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While COVID-19 temporarily created worldwide immobility, the gradual opening up of borders spurred one of the largest return migration episodes ever, and it continues to this day. Disappearing jobs, decreasing wages, inadequate social protection systems and networks, xenophobia, wage theft and overall uncertainty are among the prominent factors that have influenced this movement. Emigrants from the Gulf-India Migration Corridor were particularly affected by these forces and returned en masse, uncertain of their future. When people come back to their home country after living abroad, particularly due to exogenous shocks, it raises concerns about whether their decision to return was truly voluntary, their ability to adjust to being back home and the long-term effects on their reintegration. Additionally, it is uncertain what kind of impact return migrants have on their home country’s development. In this chapter, the authors examine the recent trend of return migration since the outbreak of COVID-19 and how it affects the Gulf-India corridor. The authors also take a closer look at the state of Kerala through a unique survey conducted by the authors and provide possible future scenarios for emigration in this region, along with recommendations for policy.

As communities grappled with a slew of concurrent disasters in 2020, grassroots mutual aid regained prominence, providing lessons for a more equitable approach to emergency management. Within emergency management, “mutual aid” has come to mean the specific legal mechanisms by which governments, non-governmental organizations, and private sector entities share resources. However, the term “mutual aid” has a much longer history of functioning outside of government and emergency management circles. With a recorded history in Black and Creole communities dating back to the mid-1700s, it has been widely used within communities of color for centuries. To see grassroots mutual aid in practice, the authors present a case study of Imagine Water Works’ Mutual Aid Response Network (MARN) in New Orleans, which was developed in 2019 and responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and a record-breaking Gulf Coast hurricane season in 2020. Utilizing Facebook as a platform, the MARN’s “Imagine Mutual Aid (New Orleans)” group saw its membership grow by 5,000 members from March 2020 to March 2021. Within the first week of Hurricane Laura’s landfall, the group welcomed evacuated individuals from Southwest Louisiana and quickly facilitated thousands of requests for support, providing food, housing, clothing, medical devices, emotional support, emergency cash, laundry services, and personalized care for those in non-congregate shelters, as well as locally informed flood and hurricane preparedness information for subsequent storms. Grassroots mutual aid sheds light on root causes and existing gaps within emergency management and provides a model for autonomous community care.

Much of the research on the mental health impacts of the COVID-19 response have been focused on frontline healthcare workers (FHCW). However, other essential workers (OEW) have also faced many mental health challenges due to exposures associated with their employment status, which may be compounded by higher levels of social vulnerability. This chapter describes disparities among FHCW, OEW, and the general public regarding mental health outcomes associated with the pandemic. In addition, it considers the role that structural racism (e.g., historical redlining of neighborhoods and biased lending practices) plays in the higher vulnerability of OEW to the mental health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic response. Mental health inequities overall, and among essential workers, must be addressed as part of the recovery from COVID-19 to build resilience to future public health emergencies. The model used by New York City to more equitably distribute mental health resources and support services is shared.

As part of a larger study into the influence of a Writers in the Schools (WITS) professional development consultancy, this narrative inquiry began just as Hurricane Harvey, the second most costly hurricane to hit the United States, devastated the Texas Gulf Coast in August 2017 and drew to a close in late 2020 during the COVID-19 global pandemic. This chapter explores the 2017–2018 school-year interactions between WITS Collaborative writer, Mary Austin (pseudonym), and six writing teachers with whom she worked at McKay High School (pseudonym) in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. With record flooding and widespread damage causing school-opening delays, teachers, students, and WITS consultants navigated a rip tide of emotions as they strived to balance educational/professional needs and duties with personal loss and unexpected financial burdens. This inquiry examines how WITS teacher professional development was carried out in the midst of these trying circumstances.

The long-term trend of sustained growth of tourism travel and activities, that has characterised the last decades, was forced to an abrupt halt at the beginning of 2020. This was due to the regulations that restricted mobility and tourism activities in many countries as a response to the hazard to health caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the various possible scenarios proposed by the UNWTO and by other international organisations, the worst one characterised the decline of travel and tourism in 2020, with the exception of a short-lived increase in the summer months, mainly due to domestic tourism. This sector was the hardest hit by this pandemic emergency, requiring a response both by policy makers and by private organisations.

The present chapter provides a survey of the effects of the COVID-19 on the tourism market in the various world regions, pinpointing the similarities and heterogeneities among them. Moreover, it summarises the policy responses and the private schemes that have aimed at tackling this emergency. The analysis will consider both the initiatives related to travel and tourism demand and those addressed to the supply side of the market, assessing their likely long-term outcomes. Finally, it will discuss the future of tourism travel and the potential impact of COVID on that future.

It is beneficial to use strategic management to gain profound, long-term comprehension and learning in challenging topics such as change evaluation. Since the impact of COVID-19, norms changed, complexities developed and situational elements were identified that could be used to improve and manage operations. This change did not spare the tourism and hospitality industry; as a result, this industry is facing a crisis to recover from pandemics. Keeping this in mind, researchers struggle to investigate the phenomenon; quested advantages may be derived for rehabilitation. Strategic leadership perspective is one of them that can be used for more significant tourism industry benefits. Leaders are required to prepare strategies for developing technical abilities to increase the efficiency of their organisations. It must become necessary to have a strategic aim to change existing social and cultural values, religious standards and psychological attitudes under their vision. This chapter aims to apply the theory of change to manage the tourism and hospitality industry's recovery, focusing on strategic leadership's theoretical framework and strategic intent. The chapter includes a study of the literature to determine the effectiveness of strategic intent in the leadership of the tourism industry. In addition, this work debates about building a better and more comprehensive understanding of the factors that influence, contribute to and relate to strategic intention. This chapter draws several beneficial propositions for readers, academicians and practitioners.

This chapter evaluates the impacts of and response measures to COVID-19 pandemic on the practice of tourism in the wildlife conservancy model in Kenya thus proposing response interventions to possible tourism crises in the future.

The study uses the qualitative exploratory experience design and collects data from purposely selected conservancies' leaders and other documented materials from two main wildlife conservancies association in Kenya.

The chapter presents findings on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on wildlife conservancy-based tourism, how conservancies responded to the pandemic and conservancy leadership perspectives on how to model future tourism and related activities in the conservancies based on the lessons they have learnt from the COVID-19 experience.

With the wildlife conservancy-based tourism model in Kenya being a relatively new phenomenon, the study provides important lessons for comparison with other such initiatives in other places in the event of tourism crises in the future.

This chapter argues that better preparedness to crises and uncertainties by various tourism types and models can help mitigate against adverse effects of similar uncertainties in the future. Consequently, the findings offer a glimpse of proposals and solutions to the wildlife conservancy-based tourism models that continue to be established in Kenya and in the region.