The COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts on tourism business in a developing city: Insight from Vietnam

Da Van Huynh et al. Article The COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts on tourism business in a developing city: Insight from Vietnam Economies Provided in Cooperation with: MDPI – Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, Basel Suggested Citation: Da Van Huynh et al. (2021) : The COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts on tourism business in a developing city: Insight from Vietnam, Economies, ISSN 2227-7099, MDPI, Basel, Vol. 9, Iss. 4, pp. 1-17, https://doi.org/10.3390/economies9040172 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/257330 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ economies Article The COVID-19 Pandemic and Its Impacts on Tourism Business in a Developing City: Insight from Vietnam Da Van Huynh 1,* , Thuy Thi Kim Truong 1, Long Hai Duong 1,2,* , Nhan Trong Nguyen 1, Giang Vu Huong Dao 1and Canh Ngoc Dao 1   Citation: Huynh, Da Van, Thuy Thi Kim Truong, Long Hai Duong, Nhan Trong Nguyen, Giang Vu Huong Dao, and Canh Ngoc Dao. 2021. The COVID-19 Pandemic and Its Impacts on Tourism Business in a Developing City: Insight from Vietnam. Economies 9: 172. https://doi.org/10.3390/ economies9040172 Academic Editor: ¸Stefan Cristian Gherghina Received: 11 October 2021 Accepted: 26 October 2021 Published: 5 November 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Can Tho University, Can Tho 900000, Vietnam; [email protected] (T.T.K.T.); [email protected] (N.T.N.); [email protected] (G.V.H.D.); [email protected] (C.N.D.) 2Department of Global Hospitality and Tourism, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 02447, Korea *Correspondence: [email protected] (D.V.H.); [email protected] (L.H.D.) Abstract: 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. Keywords: COVID-19; pandemic; tourism; impact; Vietnam 1. Introduction Tourism generates huge revenue for destinations and contributes to overall economic development for a plethora of countries, especially tourism-dependent nations. In other words, there is a strong link between tourism development and economic growth, which also stimulates the development of other related businesses in a country (Haryanto 2020). However, tourism is a vulnerable industry which may crash due to potential risks such as global pandemics (Shakya 2009). The COVID-19 pandemic has inflicted serious and widespread impacts on a wide range of economic sectors, particularly the tourism industry. This is likely true for countries where the economy mainly depends on tourism, where businesses face much bigger challenges for economy resilience in both the short and long term. An abundance of consequences, including regional to national lockdowns, as well as the suspension or cancellation of tourismand hospitality-related services, have increasingly occurred on the global scale. A typical comparison is that the COVID-19 pandemic has been estimated to be nine times more devastating than the impact of the Economies 2021,9, 172. https://doi.org/10.3390/economies9040172 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/economies Economies 2021,9, 172 2 of 17 September 11 crisis; the economic revenue loss was enormous, at around USD 124 billion in 2020 alone (Haryanto 2020;Sarkodie and Owusu 2021). Unfortunately, the profound and long-lasting impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic may damage global economies, especially businesses in developing countries where the economy depends on tourism, and where the level of tourism resilience after pandemics is limited (Ismael et al. 2021). In Vietnam, the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the tourism industry are major concerns due to multiple lockdowns imposed since 2020. The first case of COVID-19 infection in Vietnam was detected on 23 January 2020. Tourism activities in Vietnam in general and Can Tho city in particular fell into a state of crisis and almost total paralysis until March 2021. Most of the services and activities associated with tourism and hospitality were stopped or interrupted, which led to devastating consequences, including a loss of revenue for the tourism industry and a loss of jobs for workers. From June 2020, the domestic tourism industry started to recover; however, with the impact of the second and third waves of COVID-19, the situation once again became a struggle, with a difficult economic recovery from the pandemic anticipated. