Who are vulnerable in a tourism crisis? A tourism employment vulnerability analysis for the COVID-19 management

Abstract

Providing targeted support to people who are mostly impacted financially is critical in managing the socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic; however, governments face the challenge of pinpointing vulnerable workers. Building upon the multi-regional input-output model and a high-resolution employment profile, this research develops a new analytical model to recognize the vulnerable population in a crisis by identifying who they are, where they work and what sector they work for. The model was applied to Indonesia to assess tourism losses and found four regional hotspots where the employment vulnerability of women, youth and low-education workers was more than five times higher than the national average. Findings demonstrated that this model could assist with rapid and efficient targeted support for crisis management in the short term and continued investment for an equitable disaster recovery in the future.