canceled or put off travel to Africa. Many are couples walking away from $2,000 deposits for trips to southern and eastern Africa, far from the affected region.

Asia to Africa Safaris's Gayla says that he's never seen anything like it. Diseases such as malaria and yellow fever may be more widespread in Africa, but "people are not really concerned about those things because you're able to get shots or malaria tablets," he says.

"With this disease, it spooks people because there's no found cure yet."

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The Tourism Impact of Ebola in Africa: Lessons on Crisis Management

2019, African Journal of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure

The outbreak of Ebola in Western Africa has negatively impacted on the economies of affected countries and also on tourism which is a key economic driver. The crisis from a tourism perspective included the cessation of flights to affected countries and tourism source countries issuing travel warnings to destinations affected by Ebola. The emergence of Ebola has decreased the competitiveness of destination Africa, as a favourable tourism destination. There is a typical trend, where a tragic event in one African country or region, is generally associated with the whole continent, a a disease such as Ebola then has a &#39;neighborhood&#39; impact. The emergence of Ebola in Western Africa was sadly associated with the entire African continent. Thus, the emphasis of this article is laid on the prediction of tourism&#39;s role as one of the key drivers of economic growth for each country impacted. This perspective is advanced in light of the recent Ebola virus disease outbreaks that have ...

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Ntandazo Sifolo

This paper explores certain aspects within the tourism sector, a sector that is highlighted in the South African National Development Plan as one of the key contributors to the success of vision 2030. A particular emphasis is laid on the envisaged role of tourism as one of the key drivers of economic growth. The argument put forward is that there is a need to ensure that when a sector is identified as critical in the growth of the economy, such identification should take due cognisance of the inherent risks involved. Following the identification of risks, it is prudent to proffer a multi-sectoral approach as a possible solution towards the mitigation of possible risks. This viewpoint is ostensibly put forth in light of the recent Ebola virus disease outbreaks that potentially threatened the tourism sector in South Africa.

Lisebo A Tseane-Gumbi

COVID-19 has resulted to a total cancellation of international tourism, with the prediction of the industry's international travel recovery to emerge in two years' time. Prior to COVID-19 pandemic, most African countries' main target market were international tourists. Travelling within African countries has been more expensive and challenging. African countries like the rest of the world, are currently working on their recovery strategies to sustain the tourism industry. The current study aimed at exploring tourism niche areas to advance tourism within the African continent post COVID-19. The evaluation research was used to review tourism travel patterns and buying behaviour prior to COVID-19 and consequently during the pandemic. This research method also provided the researcher an ability to propose programme of actions post COVID-19. Additionally, phenomenography research analysis was found applicable for the study to analyse an understanding and perception of African countries on tourism post COVID-19. The study argues that due to strict governments restrictions, fear on long haul destination visits, high prices as a recovery strategy by tourism businesses, many Africans, especially those intend travelling for leisure purpose will opt for intra-continental travel. As a recovery strategy, African countries need to use social media and other online platforms to promote their countries within Africa. History and culture is rich and diverse in each of the African countries and should be promoted within. African countries may also consider the marketing of agritourism to strengthen the agriculture sector, and lastly business tourism is another niche that African countries needs to tap into as part of the recovery plan post COVID-19.

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Patricia Ghann-Mensah

Emeka Daniel Oruonye

The outbreak and spread of covid-19 disease has resulted in countries of the world placing travel restrictions and closure of their borders to movements to and from other countries. The tourism industry is one of the sectors that would be greatly affected. Data for the study was generated from desk review of secondary materials, online blogs and interview through social media chat. Findings of the study reveal that the outbreak and spread of covid-19 disease led to rapid shutdowns in cities and states across the country, which greatly affected the tourism industry. Industries in the tourism sector such as airlines, hotels, entertainment and hospitality industries are facing declining demand and patronage with travel crashes and cancellations expected to continue. The increased cancellations of hotels and travel bookings resulted in billions of dollars in revenue loss and hundreds of thousands of job loss in the country. The findings of the study reveal that covid-19 is already worsening the unemployment situations in the country, resulting in loss of substantial revenue to the government, increasing incidence of poverty among others. Based on the findings, the study recommends the need for diversification priorities to alternative sectors such as tourism and agriculture and compensation to business operators in the tourism and other critical sector.

Journal of hospitality and tourism

Shuaibu C H I R O M A Hassan

The study is a conceptual type that investigates the possible strategies to be employed for developing and using tourism to revitalize the Nigerian economy from the shocks of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, the study used the past and the new strategies as well as new findings by various authors on the subject which will fit Nigerian context during economic recovery. The Nigerian economy-its problems and uniqueness are highlighted, Nigeria's tourism industry and its potentialities were discussed and how tourism could be used, using its enterprises to sustain economic growth in Nigeria. It has been identified that applying various strategies employed by various tourism destinations globally, will help develop the Nigerian tourism industry and will eventually improve the Nigerian economy after the Pandemic shocks. However, the author presents an argument on the use of the GDP as a means of measuring the strength a country's economy based on certain facts presented.

Hemispheres. Studies on Cultures and Societies

Hemispheres. Studies on Cultures and Societies (IMOC PAS)

Globalisation and regional development have, over the years, been aided through the tourism industry. Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused a public health emergency leading to huge loss of lives across the globe and at the same time, greatly affecting the global economy, the tourism industry has been the most affected. This impact is because tourism usually involves travel from one geographical area to another. Cultural tourism is an aspect of tourism through which individuals express their right to cultural life as they move to cultural attractions away from their place of residence, to gather new information and experiences in a bid to satisfy their cultural needs. To combat the outbreak of Covid-19, a prominent measure that has been utilised by states is the imposition of either a partial or full lockdown measure while restricting international travel. This research analyses the impact of Covid-19 on development in the tourism industry in Oyo State in southwest Nigeria. Its findings revealed that the tourism industry was negatively affected by COVID-19. The right to benefit from new inventions has not been adequately explored. Though heritage practitioners are aware of the need to ensure the tourism industry stays innovative to meet the challenges of the times, the government has not taken any steps in this regard. It needs to give priority to the heritage industry as tourism development has a huge role to play in achieving human rights.

Dr. Aon Waqas Awan

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Impact of The Ebola Epidemic on Travel and Tourism

December 2018

By World Travel and Tourism Council, and Oxford Economics

The research provides a detailed analysis of the impact of Ebola on Travel & Tourism in Sierra Leone. Analysing the impact in Liberia and Guinea however was more difficult due to issues surrounding the availability and quality of data.

Due to gaps in the data for Liberia and volatility in the data history for Guinea, it has not been possible to properly assess the direct impact of Ebola on T&T in these two countries.