Global Tourism Value Chains, Sustainable Development Goals and COVID-19

Nhamo, Godwell; Dube, Kaitano; Chikodzi, David

This chapter presents a conceptual framework and setting for the book. This is informed by the desire to link three critical thematic areas, namely, (i) the global tourism value chains, (ii) COVID-19 and (iii) the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (AfSD) and the 17 embedded sustainable development goals (SDGs). Bringing in the SDGs adds value given that there are three SDGs (SDGs 8, 12 and 14) that make specific reference to tourism. Furthermore, COVID-19 negatively impacted many SDGs leading to governments, civic and private organisations revising budgets to channel resources towards “flattening” both the COVID-19 and economic curves. Understanding the global tourism value chains assists in opening up the complex tourism space and to systematically document COVID-19 impacts along with the industries within the value chain nodes. To this end, this chapter comes across mainly as an essay with heavy dependence on value add from the document and critical discourse analysis, as well as a meta-analysis of secondary data sources. The chapter is useful from both a theoretical and practical application points of view. A section bringing the nexus of the thematic focus areas is slotted in towards the end, with a critique of how the tourism sector should address shortfalls in relation to the SDGs within the COVID-19 pandemic.