Travel Agencies

Abstract

The whole world is going through an unprecedented health crisis, which has affected all sectors of global economy. In actual context, the tourism industry is particularly affected by COVID-19. In this context, the present chapter focuses on one specific subsector: travel agencies. These companies have not only stopped booking new trips, but also had to cancel bookings made prior to 2020. Therefore, many agencies did not manage to survive, and those that did are struggling. Considering this scenario, the present study aims to characterise the state of the art on this phenomenon – the effects of COVID-19 on travel agencies. To this end, all studies containing the keywords “covid” and “travel agency” published on the Scopus database were retrieved and subjected to a content analysis. The findings reveal a greater use of new technologies and online platforms. Moreover, studies point to a focus on sustainable and inclusive tourism, as well as on so far neglected market segments, as alternatives for recovering this sector.