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), some economic sectors in Vietnam were projected to be severely affected, especially tourism, transportation and accommodation services. According to the annual estimated statistics, Can Tho’s tourism industry generates a value of nearly VND 4500 billion and creates jobs for nearly 40,000 people. Following multiple lockdowns, the recovery of the city’s tourism industry remains in a difficult and ineffective state due to the lack of a scientific basis to accurately assess the current situation and propose proper recovery solutions. To some extent, the timely policies and supportive measures have contributed to the alleviation of the impact of the pandemic and the prevention of mass bankruptcy for local businesses. Therefore, it is essential and urgent for the tourism industry in Can Tho city to assess the current status of COVID-19’s impact and find proper solutions for postcrisis recovery. As such, this research aimed to explore how the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced the tourism industry in Can Tho city, and identify the key tourism sectors and the degree to which local tourism businesses have suffered from waves of the pandemic. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine two research questions: (1) How hard has the COVID-19 pandemic hit the tourism industry in a developing city in Vietnam? and (2) How vulnerable are the local tourism enterprises in response to the pandemic’s impacts? 2. Literature Review This section reviews key studies regarding the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the tourism industry on a global scale, particularly reflecting on current research in Vietnam to provide a better understanding of how tourism businesses in a developing country context have suffered economically from the lingering pandemic crisis period. The hospitality sector across different regions of the world has also suffered enormously due to the pandemic. Nguyen (2020) claimed that large hospitality enterprises are likely to be more resilient to the effects of the pandemic. This means that small businesses are at disadvantage, facing a risk of shutdown or even bankruptcy. In addition, the aviation sector has been vulnerable to the pandemic, with continuous lockdowns and flight restrictions leading to airline bankruptcies on a global scale (Dube et al. 2021). This has been evidenced by large airlines around the world facing bankruptcy and uncertainties as a result of the pandemic (Gole et al. 2021). Furthermore, the accommodation sector has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, whereby “new normal” measures have resulted in hotels adapting to maintain their business (Krouk and Almeida 2021). Lastly, tourist attractions have faced challenges with the potential scenario of shutdowns following repetitive waves of the COVID-19 pandemic (Prihadi et al. 2021). The World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic on the 11th of March 2020. The pandemic was projected to cause a wide range of socio-cultural, Economies 2021,9, 172 3 of 17 political and economic impacts (Sigala 2020). Obviously, the global tourism industry is highly vulnerable to such crises, and the impacts on the global tourism destinations will be profound and long-lasting (Rassy and Smith 2013). Evidently, the significant 78% decrease in the global tourist arrivals rate and loss of around 120 million jobs were accounted to lead to a loss of USD 1.2 trillion in export revenues (Sigala 2020;UNWTO 2020). This indicates that global economic losses due to the pandemic are enormous, but particularly in destinations whose economy system mainly depends on tourism businesses. According to Ulak (2020), global mobility has spread the pandemic to all countries and the tourism intention among the global tourists has dropped significantly for safetyand health-related reasons. Hoque et al. (2020) found that tourists were generally cautious when making trips during outbreaks of the pandemic. More seriously, the authors reported that psychological impacts of the pandemic on tourist’s travel intentions and experiences during the crisis were a major concern. Similarly, other studies also highlighted the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on different sectors of the tourism and hospitality industries across different countries. The tourism industry in Asia has also suffered enormously during the initial hits of the COVID-19 pandemic. More specifically, unemployment, bankruptcy, revenue loss and budget deficits are common serious consequences brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic (Kasare 2020). In the Philippines, the impact of COVID-19 on the national tourism business was estimated to represent a loss of more than USD seven billion as the pandemic crisis persisted until July 2020 (Centeno and Marquez 2020). More seriously, the research of Bakar and Rosbi (2020) also predicted that global tourism might collapse under the impact of COVID-19 if there were no suitable measures implemented. Recently, there have been a number of publications dealing with global tourism prospects in the post-COVID-19 period. According to Chang et al. (2020), there should be a critical transformation of global sustainable tourism development in order to better recover in post-COVID-19 crisis challenges. Higgins-Desbiolles (2020) proposed the empowerment of local tourism communities, which could be seen as an important transformation moving towards sustainable development. Cheer (2020) further suggested a concept called “human flourishing”, which offers a potential approach to alleviate the pandemic impact on tourism communities and requires current