Abstract
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and a significant and negative impact on the tourism sector, and effective strategies were required to resolve pertinent challenges. The present study sought to appraise the survival strategies of Malaysian tour operators through a systematic literature review and in-depth interviews with 26 tour operator firms. The findings were discussed by employing a reactive, adaptive, protective, and proactive (RAPP) framework to underscore phase-specific strategies. The first phase included decreasing operational expenditures and staff layoffs. The second phase encompassed retraining existing staff while diversifying the current business scope. The third phase prioritised protecting financial integrity, engaging with customers, and leveraging governmental support. The fourth phase required the proactive capitalisation of digital transformations and strategic commercial collaborations for eventual recovery. Hence, to mitigate the negative impacts of a pandemic, it is necessary to devise strategies, boost business resilience, and facilitate stakeholder collaboration while being equipped with the necessary skills to effectively navigate future instances.
Keywords
Introduction
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic profoundly disrupted the global tourism industry, compelling tour operators and travel agencies to create and execute crisis management strategies to mitigate its adverse effects (Gössling et al., 2020; Wut et al., 2021). The tourism sector, which is heavily reliant on international mobility, faced unprecedented challenges due to stringent travel restrictions and border closures. In response, businesses had to adapt swiftly to survive and ensure operational continuity despite volatile market conditions. On 18 March 2020, the Malaysian government enforced the Movement Control Order (MCO) to curb the spread of COVID-19, leading to the closure of national borders and a halt to global tourism activities (Musa et al., 2021). This stringent lockdown and its subsequent phases (Figure 1) created considerable uncertainty for Malaysian tour operators, prompting them to adopt adaptive strategies to address operational challenges and a significant loss of income (Hanafiah et al., 2022). The economic repercussions were severe, as businesses faced immense strain from consumer refunds and diminishing revenue (Rahim, 2020). Moreover, the global revenue fell by 50% ($2.86 trillion), while international visitor arrivals dropped by 78%, contributing to an additional decline of $1.2 trillion in global revenue (Abbas et al., 2021). The different MCO phases in Malaysia (Source: Authors).
Jiang et al. (2021) formulated a dynamic resilience framework for the tourism sector by concentrating on three phases, namely, identifying, leveraging, and transforming. This is a cyclical process of organisational resilience to efficiently resolve crises. Nevertheless, this is considered to be a general framework as it does not adequately incorporate the application of specific strategies at each phase and the overlap and evolution of the applied strategies. Hence, Paraskevas and Guix (2023) provided a longitudinal perspective by classifying organisational responses into reactive, adaptive, protective, and proactive (RAPP) strategies to account for the multidimensional nature of business recovery, as corporations generally employ several strategies concurrently. Reactive methods, in particular, that ensure immediate survival, are followed by adaptive and protective means to develop higher business resilience, with proactive approaches sustaining long-term growth and innovation. The emphasis in each phase is on continuous calibration at different stages and throughout their evolution to adapt to emerging challenges and opportunities.
By organising the strategies into the RAPP framework, this study bridged a gap in the existing research by offering a practical and dynamic perspective on how businesses adjust their responses as a crisis evolves. In contrast to static or strictly linear frameworks, the RAPP model accounts for overlapping phases, with each necessitating targeted and adaptive strategies, thus complementing Jiang et al.’s (2021) dynamic framework by offering a more granular comprehension of the tailored approaches utilised throughout the three phases of identifying, leveraging, and transforming. To the authors’ knowledge, a temporal analysis of how firms navigated the different stages of the pandemic and calibrations of the respective approaches from immediate reactions to long-term planning have not been done in previous studies.
