April 3, 2020
Expert: Many local tourism systems won't survive pandemic
Dr. Jalayer (Jolly) Khalilzadeh is an assistant professor of tourism in the COB’s School of Hospitality Leadership. His research looks at network and system science in tourism and hospitality contexts.
Khalilzadeh just issued an opinion piece titled, “The Future of the Global Tourism System Post COVID-19.” In this piece, he describes tourism as a complex system consisting of multiplex networks. This network has a hub-and-spoke structure wherein a few main hubs (e.g., major airlines) are connected to numerous spokes (e.g., local pubs and restaurants). The tourism industry can better handle the outbreak when spokes are attacked, but in today’s situation, both hubs and spokes are being attacked by COVID-19.
Dr. Jalayer (Jolly) Khalilzadeh
Khalilzadeh says, “The fact that COVID-19 is attacking both hubs and spokes simultaneously with intense and forceful waves is very concerning. This behavior makes COVID-19 the most disastrous health crisis of tourism history over the past 70 years.”
Other highlights
The global tourism system will survive the COVID-19 pandemic due to its well-connected state to other economic and social systems/networks. The same is not true for many local tourism systems as they are not going to survive this pandemic.
In time of prosperity, tourism is among the most human-intensive industries, employing a large portion of the global workforce. However, in time of crisis, tourism is also among the first industries to lay off its employees and let them go.
It is too soon to discuss what the post-COVID-19 tourism system will look like, but we are confident that it is not going to look like what it was before.
To download the paper, please visit this link.