Tourism is one of the world’s major economic sectors. It is the third-largest export category (after fuels and chemicals) and in 2019 accounted for around 7% of global trade. 

However, when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, many countries introduced curfews and travel restrictions to contain the spread of the virus, causing travel across the world to significantly decline from early 2020 onwards. Tourism fast became one of the most negatively impacted industries of the COVID-19 pandemic and it is predicted not to recover to pre-pandemic levels until 2023 and beyond. 

As the world enters a new phase of vaccinations and lockdown restrictions easing, encouraging the traveling public to regain confidence in travel has proved to be tricky for organizations in the tourism industry. This is due to several challenges which we will go on to explore. 

Until the public feels more reassured that they can travel safely and hygienically, it’s likely we’ll continue to see demand for domestic leisure trips remain high, and a preference for short-haul travel where trips abroad are taken. For business travellers, it’s likely their employers will be rethinking travel policies with a focus on personnel safety and their duty of care about traveling.

Several new standards have been developed that can help tourism organizations reduce the spread of COVID-19 and build back trust and travel confidence in consumers.

What are the challenges the tourism industry faces?

There are several challenges that the tourism industry is facing when it comes to getting consumers confident enough to begin traveling:

Infection; and how to minimize it. This applies to the whole journey, including getting from your home to the airport, and then going into the departure airport to exit at the destination airport, and the destination country’s COVID risk.

Government policies; tourism organizations and the public are currently being heavily impacted by differing government policies, including some who require two weeks of isolation on arrival, so you may get to your destination but not be able to go out for two weeks, or countries who require proof of vaccinations before allowing entry through their borders. 

Finance and economics; tourism companies are facing the challenge of getting people to spend money on booking holidays with no guarantee that they will be able to go ahead due to changing Government policies. 

This means companies need to be able to offer more flexible and efficient refund policies and improve the handling of customer queries and complaints. They also need to manage their pricing to ensure they are getting the revenue they need, whilst having a competitive offer to counter the additional expenditure traveling consumers face on COVID-19 tests and quarantine stays.

To learn about how tourism companies can achieve supply chain resilience, click here.

Building travelling confidence with standards

New guidance has been developed to help revive the tourism industry in a secure way, by improving the safety, and therefore the confidence, of traveling consumers.

ISO/PAS 5643:2021 Tourism and related services. Requirements and guidelines to reduce the spread of Covid-19 in the tourism industry.

This document establishes requirements and recommendations for tourist organizations to prevent the spread of coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 in order to protect their employees’ health from COVID-19 and to provide safer tourist services and products to tourists and residents. This standard has a broad scope and will help all providers in the sector (accommodation, museums, transport, experiences, activities, and guides) to ensure safer services and prevent the spread of the virus. It is designed to help tourism providers implement the best measures for everyone’s safety and reassure tourists of the effectiveness of what they have in place.

CWA 5643-2:2021 Tourism and related services. Requirements and guidelines to reduce the spread of Covid-19 in the tourism industry. European visual identity.

The mounting evidence of the positive impact of vaccination campaigns together with the proposed use of the Digital Green Certificate will gradually restore the freedom of movement and facilitate the recovery of the tourism sector in Europe. Therefore, it is imperative that support is provided to the EU tourism industry to be prepared to resume services in a safe and coordinated manner. 

In order to help the tourism sector to recover faster, become a more resilient industry, and to rebuild trust in intra-EU and international traveling. It is now time to provide clear common and voluntary guidance at a European level. CWA 5643-2:2021 will help promote Europe as a safe, COVID-proof tourism destination through a common visual identity and build confidence among EU and international travellers, thereby giving a competitive advantage to Europe on the global tourism market.

BS EN ISO 45001 Occupational health and safety management systems. Requirements with guidance for use.

An effective occupational health and safety management system will help you to protect and enhance your most important asset, your people, to drive business excellence. BS EN ISO 45001 is designed to prevent work-related injury and ill-health and to provide safe and healthy workplaces. As an international standard, BS EN ISO 45001 crosses geographic, political, economic, commercial, and social boundaries. This sets a single benchmark for the management of occupational health and safety. So, if your tourism organization operates or trades internationally, you can work to a single standard which can simplify your business.

PD ISO/PAS 45005:2020 Occupational health and safety management — General guidelines for safe working during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This document gives guidelines for organizations on how to manage the risks arising from COVID-19 to protect work-related health, safety, and well-being. It also provides guidance relating to the protection of workers of all types (e.g. workers employed by the organization, workers of external providers, contractors, self-employed individuals, agency workers, older workers, workers with a disability, and first responders), and other relevant interested parties (e.g. visitors to a workplace, including members of the public).

Ensure your organization is in the best possible position to build confidence in your customers and support their safety needs by adding these standards to your collection today.

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