Paraskevas and Guix’s (2023) RAPP model could offer a unique insight into the strategic adaptations among tour operators. Reactive methods were used to encompass short-term and immediate strategies to stabilise operations during the highly uncertain early stages before adaptive approaches were implemented to adjust to market volatility with quasi-informed actions and a certain level of foresight (Paraskevas and Guix, 2023). Subsequently, protective methods were employed as medium- to long-term measures to protect tour operators from further negative impacts while developing business resilience (Jiang et al., 2021). Proactive approaches were employed to prioritise business growth and sustainability (Paraskevas and Guix, 2023). As a result, the RAPP model enriched the literature on tourism management via a holistic picture of the diverse strategies applied throughout the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. A systematic literature review of 55 articles and in-depth interviews with 26 Malaysian tour operators were performed to discover how Malaysian tour operators navigated the pandemic through phase-specific approaches. The results have significant implications for policymakers, industrial stakeholders, and governmental agencies as they provide information on efficacious crisis preparation, management, and supportive measures.
Although there is a substantial amount of literature on tourism crisis management strategies, a notable research gap exists in pinpointing the specific tactics of Malaysian tour operators to effectively navigate through various stages of the pandemic (Gan et al., 2024; Selamat et al., 2022). A thorough review by Wut et al. (2021: 1), in which 512 articles over the past 36 years were analysed, posed an essential question: “What are the unique crisis management strategies for specific tourism sectors?” To fill this gap, this study investigated how Malaysian tour operators responded to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, especially concerning travel restrictions and financial viability. By utilising the theoretical frameworks of Jiang et al. and Paraskevas and Guix, this research sought to provide valuable practical and theoretical insights into crisis management in Malaysia’s tourism industry.
Methodology
Research design
This study adopted a phenomenological research design to holistically explore and interpret the lived experiences of Malaysian tour operators in developing survival strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Phenomenology, as a qualitative methodology, focuses on understanding how individuals or groups subjectively perceive and make meaning of a specific phenomenon (Racher and Robinson, 2003), such as the survival of a crisis-driven business, in this case. The phenomenological approach was selected for two key reasons. First, it aligned with the goal of this study, which was to uncover how tour operators conceptualise, adapt, and implement survival strategies in response to unprecedented challenges. By prioritising their first-hand accounts, this design allowed for an in-depth analysis of their decision-making processes, emotional responses, and contextual constraints. Second, phenomenology complements the application of the RAPP model (a structured framework for categorising strategies) by enabling an iterative thematic analysis of explicit actions and underlying motivations. Specifically, a systematic literature review was conducted to comprehend and thoroughly contextualise pertinent RAPP methods in previous studies. A total of 26 in-depth interviews were also carried out to appraise the survival strategies of Malaysian tour operators during the pandemic.
Systematic literature review
Both the Scopus and Web of Science (WOS) databases were employed to search for pertinent articles. The search strategy focused on keywords such as “survival strategies,” “resilience,” “tourism businesses,” and “COVID-19” to capture relevant studies. No year restrictions were applied to ensure a comprehensive review of pre- and post-pandemic literature. Studies were included if they were (1) written in English, (2) peer-reviewed, (3) employed transparent research procedures, and (4) provided clear findings related to tourism business resilience. Papers lacking methodological rigor or tangential relevance to COVID-19 impacts were excluded.
Figure 2 depicts the adapted PRISMA 2020 flow (Page et al., 2021), illustrating the screening process from initial identification to final inclusion. The selected articles were analysed to identify foundational theories (e.g., resilience frameworks, crisis management models) and gaps in existing research. Using the RAPP model (Resilience, Adaptation, Prevention, and Participation), the survival strategies documented in the literature were categorised by their objectives, timeframes, and roles in sustaining tourism businesses (Table 1). This synthesis not only contextualises the study within prior scholarship but also clarifies the novel contributions of this work. The complete list of sources reviewed is provided in Online Appendix A. The Adapted PRISMA 2020 flow for the current systematic literature review Source: Page et al. (2021). The tour operators’ demographic profiles. Source: Interviews.
