ABSTRACT
The current context resulting from the COVID-19 health crisis is marked by uncertainty and presents multiple challenges for society in general and for tourism in particular. This scenario has led to the momentary disappearance of some of the classic sustainability problems that tourism had caused in some tourist areas, which the scientific community has seen as a unique opportunity to rethink tourism and build a new model based on sustainability. This chapter will analyse how an unprecedented global crisis is affecting the tourism sector and the reactions to overcome it. The analysis of recovery strategies recommended by the European Union and the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), as well as those being defined by a number of European regions, will make it possible to identify whether this crisis can be a factor of change, promoting the possibility of defining a new model based on sustainability. In this sense, e-tourism is located at the intersection between information technologies and tourism. This combination must now face a new environment brought about by COVID-19 with enormous prospects for change in the long term. Within this field, virtual reality has proven to be a very accessible visualization tool for spaces or for structures that can be viewed from different perspectives.