tourism development in a more sustainable transformation. On the 6th of August 2020, the Journal of Sustainable Tourism announced an article titled “The war of over tourism” that stressed the challenges to sustainable tourism in the tourism academy after COVID-19 (Higgins-Desbiolles 2020). This report analyzes the challenges faced by academia and the global tourism industry in the post-COVID-19 era. Thus, it can be seen that there is increasingly attention paid among tourism scholars to the impact of the COVID-19 crisis, because this global pandemic may cause long-term consequences, given that the pandemic and responses to it remain ongoing and dynamic. Therefore, it is critical to have a general assessment of the pandemic impacts on different sectors and businesses of a tourism destination, which facilitates a more effective resilience approach. The impact of COVID-19 on the tourism industry in Vietnam is currently a major concern, because the crisis has entailed a wide range of economic downturn and profound effects on the livelihood of citizens. According to Quang et al. (2020), Vietnam is one of the top 10 fastest growing tourism industries globally, although tourist arrivals sharply dropped by around 22% in early February 2020. More specifically, tourism business revenue fell sharply during just the first 3 months of 2020, representing a VND 143.6 billion loss, because all tourism activities are inter-related (Phạm et al. 2020). In terms of job loss, it is estimated that around 98% of workers in Vietnam’s tourism-related businesses left their jobs because of the pandemic (Quang et al. 2020;Tôand Bùi 2020). The authors also indicted that the rate of tourism business suspension or shutdown were increasingly popular among medium and small businesses, especially. LêKim Anh (2020a) and Tôand Bùi(2020) conducted a statistical analysis of the impacts of COVID-19 on Vietnam’s tourism industry, including reductions in international Economies 2021,9, 172 4 of 17 tourist arrival, accommodation establishment closures, increasing unemployment and declining tourism revenue. The authors have proposed key measures targeting expanding marketing, supporting businesses and simplifying immigration procedures. According to analysis from the University of Economics and Finance, the best scenario was that Vietnamese tourism could recover in a ‘V-shape’, which means a sharp drop and then bouncing back immediately, equivalent to the original decline, or a ‘U-shape’, depending on the speed of control and economic recovery on the national and global scale. The statistics indicated that the Vietnamese domestic tourism market has recovered first, followed by the Chinese tourist market, Asian tourist arrivals and finally the Western industry. However, many initial articles in newspapers including the Vietnam Communist Party (Trường Ðại học Kinh TếQuốc Dân (Ð.H) 2020), Nhân Dân (Anh 2020b), Vietnam Pictorial (TTXVN/VNP 2020) and by researchers (Giang et al. 2020;Long and Uyên 2020;Thang 2020) have raised attention about the impact of COVID-19 on the tourism business; some recent papers (Ngoc Su et al. 2021;Tri 2021) have pointed out some practical solutions to revitalize the tourism industry in Vietnam. In spite of the increasing concern among tourism scholars in Vietnam, there has been a lack of systematic and in-depth analyses exploring the overall impact of the pandemic on the tourism industry across different tourism sectors of a tourism destination. Thus, this study aims to provide an insight into the total impact of COVID-19 on the tourism industry by employing both secondary data and primary qualitative data collection to reflect the current problems facing tourism stakeholders in Vietnam. These sources of data used as the basis for systematic and in-depth analysis in this study will be further discussed in the next section. 3. Research Setting Can Tho is one of the five cities directly under the Central Government of Vietnam and is the most modern and developed city in the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam. At the same time, it plays a role as a socio-economic, cultural, medical, educational and commercial center of the southwestern region. This city encompasses a large area of 1400 km 2 , with nine districts and a total population of around 1.3 million people. Can Tho converges many favorable factors for successful development of the tourism industry. Geographically, it is located in a traffic hub linking the provinces in the region. Can Tho has various tourism resource advantages, ranging from natural to man-made tourism assets, which enables this destination to deliver a wide range of tourism experiences to both domestic and international tourists. Before the pandemic, Can Tho city has welcomed more than 8.8 million visitors, earning more than VND 4435 billion, which contributed nearly 5% of the city’s GDP (Ái Lam 2020). The development of tourism in Can Tho city created jobs for 39,300 workers in 2019, of which the numbers of on-duty workers and indirect employees made up 13,100 and 26,200, respectively. To meet the tourism needs prior