Anna Van Densky OPINION The latest edition of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) – World Tourism Barometer concluded that the near-complete lockdown imposed in response to the pandemic led to a 98% fall in international tourist flows in May when compared to last year.
The Barometer also indicated a 56% year-on-year drop in tourist arrivals between January and May. This data signified a fall of 300 million tourists and US$320 billion lost in international tourism profits – more than three times worse than during the Global Economic Crisis of 2009.
However the dramatic disruptions of the traditional tourism caused by pandemic, can also conceive new forms and incentives for travellers, venturing advantages of long-term «e-tourism».
Nowadays the new cyber-age technologies enable travelers to work from any hotspot providing broadband internet, the opportunity transcending the traditional forms of vacation built on antithesis of work-leisure, and integrating work into classic leisure environments, creating fusion of both.
«Telework tourism» opens new perspectives for individuals, couples, families, and groups, who are interested to combine a possibility of a new format of
remote office work, and leisure in a foreign country for a basic period of three months (in some cases up to six months with a relevant insurance).
Taking into consideration the most immediate and lasting lifestyle changes caused by the pandemic, the major trend – a remote work tourism, can become a must and vogue for «office people». The opportunities are equally open for employees, and self-employed, who have reformatted their modus operandi to tele-communications; and certaliny for representatives of intellectual and free professions as authors, writers, editors, publishers; not least those who are in education and academia system, as lecturers, instructors, tutors, researchers, Ph.D students, who have had already a sufficient level of autonomy and capabilities to realise their work remotely. As a result we will soon witness the birth of the entire Nomadic e-communities venturing resorts on six continents.
Within the new pandemic context the toursim sector might develop new concepts to broaden the spectrum of services, offering to the potenial travellers ideas and models of new, adapted e-lifestyle, discoveering positive sides of teleworking, moving to different settings, and environments, combining work and leisure for a significanly longer period of time, which previously has been a luxury available for senior citizens only.
Before the pandemic disruption the European tourism has been going through a period of intense development also as a result of the status of ‘industry’ it was attributed in the EU, creating jobs and generating impressive profits.
One of the achievements of these developments is the highest level of quality of the services in products offered by the industry of hospitality responding to the diversity of demands, and scale of financial opportunities of the travellers, which nowadays with a broadband can be enjoyed for a significantly longer period of time.
And after all, may be new age technology offers us much more interesting ways of spending life than we could have ever imagined before? The nascent trend for long-term «teleworking tourism» in the setting of traditional resorts is shaped by download speeds of 2.8 Mbps for HD quality, providing modern standard tele-conferencing for the working travellers, enjoying wonders of the Cyber Age.
In today’s rapidly changing world invaded by volatility the working e-travelling is the long-term trend to stay: bon voyage!
Anna Van Densky blog 