A look at the impact COVID-19 has had on the hospitality industry

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research 1:45 A look at the impact COVID-19 has had on the hospitality industry

By:

Erin Williams

10 Mar 2021 341

Mahmood Khan, professor and director in the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management in the Pamplin College of Business, explains some of the impacts COVID-19 has had on the tourism and hospitality industries. Khan also offers some best practices for when travel is necessary.

As you know, travel industry has been very devastated by COVID-19. But there are some businesses that benefited from it. For example, the delivery service. The food delivery services, those were the major benefactors for this reason. The fast food operations who had a curbside pickup, all the others, they are developing those and they did not get as much affected as a fine dining service. Hopefully with the vaccines, people are getting more confident and they will be able to travel much more. One of the advantages is the federally mandated mask program. That will give confidence to passengers, as well as the airlines. When you are standing in a line for the ticket when you're in a lounge and so on. That is another thing that they have to be sure that they keep distance. You know, the regular kind of precautions, washing the hands and not touching the eyes and nose because the eyes even if you put on your mask, the eyes are the ones through which can very easily get into the system. And not to travel if it is not needed. There will be a change in the way we do the business, the way we classify different types of tourism and hospitality businesses. So I think there will be some changes, most of them would be different and good, but the strategy will change.