Covid-19 Recovery Strategy for Tourism and Hospitality Industry in Egypt: Delphi Technique

Travelling is considered the main request for tourism and hospitality activities, for that any factor or behaviour which delays travelling will affect directly on tourism and hospitality industry such as Covid-19 pandemic. Also, the pandemic of Covid-19 had a powerful and varied effect on the tourism and hospitality industry around the world. Therefore, it is necessary to have well thought strategies for tourism and hospitality crisis management, to reduce the potential risks and strategies for recovery from this crisis. This research aims to identify the impact of Covid-19 on the tourism and hospitality sectors and to explore recovery strategies to reduce the negative effects of this pandemic by using the Delphi technique to reach a consensus between experts to judge the complicated issues. This research used a qualitative approach to achieve the research aim. Purposive and snowballing sampling was used in this research and data was collected by semi-structured interviews. This research recruited 48 experts in the Delphi panel. The consensus about the recovery strategy for Covid-19 on tourism and hospitality was reached from two iterations of the Delphi panel. Data analysis was organised and performed by using NVIVO-12 software for coding and identifying themes, then all interviews were collected in an Excel spreadsheet and analysed by SPSS modeler which can be used for qualitative data analysis. The results indicated that the tourism and hospitality sectors in Egypt had been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. The results revealed the importance of the recovery strategy for Covid-19 on tourism and hospitality which including demand, health and hygiene, innovation and digitization, and sustainability. It showed that the respondents were completely agreed with a recovery strategy for Covid-19 on tourism and hospitality. This research suggests some strategies for tourism and hospitality policymakers to reduce the negative effect of the Covid-19 pandemic and reopen tourism and hospitality operations.