Author: 

Jammal, M.T.¹ & Fashakin, F. Juliette ²

¹ Department of Leisure and Tourism Department, Lagos State Polytechnic, Ikorodu, Lagos
² Department of Hospitality Management, Lagos State Polytechnic, Ikorodu, Lagos.
Corresponding Author E-mail: taiwojammaljt74@gmail.com

Abstract

COVID-19 is a respiratory disease that is causing an unprecedented impact globally on social and economic lives. Business organisations are badly hit by the effects, as most of the government policies at curbing of the diseases are not favourable to their operations. Due to the nature of client contact, the hospitality and tourism business is one of the most vulnerable industries. The study aims at examining the effect of COVID -19 and government policies in curbing the virus on hospitality and tourism businesses. It also discusses adaptive strategy put in place by the industry to survive during and aftermath of the pandemic period. This study adopts resilience theory as a framework for a proper understanding on how organisations cope in the face of crisis. The study focused on seven hospitality and tourism firms that were purposefuly chosen. The findings revealed that government policies such as Public health guidelines (PHG), Stay at Home (SAH), Social Distance (SD) and Ban on Mass Social Gathering (BMSG) greatly impacted the industry negatively and rebuilding the resilience of the economy depends on Hospitality and business operators exploring new sources of revenue, government implementing strategic public health policies to contain the pandemic and

Keywords: COVID-19, Government policy, Hospitality and Tourism, Infectious disease, Resilience theory.