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Covid 19 and Travel: a Wake-up Call for an Unsustainable Business Model
The global economy is too dependent upon traavel and tourism. It is time for a rethink.
The business sector most impacted by the coronavirus Covid 19 epidemic is travel, tourism and hospitality. Some might suppose it ironic that this is a business model that facilitated the rapid spread of the infection.
It occurred to me the other day that Northern Italy is a popular holiday destination at this time of year. And Northern Italy was the first region outside China to be impacted by the virus. At the time of writing (15th March 2020), Italy is the country with the most confirmed cases and the most deaths attributed to the virus outside of China. As a proportion of the population the number of cases in Italy exceeds by a large margin the equivalent figure for China.
I wanted to check a theory that linked these facts. Did Chinese visitors to Italy infect other tourists who then carried the infection back to their home regions? It is certainly the case that Chinese visitors are an important market for Italy’s tourism industry. But Italy is not among the top ten destination for Chinese tourists. The countries that are do not appear to have been as badly impacted by the virus as has Italy. That does not necessarily…