The OECD emphasizes the importance of green growth, which promotes economic development while preserving natural resources. Investment and innovation are crucial for sustainable growth and a green economy, which prioritizes low carbon, resource efficiency, and inclusivity. Tourism plays a significant role in transitioning to a green economy due to its cross-cutting nature. Both public and private sectors are increasingly motivated to invest in sustainable tourism practices. Green innovation, which reduces environmental impact and optimizes resource use, is essential for achieving sustainability goals. Government action is necessary to foster an environment conducive to green innovation. The OECD Innovation Strategy outlines principles to harness innovation for economic and societal benefit. In tourism, process innovations are becoming more important, leading to cost reduction, quality improvement, and increased profitability. A coordinated approach across government departments is vital to support green innovation in tourism effectively. Examples include setting targets for environmental performance improvement, capacity building for businesses, and establishing advisory groups for green growth.

The Digital Transformation Initiative (DTI) is a project launched by the World Economic Forum in 2015 as part of the System Initiative on Shaping the Future of Digital Economy and Society. It is an ongoing initiative that serves as the focal point at the Forum for new opportunities and themes arising from latest developments in the digitalization of business and society. It supports the Forum’s broader activity around the theme of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The aviation, travel and tourism industry has been at the forefront of digital disruption, changing the way people travel. Nonetheless, World Economic Forum research suggests it should brace itself for another wave of digital transformation. There are a series of industry, customer and technology trends converging to redefine operating and business models in the travel ecosystem. New entrants – especially digital natives such as online travel aggregators (OTAs), meta-search engines and travel service platforms – are shaking up the value chain. Growing demand for travel, particularly in emerging markets, represents a significant opportunity for these new entrants, as they challenge incumbent businesses to rapidly adapt their own strategies to capture growth. Travel providers are seeking stronger interactions with customers, while drastically changing operations, in pursuit of better insights around customer preferences and operational performance. Connected devices and artificial intelligence (AI) will provide ample opportunities to make those operations more effective, and enable collaboration and asset-sharing between enterprises. Technology will also have an impact on the industry workforce, with employees empowered by real- time information and decision-making support from AI to focus on their core strengths. These trends look set to propel the industry into a period of accelerated digitalization. Four themes have been identified that will take centre stage in shaping travel and tourism over the next decade: 1. Living travel experience: Travellers will experience seamless journeys tailored to their habits and preferences. Companies along the Aviation, Travel and Tourism industry journey will optimize customer experience by collecting and exchanging data, and continuously generating insights. In time, travel will become frictionless, blending seamlessly with other everyday activities 2. Enabling the travel ecosystem: Ecosystem roles are blurring as stakeholders throughout the customer journey vie to own the customer relationship. Digital platforms that enable ecosystem alliances will continue to emerge, as asset and information sharing become increasingly important from a B2B perspective

The urgency of addressing climate change, emphasized by the 2021 IPCC report, highlights the significant impact on the Travel & Tourism sector, a notable emitter of greenhouse gases. Transitioning to net zero emissions by 2050 is crucial, with businesses playing a pivotal role. This report focuses on selected industries within the sector, offering insights into challenges, opportunities, and pathways to decarbonization. Key findings reveal variations in carbon footprints, progress in establishing climate targets, and challenges in monitoring emissions. Common obstacles include fragmented regulations, lack of governmental support, and financial constraints, particularly for SMEs. Ensuring inclusivity in decarbonization efforts is essential.

Originating as a health crisis in early 2020, COVID-19 has rapidly transformed into an unparalleled economic crisis impacting global, national, and regional economies, as well as the lives of billions across the globe. This report meticulously dissects the far-reaching consequences of the crisis across industry sectors, businesses, individuals, families, and communities. It meticulously examines empirical evidence and data from business realms and societal segments that could face arduous journeys to recovery, with a focus on the most susceptible enterprises and individuals in emerging markets, who are anticipated to grapple with persistent challenges and specific difficulties in navigating through this crisis. Additionally, the report underlines avenues for the private sector to take proactive measures in support of a robust resurgence and the concept of “building back better.”

