Tourism Rebounds Analysis—Lessons from Baltics Countries

Abstract

Global public health incidents, such as SARS, MERS, and Ebola, have dented the tourism industry significantly. SARS in 2003 wiped out 30–50 billion in US dollars losses to the global tourism industry, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is far greater than that of SARS. According to OECD Tourism Policy Response in ( Singapore Tourism Board: https://stan.stb.gov.sg/public/sense/app/877a079c-e05f-4871-8d87-8e6cc1963b02/sheet/3df3802e-2e5b-4c79-950d-d7265c4c07a9/state/analysis ), COVID-19 resulted in a 60–80% decline in the international tourism economy in 2020. The effect is more prominent in the hospitality industry, as it relies heavily on human traffic, while other sectors can compensate for some of the impacts from other business models. Tourism is an important industry in Singapore; the workforce involved in the tourism industry account for about 7% of the local labor force and 4% of Singapore’s GDP. Hence, our study attempts to provide an outlook of COVID’s impact on Singapore tourism and proposes a revival playbook for the hotel industry drawing lessons from Baltic countries like Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.