Culture Shock Models

Corona culture shock

According to Kramer, a culture shock is an anthropological phenomenon, it takes place within an individual who spends an amount of time in another culture. This exposure to something unfamiliar, causes the individual to change.

The coronavirus period can be seen as a collective culture shock. The individuals’ reactions to the corona measures can be divided into four consecutive phases:

Phase 1: The initial phase, this phase only lasts for a few days.
Phase 2: Honeymoon phase, not directly affected to the danger of the virus but still exciting times to go through.
Phase 3: The change phase, the individual encounters with two different culture shocks. The 1^st culture shock confronts the individual with the stress of imposed behaviour change, e.g. keeping 1,5 metres distance between each other. The 2^nd culture shock raddles the values and beliefs of the individual by looking at the value of a human life, following the rules to keep everyone safe and healthy or to not follow the rules and live life as before the corona pandemic.

Phase 4: return phase, the end of the corona measures, the individual celebrates that it is over.
After the four phases is re-entry shock, the individual goes back to the life before corona, or the new changed life after corona.

As the industry itself and consumers experience the corona cultureshock differently, two culture shock models were made up. For sake of continuity, first Phase 1 until 3 from both perspectives are being shown, followed by Phase 4 from both perspectives.

Corona Culture Shock Model Analysis Industry, Phase 1-3

Phase 1=A, Phase 2=B, first halve of Phase 3=C, second halve of Phase 3=D

• January

The Covid-19 virus is in China and has no influence yet on the Dutch Industry. When the Corona virus got discovered in December 2019, there was speculation of the virus being contagious and transmittable human-to-human. On January 2020 the Chinese government confirmed that the virus indeed is contagious. Once this word got out, China took grave measures in order to contain the virus (Hudson,2020). In January 2020, word about the virus was mainly focused on China, and it didn’t influence the Dutch travel industry too much yet. However, it did affect outbound travel from China to Europe in the end of January.

• February

Spring holiday: the industry had their last profitable holiday season before lockdown. For example, a lot of people in Europe went on ski holiday

February is a time for many Dutch people to travel to the Alps for a skiing or snowboarding trip. The European ski season normally lasts until the beginning of May. In February most travellers were still able to go before the season closed a month early this spring due to COVID-19 (Culbertson. 2020). Nonetheless, not all areas were still risk free in Europe. Italy initiated their first lockdown. The northern skiing area of Italy was condemned as code yellow – meaning there were safety risks when travelling in this area. Meaning you were allowed to go, but needed to be extra cautious (Smulders,2020). 

• March
  • Demand for flights went down, therefore, the prices of the tickets dropped significantly. This led to the first blow of losses for the aviation industry. The drop in international tourist arrivals is starting to drop tremendously.
  • The government decided that schools, restaurant and day-care should closed due to the outbreak of Covid-19 in the Netherlands (NOS, 2020).

Worldwide the air traffic dropped from 196,765 flights in the end of February 2020 to 64,522 flights in the end of March (Hudson, 2020).  Also, the aviation industry in Europe experienced their first blow of losses. International tourist’s arrival decreased, a loss of 59.5% passenger traffic (Holroyd, 2020).

The Dutch government took new measurements on March 15^th in closing schools, day cares and cafes bars and restaurants until at least 6^th of April (NOS, 2020).

In March it became clear that outbreaks of the virus happened in popular ski area in Tirol. There were signs of the virus being transmitted to a large sum of tourists. Even though precautions were said to been taken seriously, the area stayed open and bars were still open for the tourists in the area (Redactie Joop, 2020). After the news came out that there was a high number of contagious tourists, the level of trust in travelling to such area decreased.

• April
  • The number of international tourist arrivals hit their lowest point; therefore, we can conclude that this is the lowest point in the first culture shock
  • Restaurants and cafés are still mandatory closed and are losing a lot of revenue because of this. In the first quarter of 2020, the industry was doing fine. But in the second quarter, the revenue almost halved (Dagblad van het Noorden, 2020) (CBS, 2020).
  • The amount of passenger flights at Schiphol on the second quarter of 2020 relative to the second quarter of 2019 has decreased by approximately 95% due to Covid-19 (CBS, 2020).

In April the international tourists’ arrivals hit their lowest point. On March 29^th there were just 250 international flights in Europe and resulting into a drop of passengers of 97.1% (Holroyd, 2020).

Meanwhile the revenues in the Dutch hospitality industry dropped with 14%. Moreover, the revenues of Dutch vacation parks dropped at 64%. And Dutch hotels experienced a revenue drop of 75% (CBS, 2020).  

