The Pathology of Iran's Tourism Industry during the Corona Outbreak and the Way Out of the Crisis

Introduction

The main difference between Coronavirus crisis and other crises has been its range of influence, in a way that it has effected many countries world-wide. This catastrophic crisis causes one million people per day lose their jobs just in tourism industry field in the world and it has jeopardized many lives around the world. The tourism industry has long been identified as one of the most vulnerable industries to crises and disasters (Biggs et al,2012:645). Health crises such as epidemics can have a negative impact on tourism, as travel can facilitate the spread of infectious diseases (Mason et al,2005:13). The World Health Organization has recommended a series of travel restrictions for countries experiencing coronavirus outbreaks. These restrictions have been applied in many countries, which has significantly affected tourism (UNWTO, 2020). Over the past 15 years, many health-related crises, especially epidemics, have severely damaged the tourism industry at the regional and international levels, such as SARS and Ebola, and foot and mouth disease (Novelli et al,2018:77). Tourism, as a fragile and highly vulnerable industry that inherently has human interaction and mobility, is more at risk than any other economy.

Methodology

The present article is a developmental - applied research considering the extent of this catastrophic crisis. Data analysis according to the results of interviews was performed by Theme analysis. The process starts when the analyst begins to notice, and look for, patterns of meaning and issues of potential interest in the data – this may be during data collection. Immersion usually involves ‘repeated reading’ of the data, and reading the data in an active way - searching for meanings, patterns and so on (Braun and Clarke,2006:16).

Results and discussion

To answer the first question of the research according to the results of interviews and research documents, the most important challenges in tourism businesses are: paying staffs salaries, paying monthly payments, rent, bills, taxes and staff insurance premiums, refund of cancelled travel funds ,impossibility of refunding paid funds for booking foreign payments and hotels, trained manpower layoffs, hotel upkeeps costs at the time of hotel closure, health and safety of staff and tourists matter, long epidemic and intolerance of travellers, widespread consequences of this event (epidemic), fear of the future, lack of necessary liquidity of travel services offices to compensate Travel cancellation (tickets, hotels, etc.), the lack of rules to compensate costs and the departure of service offices from the normal situation.

Opportunities ahead are: Transformation of traditional tourism model into new model based on tourist needs, increasing digital marketing and communication with domestic and foreign tourists to build a safe and risk-free travel, maintaining and communicating with Previous and loyal customers as starting points, oopportunity for small businesses by controlling and reducing costs and flexibility to change strategy, creating parallel and complementary businesses to reduce vulnerability in crisis.

According to the findings of the present study, the most important strategies for overcoming the corona crisis are: confidence building propaganda action plan, tax forgiveness and paying grant, the necessity of taking crisis management knowledge seriously, forming a crisis management team, planning target market in domestic and international levels and expanding domestic tourism for provoking demands in the country.

Conclusion

Regarding the first priority, the action plan of trust-building advertisements, it is possible to increase digital marketing and communication with domestic and international tourists for planning a safe and risk-free trip in Iran by observing health protocols. In order to the second priority’s execute, tax exemption and grant payment, information can be collected from experiences of successful countries like Turkey, Italy, Spain, Germany, China and Egypt. In order to execute the third priority, the necessity of taking crisis management knowledge seriously and form a management team, it is possible to collect information in area and local places and also set up small professional teams and find a safe area in related and unrelated areas. According to the forth priority’s execute, the plan of determining the target market in domestic and international level, it is possible to maintain and communicate with previous and loyal customers as a starting point (travel initiator), and also focused on identifying target countries (with white flags that have less infected by coronavirus) as well as identifying cities with white flags in designated countries. Regarding the fifth priority’s execute that is expanding domestic tourism for provoking demands in the country, it can be possible to plan the conformity market and simulate products to the tourist’s demand, as well as controlling the costs in order to improve organizational agility.

Keywords

Crisis pathology, Tourism, Coronavirus, Theme analysis