Impact of Covid-19 and the Future of Tourism Employments in Sri Lanka: A Route to Recovery and Resilience

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic started to attack Sri Lanka in the middle part of the tourism season. During this period a larger number of tourists were enjoying in Sri Lanka while some other tourists were already purchased their holidays. The effect of COVID 19 global pandemic to the tourism industry caused the complete shutdown of tourism not only Sri Lanka, but also in the global context. Top tourist generating markets of Sri Lanka are China, India and UK and these countries are highly affected by this pandemic. The main objective of this review paper is to identify the impact of COVID 19 pandemic on the tourism and hospitality industry employees in Sri Lanka and second, to identify the future challenges faced by the employees of the tourism industry in Sri Lanka. The study was carried out using qualitative methodology with the qualitative data collection techniques. The personal interviews were carried out with the public and private sector officers to get their opinions and suggestions such as Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, Sri Lankan Airlines, Sri Lanka Hotel Association, Sri Lanka Inbound travel operators, Sri Lanka Institute of National Tourist guide lecturers. The findings revealed that the industry is badly affected and presently around 12000 tourists are blocked in the country. There are more than 400,000 direct and indirect tourism and hospitality employees in the industry lost their jobs or income sources. All the potential income sources of the country have been blocked and therefore the local community has faced a severe financial crisis. It will not be easy to retain the employees in the tourism and hospitality industry since they expect the job security. Thus, it is essential to go for resilience strategies immediately like such as giving governments support for the industry, conduct programmes to keep positive mind-set of tourism employees to remain within the industry during this hardship, empowering employees effectively. In this critical situation, the industry expect the active mediation of government to facilitate them to face this devastating situation with favorable concessions, relief packages, reduction of tax burden, favorable policies and strategies to rebuild the industry, Tourism Employees Relief Package (TERP) etc. However, it will not be easy in short run in the pandemic affected economies and societies. Therefore, it needs to have effective resilience strategies first, to retain the employees with the industry and next to rebuild the ruined industry