The COVID-19 pandemic has generally destroyed the global tourism industry and threatened the recovery of destinations in developing countries facing more challenges from increasingly serious waves of the pandemic. Although many studies have attempted to measure the general impacts of COVID-19, very little research has been conducted to assess its overall impact on specific tourism destinations throughout many waves of the pandemic. This research aims to explore how a tourism economy in a developing country context has been damaged after many waves of COVID-19. A typical emerging city in Vietnam experiencing three waves of the COVID-19 pandemic was selected as a case study. The study recruited 40 representatives of tourism-related organizations for in-depth interviews, while 280 questionnaires were distributed to participants from different tourism organizations. The findings indicate that the majority of tourism businesses in the examined case study seriously suffered from the pandemic, and very few tourism-related enterprises were able to recover after the first wave of infection. Unfortunately, the tourism business sectors were found to be on the brink of bankruptcy or facing permanent shutdown after the third wave. All tourism enterprises generally appeared to experience a sharp drop in the number of customers, tourism revenue, service facilities and exploitation, as well as employee downsizing, but the degree of downturn differed among the examined enterprises. Among the tourism enterprises, travel agencies and the accommodation sector were found to suffer the greatest economic losses compared to other stakeholders. In general, the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the tourism business in Vietnam is a big concern, which may require a timely economic policy response and financial scheme to better support local enterprises in coping with the challenges during post-pandemic recovery.

Many countries have recently strived to accelerate the tourism recovery process by restarting their tourism industry despite the unprecedented risks of the COVID-19 crisis. Noticeably, several tourism destinations have experienced an impressive revitalization of both domestic and international tourist arrivals right after lifting all social distance restrictions. However, little is known about how a tourist destination may revive from the pandemic and to what extent tourists are willing to support a destination recovery. This study, therefore, aims to examine factors influencing the travel demand of domestic tourism and tourists’ willingness to support a destination recovery in new normal conditions. The Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modeling was employed to predict the structural model derived from a sample size of 695 valid questionnaires. The results indicate that there is a significant improvement in domestic tourists’ travel intention and their willingness to support the post-pandemic destination revival. It is interesting to learn that the destination health risk image is no longer a critical determinant to tourists’ travel plans, while other factors including attitude, monetary promotion, and social media significantly influence their travel intention and support of tourism destination re-opening in new normal conditions. Theoretically, this study generates important contributions to post-disaster crisis management and predicting tourists’ behavioral intentions that may influence tourism destination recovery prospects. Practically, the study also provides several important implications to rebuild the domestic tourism industry in a more resilient way against future pandemic challenges.

River deltas globally are highly exposed and vulnerable to natural hazards and are often over-exploited landforms. The Global Delta Risk Index (GDRI) was developed to assess multi-hazard risk in river deltas and support decision-making in risk reduction interventions in delta regions. Disasters have significant impacts on the progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, despite the strong interlinkage between disaster risk reduction and sustainable development, global frameworks are still developed in isolation and actions to address them are delegated to different institutions. Greater alignment between frameworks would both simplify monitoring progress towards disaster risk reduction and sustainable development and increase capacity to address data gaps in relation to indicator-based assessments for both processes. This research aims at aligning the GDRI indicators with the SDGs and the Sendai Framework for Disaster and Risk Reduction (SFDRR). While the GDRI has a modular indicator library, the most relevant indicators for this research were selected through a delta-specific impact chain designed in consultation with experts, communities and stakeholders in three delta regions: the Red River and Mekong deltas in Vietnam and the Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna (GBM) delta in Bangladesh and India. We analyse how effectively the 143 indicators for the GDRI match (or not) the SDG and SFDRR global frameworks. We demonstrate the interconnections of the different drivers of risk to better inform risk management and in turn support delta-level interventions towards improved sustainability and resilience of these Asian mega-deltas.

This study analyses short- and long-term adaptation strategies for the tourism sector in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta that arose out of empirical research. The study evaluates the adaptation approach for government authorities, businesses, and tourists to manage climate change-related threats of rising temperature, irregular rainfall, sea-level rise, severe storms, and increasing salinity. In addition, the study points out the main responsibilities for realizing climate change adaptation in the tourism sector. The study figures that there are some differences between government authorities, businesses and tourists’ perspectives on recommended approaches to adapt to climate change. However, current strategies are very short-term and operate at the individual institutional level.

Despite the stagnant status of the tourism industry due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the efforts to reopen the tourism destinations as green zones in Vietnam have paid off with some encouraging achievements. This inspires other green zones to consider a more adaptive approach to the ongoing pandemic crisis. However, little is known about the pandemic crisis management and tourism destination recovery. Therefore, this study selected Can Tho city as a case study to explore how a tourism destination as a green zone can recover during pandemic waves. Different methods were utilized in this study, including document analysis, field observation, and semi-structured interview. The findings generally indicate that a green zone could recover their tourism business under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings highlight the critical relationship among key stakeholders and the leading role of the central government toward pandemic prevention and control. The early response to the crisis from the local governments was found to be decisive, and the policy-related measures facilitated the removal of potential barriers and alleviated the crisis consequences. In addition, the involvement of the tourism industry in an adaptive way has contributed to the quick recovery of the green zones’ tourism business. Importantly, the adaptive transformation from the tourism enterprises in a visionary way was found to be essential to the empowerment of their organizational resilience during the pandemic crisis. The lessons learnt from this study also bring valuable experiences for other tourism destinations and elicit a new approach to co-living with the ongoing pandemic in a sustainable way. Theoretically, this study provides a better understanding of tourism management and destination recovery during the global pandemic crisis. In addition, the research also adds many important practical implications for the tourism industry and the related stakeholders to foster tourism revitalization during and after the pandemic in a more sustainable way.

Despite the devastating impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the global tourism industry, a few countries have attempted to foster their local tourism economies’ recovery by offering distinctive mechanisms which facilitate their safe tourism destinations to restart domestic tourism operations during the pandemic waves. However, there has been little research investigating how different sectors of a local tourism system, particularly in a developing country, seriously suffer from the pandemic crisis but gain encouraging revitalization from the pandemic shocks. Therefore, this study employed Can Tho city as a case study to examine the holistic impact of COVID-19 on different sectors of the local tourism industry and explore the key factors/players contributing to the resilience empowerment and adaptive recovery of the local tourism system. As such, a semi-structured interview approach was employed in this study to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. The study recruited 40 representatives of tourism-related authorities at different levels and 280 managers of different tourism sectors in the local tourism industry. The findings generally reveal the disastrous impacts of the pandemic on the local tourism industry across all tourism sectors but show an unexpected recovery of tourism businesses during the pandemic crisis. The integrated findings also highlight the pivotal role of local governments in crisis governance and destination recovery support during and after the pandemic waves. Similarly, the proactive engagement of local enterprises was found critical toward rebuilding their organizational resilience, and such adaptive transformations were essential for tourism business recovery in new normal conditions. The economic policy response and effective financial schemes were common expected measures toward the tourism industry’s recovery in the post-pandemic crisis.