to COVID-19, Can Tho city had established more than 200 restaurants and catering establishments, 275 tourist accommodation establishments, 22 family-own tourist attractions, 19 home-stays and 59 international and domestic travel businesses. Before COVID-19, the tourism industry of Can Tho city aimed to perform many tasks and solutions to develop the local tourism industry into a key economic sector of the locality. In this regard, the tourism industry attempted to establish an attractive destination image by improving the tourism infrastructure and diversifying the hospitality businesses related to accommodation, dining establishment, sightseeing, tour guiding and so on. Unfortunately, the ongoing waves of the COVID-19 pandemic have led to collapse of many different sectors of the local tourism system. First and foremost, the manifestation was the decrease in the number of customers for tourism service businesses. According to the statistics, the local tourism enterprises had faced a significant decrease in the number of customers from 30 to 380,000 people, with an average of 11,234.4 people. In terms of relative value, the proportion of customers with the lowest, highest and average decrease was 10%, 100%, and 62.3%, respectively. The decline in the number of customers has led to Economies 2021,9, 172 5 of 17 a drop in the revenue of tourism service businesses in absolute and relative values. In terms of absolute value, the revenue of businesses has decreased by at least VND 1.3 million and a maximum of VND 102 billion. In terms of relative value, the lowest decline in corporate revenue was 15%, whereas the highest constituted a 100% loss, and the average was 61.3%. The customer reduction also meant a decrease in the capacity of using assets and tourism services, which were reported to fluctuate from by least 5% to 100% (see Table 1). The decline in the number of customers also caused the loss of jobs of current employees in the tourism industry because all local businesses have had to downsize human resources to minimize expenses. As a result, it was estimated that the number of employees in each tourism enterprise who were laid off was at least 1, or could have been up to 70 during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Table 1. Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism in Can Tho city. Indicator/Item Average Decline (Absolute Number) Average Decline (Relative Proportion) Customers 11,234.4 people 62.3% Revenue VND 2.6 billion 61.3% Capacity of exploitation/use of property/tourism services - 57.4% Reduction in employees 9.3 50.3% (Source: Enterprise manager interview data in Can Tho city, 2020). According to NguyễnTuấn(2020), it was estimated that tourists to Can Tho city in 2020 would reach 5,605,865 arrivals, down 36.8% over the same period, reaching 60.9% of the year plan. Accommodation tourists numbered 2,020,145 arrivals, down 32.8% over the same period in 2019, reaching 61.4% of the year plan. In particular, international visitors were estimated to constitute 111,420 arrivals, down 72.7% over the same period in 2019, reaching 25.3% of the year plan. Domestic tourists numbered 1,908,725 arrivals, down 26.5% over the same period in 2019, reaching 67% of the year plan. Outbound tourism packages were provided for 5550 tourists to travel abroad, down 77.6% over the same period in 2019, reaching 20.6% of the year plan. Total revenue from tourism was estimated at more than VND 3169 billion, down 28.6% over the same period in 2019, reaching 62.1% of the year plan. According to ÁiÁi Lam (2021), in 2020, about 45.9% of direct workers in Can Tho city were forced to leave their jobs in the tourism sector due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. In spite of the highly expected 2020 tourism targets, the first wave of COVID-19 caused a huge decline in the number of international visitors, while the following waves of COVID-19 placed the local tourism industry under much greater pressure. 4. Research Methods Mixed methods can be used as an effective tool in social science research to increase the validity of research findings and meet a particular purpose of tourism research (McKim 2017). McManamny et al. (2015) also identified a critical reason for the common use of mixed approaches for tourism research to overcome objective deficiencies of employing qualitative or quantitative methodologies alone. As such, a mixed method approach was employed in this study to collect both qualitative and quantitative data to meet the data collection objectives. More specifically, qualitative data allowed researchers to measure the impacts of COVID-19 on the tourism industry of the examined case study, whereas the qualitative data enabled the researchers to gain in-depth information regarding the stakeholder’s perceptions and attitudes about the pandemic impacts on their business operations. The research design included two main phases. The first stage began with developing a framework for qualitative data gathering, whereas the second stage focused on the quantitative data collection. This study adopted the theoretical