M. K. Agarwal, Vinod Pandey |
Abstract
Since the pandemic has disrupted the activities of travel
and tourism worldwide, its multidimensional impact has
been observed. As it is evident that tourism industry
is capable of generating employment opportunities
multifolds, all the people in the chain from tourists
to service providers have been badly hit in terms of
the transactional behaviour. Closed boundaries,
restricted transportation and COVID protocols are
some of the issues which have changed the thought
process of key industry players, Government stake
–holders, policy makers and tourism organizations.
Their attention to accelerate the growth of tourism
has changed from inbound tourism to strengthen
and improve the domestic tourism. The study
explores issues and suggested strategies for
recovery of tourism industry in Uttar Pradesh.
The study evaluates the informations retrieved from
secondary sources (news, articles, magazine, and
reports) to recommend the possible ways to deal
with the impact of pandemic on Tourism industry.
Domestic tourism, whether it is Religious, Adventure,
Sport, Holiday or Heritage; if encouraged with proper
strategies, policies and framework can be fruitful to
accelerate the speed of tourism in the country. On the
similar thoughts Government of Uttar Pradesh has been
giving due emphasis in this direction by implementing
schemes and strengthening tourism infrastructure such
as One district one product (ODOP), attractive holiday
packages for tourists, developing religious circuits
(Ramayana circuit, Buddhist circuit, Mahabharat circuit,
Shaktipeeth circuit), Construction of Ram Mandir,
Renovation of Kahsi Vishvanath Corridor are some of
the ongoing projects represent the holistic approach to
enhance the experience of tourism. The experts and
key industry players are hoping to have overcome with this situation as market comes back to its normal
situation with the development of vaccine and expecting
‘Revenge travel’ to gain momentum in 2021.
Keywords: COVID-19, Domestic Tourism, Religious Circuits, Uttar Pradesh
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