Interviews
The study respondents were purposively recruited from the List of Travel Operating Business and Travel (TOBTAB) acquired from the Malaysian Ministry of Tourism, Arts, and Culture (MOTAC, 2022). The inclusion criteria were tour operators from the two most visited states in Malaysia, namely Kuala Lumpur in West Malaysia and Sabah in East Malaysia, symbolising the primary tourism hubs in the respective regions. Kuala Lumpur is the national capital and a primary hub for commercial and leisure tourism, while Sabah is renowned for its eco-tourism and cultural tourism. Other criteria were tour operators who continued operations during the COVID-19 pandemic, reopened after a temporary shutdown, or permanently shut down and changed to another career trajectory. The respondents were contacted via phone or email to attend the interviews at their convenience.
The interview questions were developed based on prior research, with a pilot study being performed among six respondents to validate the interview questions. The demographic details of the respondents were collected in Section A, while the tour operators’ perspectives on the business survival strategies employed during the pandemic were evaluated in Section B. Relevant operational contexts, resource management, marketing, and adaptations at the different MCO phases were also investigated. The respondents’ identities remained confidential throughout the study, and they were offered a concise introduction to the purpose of the study before the interview. The interviews were conducted between October 2023 and January 2024. All the interviews were recorded after acquiring the respondents’ consent to guarantee the accurate collection and analysis of data.
Data analysis
The interviews were conducted in multiple languages, including Malay and Mandarin, to accommodate the participants’ preferences. To ensure methodological rigour, the audio recordings were transcribed verbatim in their original language by the two authors working independently. These transcripts underwent member checking, where the participants reviewed and verified the accuracy of their responses before the translation. Interviews in non-English languages were then translated into English by certified native speakers. This dual-layered independent transcription process, involving participant validation and professional translation, was implemented to enhance the reliability and trustworthiness of the findings. The interview data were examined after the transcription process by implementing interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) methods to acquire a thorough comprehension of the experiences of Malaysian tour operators (Smith and Osborn, 2007). The transcriptions were also perused multiple times by the researchers to familiarise themselves with the interview findings before conducting inductive coding on NVivo software to discover emerging themes, while avoiding the influence of preconceptions or pre-existing assumptions (Dollah et al., 2017).
Deductive coding was also performed to methodologically link the emerging themes based on the RAPP model to guarantee a structured and coherent classification that is sufficiently consistent with the theoretical fundamentals. Subsequently, individually generated codes were compared, and discrepancies were resolved through intensive debates to collaboratively establish a unified set of themes while cross-checking with the interview data to guarantee high consistency and reliability of the findings. Subsequently, the interview data were corroborated through member checking, wherein the synthesised themes and interpretations were sent to the respondents for checking and confirmation or to further improve the interpretations. The respondents’ feedback was included to guarantee accurate analyses through validation principles (Guba, 1981). Direct quotes from tour operators were carefully chosen to accurately depict the themes. The quotes were classified within the RAPP model.
Findings and discussion
The demographic backgrounds of the 26 respondents are depicted in Table 1. The majority of the respondents were aged between 41 and 50 years (n = 13), which highlighted a sufficient composition of experienced tourism professionals. Most of the respondents were males (n = 19). As 10 of the respondents were tourism business owners while the rest were managers, they were able to contribute unique insights into the strategic and operational phases. A total of 11 respondents were from Kuala Lumpur, while the remaining 15 were from Sabah. A total of nine respondents possessed between 16 and 20 years of operational experience, underscoring their significant industrial knowledge. A majority of the respondents were involved in inbound tourism (n = 15), followed by outbound tourism (n = 9), and mixed services (n = 2), thus demonstrating multiple operational modes. Essentially, the demographic backgrounds indicated the diversity and extensive tourism experiences of the respondents, which ensured the robustness of the findings through a wide spectrum of perspectives.
The RAPP categorisation of tourism businesses’ survival strategies from the systematic literature review.
The findings of the research.
The RAPP framework: The temporal evolution of the crisis management strategies of the Malaysian tourism industry (Source: Authors).
