Tourism recovery strategies during major crises : the role of proactivity

Tourism is a sector heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic (hereafter COVID-19) and tourism businesses face multiple challenges ensuing from the outbreak and reduced global mobility (Fong, Law, & Ye, 2020). Survival attempts mean that short-term gains have been prioritized by firms resulting in dubious conduct and jeopardizing consumer wellbeing (He & Harris, 2020). Recent studies relating to COVID-19 largely focus on reactive, as opposed to proactive, responses to service failures (Fong et al., 2020; Yeh, 2020). Yet, an increasing prevalence of disruptive episodes (e.g., pandemics, natural disasters, security threats) necessitates reconceptualization of these phenomena as probable, instead of unpredictable, episodes and highlights the importance of proactivity to mitigate the devastating impacts of a crisis (Ritchie 2004). Nazifi et al. (2020) suggest that embracing a proactive approach in service recovery may be more beneficial for firms and conducive both to consumer wellbeing and a reduction in negative customer reactions such as negative online reviews (Liu, Jayawardhena, Dibb, & Ranaweera, 2019).