Abstract

The COVID-19 (commonly referred to as the Coronavirus) outbreak and its massive and swift spread halted mobility globally on an unprecedented scale and substantially and abruptly slowed down the consumption of tourism. This chapter aims to provide a brief assessment of this pandemic which has become a health, economic and geopolitical crisis with direct and enormous effects on the tourism industry at international, national and local levels. It also deals with how enforced degrowth and slow consumption ensued from the unprecedented lockdown and social distancing practices by government have provided unique opportunity for the reset of tourism. The chapter also discusses the challenges of the pandemic in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and is finished by critical discussion of transformative discourse shaped in the aftermath of this outbreak in the wider academic community.