Reactive
Reactive methods, which were crucial for immediate survival (Paraskevas and Guix, 2023),involved prioritising rapid and short-term measures to alleviate financial and operational impacts. The suspension of operations through temporary closures (Sofer et al., 2023) and halts in non-essential services (Stojčić and Vizek, 2024) enabled businesses to comply with mandated lockdown measures by shutting down facilities (Hovardaoglu and Calisir-Hovardaoglu, 2024), suspending restaurant buffets (Wray et al., 2024), and minimising operational capacities (Nuruddin et al., 2020). However, the interview results revealed that tour operators perceived the suspension of operations as compulsory compliance with government mandates, such as the MCO, rather than as deliberate crisis management strategies. For instance, the informants emphasised that the closures were unavoidable, stating, “We had no choice. It wasn’t a strategy, just survival.” (TO22). This aligned with critiques in the literature highlighting how dependence on uninterrupted operations exacerbates vulnerability during disruptions (Melián-Alzola et al., 2020).
The pandemic significantly and adversely influenced staffing strategies, with salary reductions, layoffs, and furloughs being generally employed to address financial burdens (Al-Fadly, 2020; Gan et al., 2024). From the interviews, workforce reductions emerged as the most prevalent tactic, with 20 of the 26 operators having resorted to significant layoffs during the initial lockdowns. “In the early stages of the MCO, we had to reduce our workforce significantly due to plummeting demand for travel.” (TO18). This aligned with the scholarly framing of layoffs as a reactive cost-control measure (Nuruddin et al., 2020). Nevertheless, the interviews revealed a countervailing emphasis on retaining a skeletal team to sustain core operations. For example, TO1’s retention of “One tour guide, two admin staff, 1 driver, and the boss.” was a pragmatic effort to balance austerity with operational continuity. Eight operators reported that salary cuts intensified the financial precarity of employees, with TO17 stating, “I didn’t receive my salary for three to 4 months, so I just lived on [my] savings.” Unpaid leave, which was adopted by five operators, reflected voluntary compromises driven by employee loyalty, as noted by TO21, “Some [colleagues] took unpaid leave because they believed in the company.” Next, reduced office hours and shift rotations, such as TO14’s, “We limited our office’s operation hours.”, demonstrated innovative yet localised efforts to lower costs without full closures.
Transparent communication functioned as a reactive strategy during the early stages of the pandemic, where tour operators prioritised immediate updates to stakeholders to manage unfolding uncertainties. (Melián-Alzola et al., 2020; Yeh, 2020). This was to mitigate panic, align expectations, and stabilise operations amid abrupt disruptions (Sofer et al., 2023). For instance, TO7 maintained constant dialogue with suppliers, “We kept in touch with airlines and hotels to renegotiate deposits we’d already paid [for].”, while TO18 said, “We sent updates to keep customers confident, so they wouldn’t ask for refunds.” These actions were critical for preserving cash reserves and avoiding liquidity collapse. Cost-efficiency and reduced resource utilisation demonstrated the reactive nature of tourism firms in reducing financial losses (Bodolica et al., 2021; Melián-Alzola et al., 2020). The downsizing of office spaces and rent renegotiations undertaken by operators like TO14 exemplified the reactive strategies aimed at immediate cost reductions during the pandemic. TO14 stated, “…May 2020… we saved cost by finding a new place with lower rent for the office’s operations.”
Managing customer refunds posed a significant challenge during the pandemic as financial constraints often limited the ability of operators to immediately issue full reimbursements. To navigate this, businesses adopted reactive, improvised strategies such as postponing trips, offering partial refunds, or processing reimbursements in batches. A pragmatic approach was newly identified in the interview data. For instance, TO5 explained how trip postponements mitigated refund demands, “We proposed postponing the trip’s date…so they [customers] could accept it.” Similarly, TO2 noted that refunds were issued only “when cash flow allowed”, while TO13 opted for “partial refunds.”