framework of an impact evaluation model on tourism destination developed by Gertler et al. (2016) and Economies 2021,9, 172 6 of 17 White (2009). Accordingly, the research team then developed a set of questions for the indepth interviews, suitable for the research setting in Vietnam. A pilot study was conducted with tourism experts at Can Tho University to standardize the final interview questions. Potential participants for the interview were selected carefully by using a purposive sampling method. More specifically, the study recruited 16 representatives from tourism management organizations (e.g., tourism associations, Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, centers for tourism development), 16 representatives of tourism-related organizations (e.g., Department of Information and Communications, Department of Health, Department of Planning and Investment, Department of Finance), and 8 representatives from local authorities in the city. Accordingly, the interviews were conducted from October to November 2020. For the second stage of data collection, the questionnaire was framed around the key emerging themes from the interviews which were relevant to the research setting. Then, the questionnaire was critically reviewed by the tourism experts at Can Tho University so that proper modification could be made to complete the official questionnaire. As a part of data collection triangulation, a pilot study with 20 tourists was conducted to test the validity and reliability of the measurement scale and content of the questions. The process of quantitative data collection lasted for 4 months, from December 2020 to March 2021. Regarding the selection and recruitment of the participants, criteria were developed to choose a relevant list of potential participants who were tourism business managers. The first participant was chosen randomly from the list and the subsequent interviewees were recruited by using a snowball sampling method. In order to collect data regarding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the tourism industry of Can Tho city, 280 tourismrelated business managers were recruited. More specifically, the majority of respondents were in charge of managing accommodation (28.6%) and tourist attractions (25%), whereas 17.9% of respondents were from both travel agencies and dining establishments, followed by family-owned businesses and homestays with 10.7%. The sample compared to the population is presented in Table 2. Table 2. Sample compared to population. Item Sample Population (2018) a Percentage (%) Accommodations 80 275 29.1 Travel agencies 50 59 84.7 F & B establishments 50 200 25.0 Family-owned business and homestays 30 41 73.2 Tourist attractions 70 70 100 Source: (a) Data provided by the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Can Tho City. The questionnaire structure consisted of two parts. The first section gathered the respondents’ demographic information, whereas the second part focused on exploring five key aspects: (1) the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on local tourism business; (2) the measures to alleviate the impact and foster tourism business recovery during and after the pandemic; (3) the supportive policies of the local governments; (4) new business opportunities under the COVID-19 pandemic; and (5) corporate recommendations for the local tourism industry. The questionnaire mainly collected quantitative data by using different measurement techniques including multiple-choice questions, 5-point Likert scales (1, totally disagree; 5, totally agree) and open-ended questions to gather the qualitative data. Regarding the process of data analysis and interpretation, the qualitative data were coded to identify popular themes and categories that are relevant to the research questions. The emerging themes were grouped using NVivo software. For quantitative data analysis, a total of 280 questionnaires were distributed and collected (response rate at 100%) and all the questionnaires were eligible for further analysis. Using IBM SPSS Statistics 20.0, data from the questionnaire were imported and analyzed to generate descriptive statistics and one-way analysis of variance (one-way ANOVA). Economies 2021,9, 172 7 of 17 5. Research Findings This section presents the key findings regarding the general impacts of the COVID19 pandemic on the local tourism industry in Can Tho city, and particularly highlights the vulnerability of different types of local tourism-related businesses, and the collective responses from key stakeholders in coping with the pandemic. 