• June
  • A research conducted by the NBTC noticed that in this month there is a severe decrease of business tourism, however the leisure tourism will increase, and travellers will look for different ways to travel. By spending their holiday within their own country of residence or travelling by car to other countries nearby (NBTC, 2020). Leisure travellers are choosing for cosier and calmer destinations, such as the Wadden islands and more natural environments such as National Park De Hoge Veluwe (Van Eeten, 2020).
• July
  • Same as in June
• August
  • Same as in June, however on august 18 the amount of positive tested is rising.
• September
  • Tour operators that offer group travels are impacted by the new corona measures of the government, because inside groups cannot be bigger than 30 persons and outside not bigger than 40 persons (Lutgendorff, 2020).
  • Creativity of travel companies: this is an example of an adjustment/recovery happening during Covid-19. (Evers, 2020)

Late September new necessary precautions were announced by the Dutch government. Groups were again downsized to a maximum of 30 people in enclosed spaces and a maximum of 40 people in open air. This has an impact on group travel. Since groups are limited to this size (Lutgendorff, 2020).

Moreover, was an agreement made by Easy Jet and the union of pilots and cabin personnel. Resulting in job preservation at the airline. Easy Jet announced earlier this year that they had to let go of 30% of personnel due to the crisis. The agreement made sure that for the upcoming 2 years, personnel reduction would not be necessary (Cinjee,2020).

Consumer Culture Shock Model Analysis Phase 1-3

Phase 1 is green, Phase 2 is blue, Phase 3 is red.

• January
  • There is no official warning yet for the Covid-19 virus in Europe, therefore none of the European countries are worried about an outbreak. In Wuhan the outbreak is more severe, but that is far away from Europe and the Netherlands (Redactie, 2020).
• February
  • In Februari a lot of Dutch travellers went on ski-holiday during the spring holiday. Not only Dutch travellers went but also other travellers from other countries in Europe. There were a lot of traffic jams in the popular skiing areas such as France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy (ANP, 2020), this explains the first rise during the honeymoon phase.
  • As the Covid-19 situation in Hubei China has gotten worse, some Dutch travellers (in Hubei, China) have arranged with the Dutch ambassy in China for a guided return to Holland (Rijksoverheid, 2020).
  • There is a decline in the period between Februari and March, because in this period there was an outbreak of Covid-19 in the skiing regions of Europe. At the end of February more than 10 Italian villages and cities went into lockdown due to a rise in the outbreak of the virus. For Dutch tourists that had booked a holiday in that period, it meant that they could not go to anymore (RTL Nieuws, 2020a).
  • At the end of February, there is a rise again in the honeymoon phase because of Carnaval in the south of the Netherlands. In the regions of Limburg and North Brabant this holiday is a big feast and is visited by travellers from all over the Netherlands (Geelink, 2020).
• March
  • At the beginning of March, Covid-19 has reached the Netherlands. Due to events such as Carnaval and the skiing holiday, some people got infected and contaminated others (Kras, 2020). This explains the second decline in the Honeymoon phase.
  • The advice of the RIVM to the people living in North Brabant, is to stay home when having symptoms of a cold. Consumers should keep their distance from others and stay at home when having the Covid-19 symptoms (Rijksoverheid, 2020b).
  • The 1,5 metres society has started, the advice of the RIVM and the Dutch Government is to “keep your distance”, keep 1,5 metres distance between each other. Consumers should pay as much as possible by contactless payment (card/creditcard/tikkie) (Rijksoverheid, 2020b)
  • On March 15, the government took new measures against Covid-19. These new measures applied to The Netherlands as a whole, and not just the North of Brabant anymore. The measures were extended untill at least the 6^th of April, this is the beginning of the first culture shock (NOS, 2020).
• April
  • At least until the 6^th of april, the new Covid-19 measures meant for Dutch workers with children, that they could not drop off their children at the day-care anymore. Restaurants, cafés and bars are also closed untill at least the 6^th of April, for consumers this became sort of a “social lockdown”. During this period, it was not possible anymore to meet family/colleagues/friends in one of these social places. Online courses were arranged by schools and universities for pupils and students (Rijksoverheid, 2020e) This brings us to the first culture shock, where consumers were not able to meet and socialize as they did before. Consumers were introduced to a new way of greeting, meeting with each other (more digital than physical), this was all unfamiliar for most of the Dutch consumers. This leads to yet again another decline.
  • On april the 2^nd the previously mentioned measured are extended until at least the beginning of May (this is the lowest point in the model above) (Rijksoverheid, 2020c)
• May
  • At the beginning of May, some of the measures were loosen up, consumers should still keep 1,5 metres distance between each other. But pupils could go back to school again, children until the age of 18 could exercise outside, consumers could (finally) go to the hairdresser (Rijksoverheid, 2020d). These measures lead to a small rise in the corona culture shock model.
• June
  • On the first of June restaurants, cafés and bars could reopen and this led to a second rise in the corona culture shock model. People could sit outside and enjoy being outside again (NOS Redactie, 2020)
• July
  • The holiday season has started, according to the NBTC Dutch travellers have decided to spend their holiday in the Netherlands of in countries close by, most of the travel to these destinations happened by car and some via air and rail transportation (NBTC, 2020).
• August:
  • Although the number of Dutch travellers going on a holiday is considerably lower than last year in 2019, many people are still going on a holiday. It will be a different holiday than expected considering wearing a mask in public spaces in Italy, France and Germany for example (RTL Nieuws, 2020b).
• September
  • The number of positive tested is rising again, and on September 18, 2020 the government is going to publish new measurements for the Dutch people. Dutch travellers going to “orange and red” destinations have to go in mandatory in lockdown upon arrival.

