Research Problem: 1. Pandemic on Tourism - When the Pandemic occurred it put around 100 million jobs at risk affecting a portion of the global GDP especially when it was stated by Adam Bedhusi (2020) that “Before COVID-19, travel and tourism had become one of the most important sectors… accounting for 10 percent of global GDP and more than 320 million jobs worldwide.” Many possible tourist attractions and international tourist arrivals went on a major decline shutting many places down temporarily, and some permanently. During the beginning and peak of the pandemic, travel restrictions and quarantine required the government to close airports, specifically the Luzon Airport that got received most international flights, causing a major negative impact on the department of tourism as it had a major decline in revenue accounting to be PHP85bn, 36% lower than the revenues in the same period last year according to PWC (2020). Keeping in mind these statistics, research regarding the impact of the pandemic on Tourism especially in the Philippines is important to understand how it affected our economy and how the past COVID-19 still affects us to till this day regarding travel, businesses relying on foreign visitors and tourists, trade, and the recovery that is needed or is occurring to balance out the decline in businesses revenue and the economic drop regarding tourism. 2. Significance of Social Media Platform to the Tourism Industry. - Bringing awareness about certain types of Industries comes about from advertising, promoting, and spreading information regarding the industry or topic. Social media has become a major outlet for those types of advertisements as it is the most efficient way of spreading erroneous information through means of social interactions. Applications solely meant for tourists and or travelling have also caused a great impact on tourism such as Trivago, TripAdvisor, and many more like them that help people find hotels, book flights, and find discounts and help on tourist attractions and sightseeing. Now that Social Media influencers are on a rise since the pandemic, they’ve also been a huge help in promoting travel and tourism by advertising and marketing things for other countries and showing their experiences through the media. According to Senouci (2019), “Facebook is most popular social network with 1,55 billion monthly users and more than 450 million daily users… Twitter counts with almost 320 million users, 32% of them are Millennials. It is estimated that 37% of Twitter users will purchase from a brand they follow.” Meaning a large portion of Millennials around the world have some type of social media be it either of those applications or another which puts us in a position that allows us to research how social media has impacted the Tourism Industry in a good way and bad way through feedback from social media and it’s influences from Social Media influencers. There is also important research that can be made regarding the double edge sword social media is towards the tourism industry especially when it comes to over tourism in certain countries and negative comments and their effect towards future/possible traveler’s and local businesses affected. 3. The possibility of sustainable tourism - Understanding Sustainable Tourism is first knowing what it is through means of why it’s important and if it is indeed possible and sustainable to have sustainable tourism. As tourism is a large factor in how our world spreads it’s culture and creates diversity bringing new experiences and attracting attention to communities around the world. Although tourism does have its negative effects on a community or even country, Sustainable Tourism focuses on providing socio-economic benefits for communities who live in tourist destinations and bringing tourists and local communities together for mutual benefit as stated by Future Learn (2021). There are also alternative forms of tourism such as Ecotourism that also ties in with Sustainable Tourism but more about taking care of the nature and environment with the education amongst tourists regarding nature whilst doing cultural activities this and many more alternatives that all correlate with Sustainable Tourism. According to the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), “a suitable balance must be established between the environmental, economic, and socio-cultural aspects of tourism development” and regarding cultural exchange, this brings about the possibility of a more sustainable tourism as it allows for a more respectable approach to learning about culture whilst travelling and exploring a new environment. Visiting attractions that hold a large part in a community’s culture but is not too well known is also a great way of sustainable development and just enjoying the surroundings of the environment instead of always going back and forth driving and emitting green house gases in the air is also a solution to both sustainable development and air pollution. With more research and focus, we can realize the greater possibility that Sustainable Tourism and alternative tourism has towards the world especially when it comes to connecting the world as well. So many more possibilities can come forward and more solutions regarding not just tourism but other worldly problems involving other industries can also come about if further researched on. That is the importance of overall tourism in the world as it provides connections and with these connections, people may be able to use information found to help spread and use it for a greater good. REFERENCES For Research Problem 1: Price Waterhouse Coopers. (2020, July). Impact of covid-19 on the Philippine Tourism Industry. PwC. Retrieved September 13, 2022, from https://www.pwc.com/ph/en/publications/tourism-pwc-philippines/tourism-covid19.html#:~:text=Impact%20of%20COVID19%20outbreak,50%25%20of%20their%202020%20revenues. Behsudi, A. (2020, December). Impact of the pandemic on tourism – IMF F&D. IMF. Retrieved September 13, 2022, from https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2020/12/impact-of-the-pandemic-ontourism-behsudi REFERENCES For Research Problem 2: Senouci, D. (2019). The importance of social media in tourism: Facebook and Twitter. Inbound marketing Mallorca - E07121. Retrieved September 13, 2022, from http://www.amaramarketing.com/travel-blog/social-media-tourism-facebook-twitter Sharma, Ms & KUMAR, RAVI & Kashmir, Jammu. (2018). Social Media in Tourism- A Double-Edged Sword. International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development. Volume-2. 10.31142/ijtsrd8222. REFERENCES For Research Problem 3: Team DoTheGap. (2021, December 14). The cultural exchange, a great example of sustainable tourism. La plataforma para organizar todo tipo de intercambio cultural. Retrieved September 13, 2022, from https://dothegap.com/blog/en/the-cultural-exchange-a-greatexample-of-sustainable-tourism/ Standen, S., & *, N. (2020, February 7). Is sustainable tourism actually sustainable? The Boar. Retrieved September 13, 2022, from https://theboar.org/2020/02/sustainabletourism/#:~:text=Some%20places%20can%20even%20be,environment%20around%20mai n%20tourist%20locations.&text=However%2C%20many%20people%20criticise%20this,t ourism%20as%20sustainability%20is%20impossible. FutureLearn. (2021, October 21). What is sustainable tourism and why is it important? FutureLearn. Retrieved September 13, 2022, from https://www.futurelearn.com/info/blog/what-is-sustainable-tourism
