ABSTRACT
Worldwide, the tourism industry was highly affected by the COVID-19 outbreak and related measures, which created a crisis situation and led to uncertainty about future developments. The purpose of this chapter is to present a scenario-based futures perspective of the post-pandemic visitor economy as a means to enable tourism businesses, organisations and destinations to future proof their destinations. First, three approaches to scenario planning will be compared: predictive scenarios, goal-based scenarios and explorative scenarios. Second, four explorative scenarios will be presented: business as usual, survival of the fittest, business as unusual and responsible tourism. Each of the scenarios presents a plausible future of the post-pandemic visitor economy. The third scenario has a strong focus on virtualisation of travel and will be elaborated in more detail along seven attributes: guiding principle, visitor, market, key issues, strategy, risks and values. The chapter aims to contribute to the understanding of the differences between approaches to scenario planning and to present a perspective that may inspire business, organisations and destinations to prepare for the future and become more resilient to change.
