Creating Tourism Situational Awareness During COVID-19: A Collaborative Approach between Community Pharmacists and the Tourism Industry

COVID-19 created destination lockdown globally with dire consequences across the tourism industry. Despite previous epidemics, there was limited pandemic vigilance and situational awareness (SA) by the tourism industry. A higher SA level, capacity building, alertness, and responsiveness are required, decreasing the likelihood of new COVID variant infections entering communities as borders reopen and attempt tourism recovery. Data was collected from community pharmacists (CPs) and tourism leaders in Macao, one of the first cities outside China to enact a lockdown when initial COVID-19 tourist cases were initially detected in January 2020. We adapt the OODA (observe, orient, decide, act) framework, positioning the CPs network as the frontline workforce to heighten SA on COVID-19 and eminent zoonotic viruses. Pragmatic COVID-19 recovery strategies have been recommended by CP literature. From interview responses with tourism executives and CPs, a novel and interdisciplinary collaboration between CPs and tourism is revealed on pandemic management and SA.