Covid-19 crisis and recovery of hotel industry: a strategic focus on tourism sector in Sri lanka

Abstract

The present study attempts to investigate the response of the hotel industry during COVID-19 outbreak and the perceptions of hoteliers on reactions would be carried out at the end of the crisis. Further, the faced challenges during the recovery period were examined. An online survey was carried out among 30 upper scales, 20 middle scale,and 15 budget level tourist hoteliers selected from Batticaloa, Ampara, and Trincomalee districts located in the east coast region of Sri Lanka. Survey results reveal that more than half of the tourist hotels were permanently closed and canceled the bookings as a response to COVID-19 impacts. In response, the hotels could not pay the worker’s salary regularly caused poor performance of employees. Hoteliers perceived that the leisure marketing segment would be a highly demanded segment in this region. However, the hotel industry would be a more contributor to tourism market improvements in post-COVID-19. And the health regulation practices were found to be a challengeable activity for all hoteliers during recovery time from COVID-19 shock. Under the current circumstance, hoteliers assumed that more than one year would be taken to recover the industry. Therefore, the present study recommends that hoteliers should follow the post-COVID19 tourism development strategic plans, which are recommended by field experts and strong short term and long term sustainable goal marketing campaign should be implemented with best health safety regulation practices.