Chapter 8: The Challenge of Future for the Post-COVID-19 Tourism in the City of Venice

The COVID-19 pandemic, which broke out in 2020, has heavily affected all tourism businesses and destinations, which are now facing an unprecedented crisis, different from any other ones occurred in the past (Sigala, 2020). All economic sectors have been suffering for a year now, but tourism is the worst penalized industry and the recovery for the entire tourism ecosystem will likely take longer than in other sectors (Krishnan et al., 2020; OECD, 2020). According to UNWTO (2021), the return of international arrivals to 2019 levels is expected no earlier than 2024, and although domestic travel demand is recovering faster, it is unlikely that it could compensate for the decline in international flows. Some kinds of destination and tourism businesses are more affected than others (OECD, 2020), and the timing of recovery will vary across segments (Krishnan et al., 2020). In particular, those tourism businesses and destinations that are heavily dependent on the long-haul international market and on urban cultural tourism are likely to be the most damaged (Krishnan et al., 2020)…