Adaptive
As the initial pandemic phase began to stabilise, tour operators faced a prolonged period of uncertainty, necessitating adjustments to their survival strategies. Tour operators, in particular, applied various adaptive methods to maintain business operations while reducing financial losses owing to the COVID-19 pandemic (Jiang et al., 2021). The methods were more extensive compared to those in the reactive stage, when tour operators realised the importance of switching to alternative operations for business survival (Paraskevas and Guix, 2023). The stage corresponded to the Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO) and Full Movement Control Order (FMCO) periods in Malaysia, with gradual calibrations to the latest norms as essential for business survival. Tour operators, in particular, proactively determined different income streams, such as, “We did deliveries, sold vegetables, ran errands.” (TO2) and “We started a grocery shop to generate the income.” (TO13) to compensate for their reduced business revenue, which underscored the importance of business agility to compensate for the loss of existing tourism-related revenue.
Prior studies also demonstrated the exploration of different income sources, including vending local food products and providing innovative service packages (Salari and Murphy, 2023; Varghese et al., 2022). In addition, the respondents stated, “At that [FMCO] time, we rented our transport vehicles to primary and secondary schools for their activities.” (TO1) and “We engaged in other businesses to support our operations, including freight services and food delivery.” (TO2), thus reflecting a redefinition of existing operations to repurpose existing resources for venturing into other markets, such as hybridising service offerings or converting hotels into quarantine facilities (Abdul Rahim et al., 2024).
Enhanced health and safety protocols emerged as a critical strategy to sustain consumer trust and operational continuity during the pandemic, in line with global trends emphasising employee vaccinations, rigorous sanitation, and regulatory compliance (Arora et al., 2021). Health protocols were one of the most frequently cited measures (33 studies), a pattern echoed in interviews with nine tour operators, where informants emphasised measures such as increased sanitation, staff vaccinations, and strict adherence to health standards. For example, “We had to place more emphasis on cleanliness.” (TO4); “We had to ensure the cleanliness of our transport vehicles, and we made sure that all our staff had two doses of the vaccine.” (TO9); and “We implemented strict health and safety protocols.” (TO18). These measures not only mirrored international best practices but also addressed localised operational challenges, such as maintaining service quality amid fluctuating restrictions.
Employees were required to adopt flexible work roles to accommodate reduced operational hours and pandemic-related closures, in line with government lockdown mandates. Remote work practices and temporary contracts, key components of flexible work arrangements (Loi et al., 2021; Pongsakornrungsilp et al., 2021), helped lower operational expenditures amid declining customer demand (Booyens et al., 2022; Yost et al., 2021). Interviews revealed that employee flexibility extended beyond formal arrangements, necessitating multitasking across roles such as tour guiding, administrative duties, and temporary freelancing to address fluctuating workloads. For example, TO1 explained, “All of us had to take on more responsibilities. The tour guides had to do admin work sometimes.” This was in line with prior studies emphasising the importance of role rotation, cross-training, and workforce repurposing to maintain operational continuity during a crisis (Kaushal and Srivastava, 2021). To further reduce costs, many operators adopted remote work, reduced office hours, or vacated physical office spaces entirely (TO14). TO17 also stated, “I immediately vacated my office in the first month of the FMCO.” This was done in an effort to minimise operational expenses while adapting to operational constraints. Therefore, the strategies highlighted the high adoption of remote work as a cost-reducing and flexible operational method during the COVID-19 pandemic (Booyens et al., 2022).
Flexible pricing strategies were widely adopted to retain customers and address market volatility during periods of diminished demand (Drela et al., 2024; Dube and Nhamo, 2024). For instance, TO6 reduced prices to stimulate sales during Malaysia’s FMCO, “We adjusted our prices, making them slightly lower, to attract bookings.” Concurrently, asset liquidation emerged as a critical survival tactic, with operators selling corporate assets like vehicles to bolster cash flow - a strategy documented in both the crisis literature (Gan et al., 2024) and interviews. TO5, for example, explained, “I sold the company’s vehicles to cover ongoing expenses.” While prior studies highlighted voucher sales as a survival method in hospitality contexts, such as Nuruddin et al.’s (2020) Bali hotel case, this approach was not employed by the interviewed tour operators. Instead, three operators issued credit notes for future bookings rather than cash refunds. TO4 noted, “We provided credit notes so customers could reschedule trips or use them for future travels.”, demonstrating an adaptive compromise to preserve liquidity while maintaining customer goodwill. These findings underscored how operators tailored their financial strategies to local constraints, prioritising immediate cash preservation over long-term customer incentives like credit notes.