This article presents a comprehensive overview of research conducted in the hospitality and tourism sectors in response to the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact. It identifies crucial viewpoints and themes related to the recovery and resilience of these industries and proposes recommendations to address the organizational and consumer behavior shifts resulting from the pandemic. Employing a critical reflective approach, this study discerns, selects, and consolidates pertinent research to derive its recommendations. It introduces a contemporary framework centered around three main themes emerged from existing research on COVID-19’s effects on hospitality and tourism: management, marketing, and consumer behavior. Additionally, the article furnishes actionable suggestions for organizations to navigate and rebound from the pandemic’s repercussions, guiding the industry towards sustained long-term resilience. Moreover, the paper provides an up-to-date synthesis of chosen literature and theories that scrutinize the significant implications of the pandemic for the recovery and fortification of the hospitality and tourism sectors. Since the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 (WHO, 2020), these sectors have encountered unparalleled challenges. Subsequently, governmental restrictions and measures like lockdowns, social distancing, and mobility constraints were implemented to mitigate the pandemic’s adverse impacts. These measures substantially disrupted the demand for hospitality and tourism, leading to the temporary closure of numerous businesses in these domains (Bartik et al., 2020). This circumstance spawned promising research avenues for scholars to gain deeper insights into recovery strategies’ implementation in these sectors. Among the initial endeavors in this direction, Gössling et al. (2020) conducted a comprehensive assessment of COVID-19’s influence on hospitality and tourism during the pandemic’s early stages. Subsequently, Donthu and Gustafsson (2020) explored pandemic-related challenges across various industries, including tourism and hospitality, focusing on changes in consumer behavior, ethical considerations, and organizational conduct. However, given the disproportionate impact on hospitality and tourism (Donthu and Gustafsson, 2020; ONS, 2021), and the industries’ transition to a post-pandemic phase, research emphasis shifted to recovery and resilience-building (Fotiadis et al., 2021). This pivot necessitated a current synthesis of pertinent research addressing COVID-19’s implications for hospitality and tourism. Consequently, the primary objective of this critical reflection paper is to delve into the organizational and consumer behavior transformations triggered by the pandemic, with a particular emphasis on their future implications for the hospitality and tourism sectors.

This report introduces and explores the potential of Circular Economy inspired ideas and practices to guide a more sustainable, resilient, and future-proof development of the travel and tourism industry. The Circular Economy has been gaining momentum in recent years, for its potential to significantly optimise resource use, reduce production and consumption related GHG emissions, while at the same time offering competitive advantage opportunities for businesses. This publication contributes to the conceptualization of common Circular Economy and circular value creation concepts within the travel and tourism industry context. In a ‘business as usual’ scenario, the travel and tourism industry’s underlying socio-economic and environmental challenges will remain and be further exacerbated as the number of global tourism consumers increases. Overtourism, GHG emissions and biosphere degradation issues will not automatically disappear once the COVID-19 crisis is under control. More than ever, those challenges will need to be actively addressed to rebuild a more resilient, economically, and environmentally sustainable tourism industry. The current focus is understandably on dealing with the pandemic’s immediate health and economic consequences. However, the following medium to long-term economic recovery efforts affecting the travel and tourism ecosystem may fall into two distinct paths: A business as usual: resource and GHG intensive linear ‘take, make, waste’ growth model predominantly based on volume growth. A circular model: intentionally designed to be regenerative of natural, human, and social capital, operating within the earth’s and local destinations’ sustainable boundaries. This report suggests that implementing the Circular Economy regenerative vision for the tourism industry offers a pathway to follow the second path; towards a resilient and sustainable, tourism ecosystem. It also suggests that travel and tourism has an important role to play in the Circular Economy transition, as the industry is deeply interlinked with and dependent on multiple key resource flows, asset, and commodity value chains in society – including agriculture and food, built environment and transport industries to name a few. Travel and tourism actors can act as enablers of circularity and benefit from shared circular value creation and value capture within relevant value chains. Through a system thinking approach based on collaboration, business model innovation and value co-creation, travel and tourism actors could increase their organisation’s and overall industry resilience, lower their natural ecosystem impacts and provide enhanced economic and societal value to the tourism ecosystem’s direct and indirect stakeholders

The digitalization of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) is crucial for inclusive and resilient economies. Despite progress, SMEs face challenges such as lack of information, digital skills gaps, and financial constraints. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated digital adoption, revealing that digitally mature SMEs responded more efficiently. However, size still influences digital readiness. Governments and private sector initiatives play key roles in supporting SMEs, but there’s a need for targeted policies, especially in recovery plans. Cooperation between public and private sectors is essential to address structural barriers and ensure all SMEs benefit from digitalization.

