In response to the COVID-19 pandemic emerging in China and in the East Asian market, DG-GROW established an ad hoc group to monitor the unfold of the crisis in the East Asian Market.

The ad hoc group included the following participants: 
•    ACI-Europe – Airports Council International – Europe 
•    A4E – Airlines for Europe
•    EU Travel Tech – European Travel Tech Organisation
•    ETC – European Travel Commission
•    HOTREC – Confederation of National Associations of Hotels, Restaurants, Cafés and Similar Establishments in the European Union and European Economic Area 
•    ECTAA – European Travel Agents’ and Tour Operators’ Association
•    ETOA – European Tourism Association
•    EEIA – European Exhibition Industry Alliance
•    CLIA – Cruise Lines International Association
•    ERAA – European Regions Airline Association
•    UNWTO – World Tourism Organisation
•    WTTC – World Travel & Tourism Council

The primary objective of this group was to engage in nowcasting, which involved assessing the speed and severity of the downturn. Through discussions within the ad hoc group, it became apparent that the tourism ecosystem was experiencing a much faster decline compared to other sectors.

With the unfold of the pandemic in Europe, the agenda primarily focused on crisis management strategies to effectively deal with the emergency, mitigate its impact and avoid a domino effect. In this stage the group provided recommendations on emergency measures necessary for the ecosystem's survival. To support recommendations, they were analysing: 1) drop in demand, 2) liquidity and insolvency of companies (to estimate the severity and length of the crisis on the different tourism ecosystem sectors and understand possible domino effects).

On a second stage the focus changed to the restart of tourism. Their discussions included identifying the bottlenecks for recovery (e.g., if airports are closed, the restart is not possible) and enablers for a faster recovery (e.g., the Digital COVID Certificate).

#Adaptation strategies #Empowerment