IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON THE TOURISM SECTOR OF INDIA

Abstract

The covid outbreak of this virus paralyzed the tourism industry by threatening both global and domestic tourist. The main purpose of this research paper is to study the impact of covid-19 virus on tourism industry especially Indian Tourism industry with statistical evidence, surveys and reports/ articles. This study also signifies the tourism sector importance in Indian economy and how it is dependent on the change in behaviour of tourists during and after the pandemic. This research paper aims at investigating the situation of Indian tourism industry during the COVID-19 pandemic and tries to provide useful information to the tourism industry players to deal with the changed preferences of tourists in the new normal by finding out change in behaviour for tourism components, this research paper is descriptive in nature, and is based on primary as well as secondary data. The secondary data has been collected from various online sources such as websites, research papers, etc. The primary data has been used to analyse the change in domestic (Indian) tourists’ preferences for tourism components such as duration, accommodation, mode of transport and other components. For this purpose, their preferences before the pandemic as well as after the pandemic have been gathered from the respondents. For collecting the primary data, a structured questionnaire was created. It is evident that people have intentions to use own vehicle or flight for a trip instead of using public transport such as railway train or state-run bus or even a private operator bus and it can be due to concerns with safety measures, i.e., hygiene and proper social distancing as well as adherence to other norms for a safe trip