Protective
As the pandemic entered a phase of gradual relaxation of restrictions, businesses transitioned to protective strategies aimed at safeguarding resources, maintaining operations, and building resilience for eventual recovery (Jiang and Wen, 2020). On entering the stage of the gradual relaxation of travel restrictions, tour operators started using protective measures to secure existing commercial resources, sustain operations, and develop resilience for eventual recovery to sustain consumer trust and engagement. The respondents emphasised the importance of retaining and engaging consumers via phone calls, emails, and updates on the latest product offerings. TO4 stated, “We invested in customer engagement initiatives, like sending them an email or calling them.” Previous research also revealed that this initiative was supported through visible compliance with health and safety protocols and constant communication to stabilise and maintain business operations (Loi et al., 2021; Zhang et al., 2022).
Tour operators collaborated with government agencies to secure financial relief and operational flexibility during the pandemic, a strategy widely advocated in crisis management literature (Gan et al., 2024; Gupta et al., 2024; Wijaya et al., 2022; Yeoman et al., 2022). These partnerships gained them access to tax reductions, low-interest loans, and staff wage subsidies, which helped sustain liquidity amid collapsing revenues. This was a critical lifeline, as emphasised by operators like TO1, “The government’s support reduced our burden in paying taxes and electricity bills, which was crucial as we had no business.” Concurrently, operators leveraged state-backed initiatives to revive tourism through intra-province campaigns and regional travel bubbles, such as the Trans-Tasman agreement, in line with global efforts to stimulate demand via controlled, safe travel (Tarapituxwong et al., 2023). The interviews further revealed how operators prioritised domestic tourism by tailoring affordable travel packages to local preferences, circumventing international travel restrictions. For example, TO8 explained, this was done by “offering the most affordable packages to attract local tourists”, thus reflecting a tactical shift towards budget-conscious offerings.
Tour operators prioritised financial management to ensure stability during the pandemic, employing strategies such as cost-cutting, cash flow optimisation, and maintaining detailed financial records (Leurcharusmee et al., 2022). The critical role of liquidity was underscored in the interviews, with TO6 noting, “Good cashflow [was key] to surviving the 2 years.”, while TO12 highlighted pre-pandemic financial prudence, “We’d built strong cash reserves by earning a million a month before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, which buffered us initially.” Alongside financial measures, operators invested in the regular maintenance of amenities during the lockdowns (Nuruddin et al., 2020) to ensure their operational readiness for eventual reopening. Business resilience was further bolstered by leadership practices as effective decision-making and transparent communication stabilised the teams amid the uncertainty (Thakur and Hale, 2022).
Tour operators gained resilience during the pandemic through employee-centric strategies and decisive leadership, aligning with the crisis management literature (Bhrammanachote and Sawangdee, 2021; Thakur and Hale, 2022). TO16 underscored the commitment to workforce stability, with government-funded digital training bridging the skill gaps to enhance adaptability, “The Human Resource Development Corporation (HRD Corp) gave us funds to conduct a week-long training session on digital transformation during the emergency for all the members.” TO14 emphasised retraining and encouragement by “giving them support and encouragement in every task that they faced.” Concurrently, agile leadership ensured operational continuity, with owners like TO9 assuming hands-on roles to navigate challenges. These efforts reflected a dual focus on human capital investment and strategic governance, illustrating how employee welfare and leadership decisiveness collectively underpin survival and recovery, extending the theoretical frameworks that prioritise holistic resilience over mere cost-cutting.