Return Phases

An end point for a pandemic can have different forms and definitions. An epidemiological end point is when group immunity is achieved. Countries are hopeful that a vaccine would be sufficient in order to achieve group immunity. A second and possibly earlier end point could be a transition to a form of normalcy, where most aspects of social and economic life is able to resume without fear of ongoing mortality or consequences related to COVID-19. In order to have this before the epidemiological end of the virus, a strong healthcare system is a necessity. This means that the timeline for the end of the virus can vary per country. It is expected that in most developed economies, the epidemiological end is likely to be achieved in the third or fourth quarter of 2021, with a potential possibility to transition to normalcy sooner. The timing for the different countries can be affected by:

• Efficacy, arrival and adaptation of vaccines, as elaborated upon in the figure below
• The level of natural immunity in a population from exposure to the virus
• Influence from different regions with different thresholds for herd immunity
  
  

So how will the consumer perspective progress into Phase 4 of the Corona Culture Shock Model?

As of October, a second culture shock is being entered due to a second wave of infections. Borders are getting more restricted again, and people are advised to stay indoors and work from home again. Furthermore, a vaccine is still not available, and restaurants and bars are expected to be closed off again from October 15 on. However, the December holiday season is on the horizon. Therefore, it can be expected that there will be a small uprise in the domestic tourism market, followed by a dip again. Rise will only occur when traveller confidence is built. According to the WTTC, consistent measures and aligned protocols are a necessity for this, in addition to reduce the risk of infection. Furthermore, a coordinated approach of opening borders with international reporting and risk assessment to provide clarity and information to the consumer. The biggest uprise in the culture shock model, however, will be the introduction of a vaccine, kickstarting a huge increase in group immunity. As McKinsey&Co mentioned, this is expected to happen in the first quarter of 2021, and will be a gradual process over 6 months to reach a sufficient coverage in developed countries. Once there is sufficient coverage in developed countries, airbridges and travel bubbles, comparable to the trans-Tasman travel bubble, can be formed between countries in a similar stage. This offers consumers the confidence and ability to travel international safely. These effects for consumers of the post-Covid era in phase 4 of the Corona Culture Shock model can be found in the figure below.

And what about the industry in Phase 4?

The upcoming culture shock will be longer than the second consumer culture shocks, as more and more people within the tourism industry are losing their job. As of now, the ANVR is lobbying for extra support for the Dutch tourism sector.  In order to prevent even further job loss, the WTTC wrote a recovery plan. In order for the recovery plan to be able to work, a path towards a transition to normalcy or an epidemiological end needs to be paved. This can only happen on short term if a vaccine is bound to roll out. The rollout of the vaccine will be a shifting point where the shock line in the culture shock model will rise out of the second culture shock. In this gradual recline, the WTTC recovery plan is slowly starting to implement. Different travel companies will offer travel within a possible travel bubble of countries with similar circumstances; therefore, the different companies will work closely together to develop a coordinated policy. As the amount of countries with similar circumstances grow towards the point of return of normalcy, the sector will slowly recover as demand and supply will be rising again. However, this is looking at it from a positive point of view. From a negative point of view, there will be a late rollout of the vaccine, resulting in more job losses and bankruptcy of tourism companies. It is highly possible that there will be a third, industry specific, culture shock once more and more travel companies will be at their end of their financial capabilities to survive. These effects for the industry of the post-Covid era in phase 4 of the Corona Culture Shock model can be found in the figure below.