5.1. How Serious Is It? The COVID-19 pandemic has generally damaged the tourism industry in Can Tho city. The sharp decline in the number of customers, especially international visitors, has made many tourist service establishments close or suspend their business operations (Figure 1). Through the interviews with the representatives of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Can Tho City, about 20% of the tourism service businesses in the city and many tourismand hospitality-related enterprises have had to close their businesses, which has also meant a huge loss in revenue (business, government, employees), loss of jobs, confusion and burden on society (businesses, employees) and negative impacts on local socio-economic development in both the short and long term (Figure 2). Economies 2021, 9, x FOR PEER REVIEW 7 of 17 scales (1, totally disagree; 5, totally agree) and open-ended questions to gather the qualitative data. Regarding the process of data analysis and interpretation, the qualitative data were coded to identify popular themes and categories that are relevant to the research questions. The emerging themes were grouped using NVivo software. For quantitative data analysis, a total of 280 questionnaires were distributed and collected (response rate at 100%) and all the questionnaires were eligible for further analysis. Using IBM SPSS Statistics 20.0, data from the questionnaire were imported and analyzed to generate descriptive statistics and one-way analysis of variance (one-way ANOVA). 5. Research Findings This section presents the key findings regarding the general impacts of the COVID19 pandemic on the local tourism industry in Can Tho city, and particularly highlights the vulnerability of different types of local tourism-related businesses, and the collective responses from key stakeholders in coping with the pandemic. 5.1. How Serious Is It? The COVID-19 pandemic has generally damaged the tourism industry in Can Tho city. The sharp decline in the number of customers, especially international visitors, has made many tourist service establishments close or suspend their business operations (Figure 1). Through the interviews with the representatives of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Can Tho City, about 20% of the tourism service businesses in the city and many tourismand hospitality-related enterprises have had to close their businesses, which has also meant a huge loss in revenue (business, government, employees), loss of jobs, confusion and burden on society (businesses, employees) and negative impacts on local socio-economic development in both the short and long term (Figure 2). Figure 1. Tourist attractions that stopped doing business during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Source: Photos taken by the research team, 2020). The majority of the managers of tourism service businesses in this study believed that the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted local business either at a serious or very serious level, at 49.3% and 40%, respectively. According to the statistics, very few enterprises admitted that the COVID-19 pandemic has had moderate or non-serious impacts on their business, at 10.4% and 0.4%, respectively. This finding affirmed the serious impact of the pandemic on the tourism and hospitality industry (Panzone et al. 2021). Figure 1. Tourist attractions that stopped doing business during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Source: Photos taken by the research team, 2020). The majority of the managers of tourism service businesses in this study believed that the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted local business either at a serious or very serious level, at 49.3% and 40%, respectively. According to the statistics, very few enterprises admitted that the COVID-19 pandemic has had moderate or non-serious impacts on their business, at 10.4% and 0.4%, respectively. This finding affirmed the serious impact of the pandemic on the tourism and hospitality industry (Panzone et al. 2021). According to the data provided directly from the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Can Tho City, the revenue of businesses has decreased significantly compared to the same period in 2019. More specifically, the revenue of accommodation establishments decreased on average from 50% to 90%, whereas the revenues of travel agencies and dining establishments decreased by 90% and around 60–90%, respectively. Economies 2021,9, 172 8 of 17 Economies 2021, 9, x FOR PEER REVIEW 8 of 17 Figure 2. The perceived impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism service businesses in Can Tho. (Source: Enterprise manager interview data in Can Tho city, 2020). According to the data provided directly from the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Can Tho City, the revenue of businesses has decreased significantly compared to the same period in 2019. More specifically, the revenue of accommodation establishments decreased on average from 50% to 90%, whereas the revenues of travel agencies and dining establishments decreased by 90% and around 60–90%, respectively. The results of qualitative interviews with many stakeholders involved in the tourism business in Can Tho generally reflected their impuissant responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The respondents stressed that the pandemic has caused a crisis in the tourism industry of Can Tho city, with extremely heavy losses. A representative of Can Tho City Tourism Association said: “The COVID-19 pandemic has had a great impact on the tourism industry of Can Tho city, especially