Proactive
As the tourism industry transitioned towards recovery, businesses adopted proactive digital strategies to secure long-term resilience and competitiveness, aligning with the emphasis on online engagement in the literature (Al-Fadly, 2020; Yost et al., 2021). Digital transformation became pivotal, with operators enhancing their online presence to reach global audiences and reduce the reliance on traditional booking methods. TO5 noted, “We can’t depend on walk-ins anymore. Everyone looks online now.”, while TO18 developed “an online portal to sell packages worldwide”, creating new revenue streams. These efforts reflected a shift from crisis survival to innovation-driven growth, as digital platforms not only restored their relevance but also redefined their market reach, echoing Paraskevas and Guix’s (2023) assertion that post-crisis competitiveness hinges on proactive technological integration.
Tour operators adopted product diversification to align with evolving traveller preferences, expanding offerings to include ethnic and cultural experiences and thematic accommodations (Dewi and Ginting, 2022; Wijaya et al., 2022; Zhang et al., 2022). The practical implications of this approach were revealed in the interviews. TO13, for instance, developed “new packages tailored to emerging demands”, reflecting efforts to differentiate through innovation (Wijaya et al., 2022). However, while the literature emphasised sustainable tourism practices as critical to post-pandemic recovery (Rahmanov et al., 2020; Sobaih et al., 2021), none of the interviewed operators explicitly mentioned the adoption of eco-conscious strategies. Instead, they anticipated future shifts in tourist preferences toward rural and eco-destinations. For example, TO21 noted, “We foresee demand moving to rural areas, travellers will seek nature and a quieter experience.” This suggested a gap between the theoretical advocacy for sustainability and current operational priorities, even though operators recognised the evolving market trends. By focusing on cultural relevance and the potential of rural tourism, businesses aimed to balance immediate competitiveness with a readiness for future demand shifts, underscoring the need for a gradual integration of sustainability into recovery frameworks.
Previous studies highlighted proactive strategies, such renewable energy solutions (Dube and Nhamo, 2024; Kahveci, 2023), artificial intelligence (AI)-powered equipment (Kaushal and Srivastava, 2021), advanced information technology systems (Drela et al., 2024), contactless services (Gupta et al., 2024), locally sourced materials and waste reduction, which also support local communities (Abdul Rahim et al., 2024; Loi et al., 2021; Pillay et al., 2022; Pongsakornrungsilp et al., 2021), as critical for operational efficiency and sustainability. However, the interviews revealed limited adoption among the tour operators, with only 7 out of the 26 of them prioritising technological innovation. While TO19 stressed the need to “be innovative and different from the competition”, budget constraints hindered investments in advanced tools like AI or robotics. TO16 acknowledged the need for digital adaptation, “We’re looking into mobile platforms”, but emphasised financial limitations. This gap between the theoretical emphasis on tech-driven resilience and practical barriers, such as funding and expertise, underscored the challenges small operators faced in aligning with global sustainability trends, even as they recognised their long-term necessity.
Collaboration with other tour agencies and operators emerged as a proactive strategy to diversify travel packages and appeal to broader markets by pooling resources and expertise (Gupta et al., 2024; Yeoman et al., 2022). This approach, as highlighted by TO9, “We collaborated with other agencies to develop more tourism products to attract more customers.”, enabled businesses to expand their offerings efficiently while mitigating individual financial risks. Such partnerships not only enhanced product diversity but also aligned with studies emphasising the role of strategic alliances in crisis recovery (Al-Fadly, 2020; Melián-Alzola et al., 2020). By fostering collective innovations, such as co-designed itineraries or shared marketing campaigns, these collaborations strengthened industry-wide resilience, demonstrating how cooperation transcended competition to drive post-pandemic revival.