Businesses have been exposed to various challenges during the global pandemic, and their response to this disruption has impacted their resilience as well as their chances to overcome this crisis. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are changing their business models to adapt to this changing environment. Service-based industries have been hit particularly hard. This research investigates how SMEs operating in service industries have been coping with the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This research aims to gain insights into which transformation drivers they have focused on and which technologies they have selected to respond to the disruption. These insights regarding SMEs are then explored according to their influence on the redefinition of sustainable business models in SMEs. The review data was analyzed via a customized research framework that contains three dimensions and 30 sub-concepts. The results show the distribution of drivers and technologies across service sectors. They are organized into a Business Model Canvas and could be considered useful for academia and practitioners. The highly unpredictable environment allows for only a few feasible strategic approaches regarding an SME’s decision on to follow incumbents, to become a challenger, or to reinvent themselves based on their own transformation drivers and readiness to apply digital technologies. The global health crisis that started in 2020 impacted businesses of all sizes and in all industries. Although some industries have shown a certain level of resilience or even found a new operating niche, most small and medium-sized entrepreneurs in the services industry found themselves in “new normal” operating environments. The negative impacts of the pandemic have been reported in all spheres of life, and have had economic, political, social, and psychological consequences. However, the strongest impact has been on human health and the perception of human health. In order to slow down the pandemic, several countries have suspended business activities, and have adopted social distancing in order to reduce human-to-human transmission of COVID-19. This has led to lockdowns, reductions in consumption, the closure of communities, and the elimination of businesses. Numerous economic experts see this pandemic as a metaphorical “black swan” event, “that is, a surprising, unpredictable event of great significance and severe consequences that dramatically changes the political and economic environment” that may cause business failures. Technology professionals refer to this as a global disruption, which can be seen as an opportunity or as a challenge to transform business models or implement new technology as a support for business processes. According to Walsh (2020), regardless of their size, numerous companies, large, medium, and small, are, “succumbing to the effects of the coronavirus”. The year 2020 has been projected to “set a record for so-called mega bankruptcies” of many companies . New strategy approaches for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) should help increase the likelihood of overcoming the impact of the pandemic since SMEs have been badly hit financially due to their limited resources and expertise. Based on a common understanding of factors that could impact how businesses are coping with their survival, an approach with three dimensions could be of interest. First, the operating industry and sectors within the industry influence the exposure of SMEs because SMEs tend to be more concentrated in sectors that have been directly affected by COVID-19 response measures (e.g., retail and services). They are typically more credit constrained than larger businesses. For this reason, focusing on how SMEs respond to all challenges posed by a pandemic made sense, especially in the service sector, which has been severely impacted by lockdowns in most countries. Second, various transformation drivers set the course of response and form the direction of transformation. Third, as a means of raising effectiveness, exponential technology development in previous years was seen as a promising tool. At that time, digital technologies did not find a strong and widely based application in the SME sector; however, due to the COVID-19 disruption, SMEs are now trying to avoid a total shut down of economic activities by introducing digital technologies that were not considered a high priority earlier. All three dimensions are in-line with the transformational scenarios seen before the COVID-19 disruption, and could form a solid sustainability framework for changing business models of SMEs. Based on these three dimensions of coping with the disruption caused by the COVID- 19 pandemic, this article provides insights into the following research questions: What drives SME transformation in the service sector, and which technologies are being selected to respond to the pandemic disruption? How does the operating service sector, transformation drivers, and selected technology influence the redefinition of sustainable business models in SMEs?

Tourism is especially susceptible to measures to counteract pandemics because of restricted mobility and social distancing. The paper compares the impacts of COVID-19 to previous epidemic/pandemics and other types of global crises and explores how the pandemic may change society, the economy, and tourism. It discusses why COVID-19 is an analogue to the ongoing climate crisis, and why there is a need to question the volume growth tourism model advocated by UNWTO, ICAO, CLIA, WTTC and other tourism organizations. Against this background of a rapidly evolving global pandemic, this paper has four interrelated goals. First, to critically review the literature on the impact of previous epidemic/pandemics on global tourism and compares these events to other types of global crises. This section also examines whether the COVID-19 pandemic was an unknowable risk. Second, the paper provides a rapid assessment of the reported impacts of COVID-19 on global tourism through to the end of March 2020, including documented travel restrictions by each country and declines in air travel and accommodations. The differential regional impacts and implications for development are also examined. Recognizing that the impact to global tourism has only just begun, the third goal is to summarize early estimates of the damage to the tourism economy over 2020 and beyond. Because of the tremendous uncertainty, these early estimates are critically assessed against available epidemiological modelling and public health scenarios for restrictions on travel and public gatherings. Finally, the paper considers how the COVID-19 pandemic may change society, the economy, and tourism, and some of the key research needs to understand these changes and contribute to a more sustainable post-pandemic tourism sector. As soon as the virus is under control, there will be an urge by many to go back to business as usual, perhaps to overcompensate for losses by even more aggressive growth. Yet, the crisis holds important messages regarding the resilience of the tourism system, also in regard to other ongoing crises that are not as immediate, but potentially even more devastating than COVID-19, such as climate change.