the travel agencies, accommodations, and tourist destinations and transport services. Many tourism businesses were on the brink of bankruptcy, causing employees losing their jobs and creating a burden for the society”. In order to overcome difficulties during and after the pandemic, the findings from the survey indicated that all local business owners were aware of the importance of selfadjustment rather than dependence on the limited financial support from the government. Some common measures to deal with the pandemic consequences associated with renting premises, paying staff salaries and operating costs have been initiated. In this sense, a lot of companies chose to reduce staff numbers or close a part of their business temporarily, whereas the others adjusted their target markets and re-structured their tourism products or services. These are supposed to be temporary solutions for local businesses: “We could not just sit there and wait for the financial support from the local and central government. Although we were first passive at the first wave of pandemic, we are now proactive to prepare possible scenarios and have our own measures. Indeed, we are lucky not to close our business but not sure if lockdowns or another wave of COVID-19 occurs” (A representative of a tourism enterprise in Can Tho city). According to a representative of the Can Tho City Tourism Development Center, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a domino effect in the entire tourism economy. As a result, a few surviving tourism enterprises have been unable to operate their business as usual due to a lack of other important suppliers. 40 49.3 10.4 0.4 Very serious Serious Average Unserious Figure 2. The perceived impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism service businesses in Can Tho. (Source: Enterprise manager interview data in Can Tho city, 2020). The results of qualitative interviews with many stakeholders involved in the tourism business in Can Tho generally reflected their impuissant responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The respondents stressed that the pandemic has caused a crisis in the tourism industry of Can Tho city, with extremely heavy losses. A representative of Can Tho City Tourism Association said: “The COVID-19 pandemic has had a great impact on the tourism industry of Can Tho city, especially the travel agencies, accommodations, and tourist destinations and transport services. Many tourism businesses were on the brink of bankruptcy, causing employees losing their jobs and creating a burden for the society”. In order to overcome difficulties during and after the pandemic, the findings from the survey indicated that all local business owners were aware of the importance of selfadjustment rather than dependence on the limited financial support from the government. Some common measures to deal with the pandemic consequences associated with renting premises, paying staff salaries and operating costs have been initiated. In this sense, a lot of companies chose to reduce staff numbers or close a part of their business temporarily, whereas the others adjusted their target markets and re-structured their tourism products or services. These are supposed to be temporary solutions for local businesses: “We could not just sit there and wait for the financial support from the local and central government. Although we were first passive at the first wave of pandemic, we are now proactive to prepare possible scenarios and have our own measures. Indeed, we are lucky not to close our business but not sure if lockdowns or another wave of COVID-19 occurs”. (A representative of a tourism enterprise in Can Tho city) According to a representative of the Can Tho City Tourism Development Center, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a domino effect in the entire tourism economy. As a result, a few surviving tourism enterprises have been unable to operate their business as usual due to a lack of other important suppliers. “A half of the businesses in the area were temporarily closed; some businesses operated moderately, over 70% of workers in the tourism industry were affected and unemployed... they had to change their jobs. It can be said that COVID-19 has been stifling the tourism industry, not only in Can Tho city but also nationwide.” Economies 2021,9, 172 15 of 17 Author Contributions: Data curation, G.V.H.D.; Formal analysis, D.V.H., N.T.N. and G.V.H.D.; Funding acquisition, D.V.H.; Investigation, T.T.K.T., N.T.N. and C.N.D.; Methodology, L.H.D.; Project administration, D.V.H.; Resources, C.N.D.; Supervision, L.H.D.; Validation, T.T.K.T.; Writing—original draft, D.V.H.; Writing—review & editing, L.H.D. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. Funding: This research was funded by the Vietnam National Foundation for Science and Technology Development (NAFOSTED) under grant number: ÐXTN-2020.07. Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest. References Ái Lam. 2020. Du lịch Cần Thơ¯ dón hơn 8,8 triệu lượt khách trong năm 2019. Dân Trí. 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