In Asia, where the coronavirus early came to human life in Wuhan in November 2019 then spreading to other countries in the region and the worldwide. Especially, tourism industry is the most knocked down in the meantime. It caused domino effects to the whole tourism supply chain such as agriculture, fuels, construction, transportation, education, banking… Accordingly, strictly adapted and controlled solutions by governmental policies are immediately applied to save their national economy.
Here below are some typical tourism governmental policies of the Asia countries to deal with the pandemic.
The Kingdom of Bhutan
As soon as the Government found the coronavirus coming to the country via a foreign tourist, they have continuously informed to their people and all partners from the world about the situation. After that, tourism and health industry have quickly cooperated to give best solutions to quarantine the country by temporarily stopping service industries.
Accordingly, all direct tourism companies are affected such as underemployment during this time. Below is the way Bhutan’s Government saves their tourism labour force during the travel restriction period, and before tourism becomes normal.
Certainly, only one month after the pandemic occurring in the country, under the guidance of the Golden Throne and the Royal Government, the Tourism Council of Bhutan in collaboration with its partners worked on the ‘Employment Support Scheme’ for fulltime tourism and hospitality employees by identifying projects. However, any other Bhutanese citizens who is in similar situations of joblessness due to the COVID 19 situation may also apply.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC)
In fact, it is known coronavirus firstly occurred in Wuhan, Hubie in late months of 2019. China’s Government has made all efforts to prevent the pandemic by strictly blocking, shutting down, suspending, quarantining people and services. However, after three months of outbreak, the life of Chinese is gradually recovered. The sector of China’s tourism industry which is prioritized is domestic transportation mainly airline.
Singapore
Last week unveiled a second fiscal support package of $33.6billion to help businesses and consumers hurt by the virus outbreak. This policy benefits for tourism domestic demands such as gastronomy, transportation, accommodation.
South Korea
After nearly three months of SARS-Cov-2 facing and while other countries concentrating on the virus solving, South Korea has prioritized for development policy including package supports and cash injections up to US$ 1,2billions for Startup Tech Incubator Program. The ambition is the host of a national flock of 10 unicorns globally. This policy partially supports for tourism infrastructure development of South Korea by global leading smart destination.
Vietnam
While dealing virus outbreak, the government has issued policy that helps hotels keeping business. National tourism authority has conditionally chosen hotels and resorts for serving isolated people who are foreign tourists, Vietnamese oversea students and Vietnamese oversea that want to come back their homeland to avoid the vir us threats.
In conclusion, SARS-CoV-2 has extremely affected to global economy for 5 months. It shows no signal of stopping. However, governments that have high adaptability with timely and proper policies can shorten hurts from the coronavirus. The economy will be quickly recovered after pandemic.
Sources: Tourism Council of Bhutan, Asia Times, Bloomberg Asia
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Hanni TranDirector of Asia, Global Tourism Forum
