In this research, the authors estimate the revenue loss due to COVID-19 on homestays in 13 districts of Uttarakhand, India. They use novel techniques and unique variables to calculate revenue and expenditure. They also attempted to uncover resilience strategies adopted by homestay owners to recover their respective businesses. They found six themes from the eleven semi-structured interviews with these homestay hosts. They defined these themes as untact hospitality, upgrading homestay services with digital technologies, digitally transforming booking policies, sustainability with legal registration, supporting intrapreneurship, and social entrepreneurship model. This study contributes to advancing the crisis management literature within the tourism sector by evaluating the impact of the pandemic on homestays of Uttarakhand and thereafter elaborating on resilience strategies adopted. Practitioners and policymakers can use the study outcomes to re-evaluate the existing guidelines concerning homestay operations according to the new normal solitary concept.
Top1. Introduction
The unprecedented disaster due to COVID-19 led to severe losses to the travel & tourism sector worldwide (Worldometer, 2020). A significant drop was witnessed in travel demand across the globe due to the spread of anxiety and uncertainty (Wassler and Talarico, 2021). The impact of loss due to the pandemic was also seen in India since tourism contributes significantly to the economy in terms of revenue and employment (UNWTO, 2020). A 68% fall was observed in India's foreign tourist arrival rate from February to March 2020. Hence, foreign exchange earnings fell by 66.32% (Ministry of Tourism, 2020).
Uttarakhand, a state in northern India crossed by the Himalayas, accounts for over 50% of the state's GDP from tourism suffered huge losses due to the pandemic. The state attracted many tourists owing to its natural beauty, pilgrimage values, ayurveda and natural health resorts, and varied geography. However, due to COVID-19, many hospitality units operated at the local level underwent crisis (Eichelberger and Peters, 2021), especially homestays, which have significantly increased in the state over time. Even though they are famed as the best way to experience the Himalayan hospitality of Uttarakhand, they endured damage because they are mainly family-operated and highly vulnerable to such externalities (Dahles and Susilowati, 2015).
There have been many studies that have investigated the actual and potential effects of the pandemic on various tourism sectors like cruise lines, hotels, dining, and tourist attractions (Gossling, Scott, and Hall, 2020; Pappas, 2021; Ugur ˘ and Akbıyık, 2020). However, there has been little attempt to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on revenue loss of homestays, specifically in the Uttarakhand state of India. There have been studies on response, adaptation, and coping strategies to crises and disasters (e.g., Dahles and Susilowati, 2015; Prayag, 2018; Sharma et al., 2021) in tourism and hospitality businesses. More recently, a growing body of literature has developed on understanding business resilience, especially during the pandemic. Nevertheless, there is no work owing to resilience strategies followed by homestay owners. Studies have captured the behaviors of guests and travelers, while the perspectives of homestay owners and hosts have not been accounted for (Farmaki et al. 2020). Thus, in this study, we elaborate on the case of homestays in Uttarakhand and estimate the loss of revenue and employment in the first phase of COVID-19. Further, we explore resilience strategies executed by homestay owners to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
This study was conducted in two phases. During the first phase conducted in June 2020, we estimate the impact of revenue loss for homestays of Uttarakhand. The challenge was to assess the loss realistically as most of the sector was unorganized, and insufficient reliable data was available. The primary data was collected from Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board (UTDB) officials and homestay owners. The variables used for calculating the revenue and expense for 13 state districts were assumed upon discussion with the homestay owners. Both peak season and off-peak season were included. In the second phase of the study conducted post-pandemic in June 2022, eleven semi-structured interviews were taken with homestay owners to understand recovery strategies. Interviews were analyzed thematically, and data revealed resilience strategies employed by homestay owners to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.