The tour operators highlighted the importance of self-passion and enthusiasm in navigating the challenges of the pandemic. While self-motivation remains understudied in the existing literature, personal commitment emerged as a critical factor in sustaining proactive initiatives and operational momentum. As TO1 noted, “Self-passion and enthusiasm are most important. We took on extra jobs to cover costs.”, highlighting how intrinsic motivation fuelled resilience. Similarly, TO4 framed continuity as a familial duty, “The business has been passed down through the family. So, it’s our responsibility to sustain it.” These accounts revealed how deeply personal values, rooted in legacy and dedication, shaped the operators’ responses to the crisis, complementing the theoretical frameworks that prioritised structural strategies over individual agencies.
The proactive exploration of diverse markets through targeted sales and marketing campaigns, both locally and globally, proved vital for the post-pandemic recovery. Participation in tourism events, such as the Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (MATTA) Fair, enabled operators to promote offerings and diversify income streams through digital and physical channels. Scholars have emphasised the importance of market awareness and adaptive sales strategies during recovery phases (Zhang et al., 2022), a practice reflected in the operators’ dual focus on event-based engagement and digital expansion. For example, TO13 leveraged industry expos, “We participate in the MATTA Fair in Kuala Lumpur. This is where we connect with customers and sell our products.”, while TO18 prioritised online innovations, “We’re developing an online portal to sell global tour packages, creating new revenue streams.” These efforts underscored how blending traditional outreaches, such as trade fairs, with digital transformation allowed the operators to broaden their market reach, aligning with theoretical frameworks that advocated multi-channel strategies for crisis resilience.
Theoretical and practical implications
This study advances the crisis management theory by empirically validating the RAPP model (Paraskevas and Guix, 2023) as a dynamic framework that accommodates both sequential prioritisation and strategic fluidity in crisis responses. In line with previous research, the findings affirm that the RAPP model is inherently non-linear, allowing for the coexistence of strategies, such as protective staff retention alongside proactive digital transformation, during the transitional phases. However, in the context of Malaysia’s MCO phases, a general sequence emerged: Reactive strategies, such as cost reductions and operational suspensions, dominated the initial stages of the crisis to ensure immediate survival; adaptive strategies, such as workforce flexibility and hygiene protocols, stabilised operations as restrictions eased; protective strategies, such as safeguarding cash reserves and market retention, fortified businesses during prolonged disruptions; and proactive strategies, such as digital platforms and sustainability initiatives, drove recovery in the endemic phase.
The research enriches the RAPP framework by introducing a socio-cultural dimension, revealing how intrinsic drivers like self-motivation, familial legacy (TO4’s familial responsibility) and community values influence strategic choices, an underexplored layer in structurally focused crisis literature. By demonstrating how the model integrates sequential logic (dominant phase priorities) with real-world hybridity (parallel strategy execution), this study reinforces the utility of the RAPP as a diagnostic tool for navigating crises. It extends Paraskevas and Guix’s (2023) work by grounding the framework in empirical, context-specific dynamics, such as Malaysia’s MCO phases, while advocating for its adaptability to diverse organisational and cultural contexts.
For policymakers and industry bodies, the findings underscore the need for targeted support programmes aligned with each RAPP phase. Grants for digital upskilling, subsidies for eco-certifications or collaborative platforms like the MATTA Fair can empower tourism businesses to compete without overextending limited budgets. Training initiatives should blend technical skills, such as AI tools, with socio-emotional competencies, such as crisis leadership and morale management, as highlighted by TO14’s emphasis on employee support. Additionally, promoting community-driven tourism, such as rural or cultural experiences anticipated by operators, can align recovery efforts with shifting traveller preferences while fostering local economic resilience. By adopting these strategies, stakeholders can transform theoretical insights into scalable, context-sensitive solutions that balance survival imperatives with sustainable growth.
Conclusion, limitations, and future directions
The current study enriches the existing knowledge corpus on crisis management in the tourism sector by conducting a temporal classification of RAPP strategies for business survival. While prior studies have extensively examined business survival strategies during crises, few studies have applied the RAPP model developed by Paraskevas and Guix (2023) to specifically analyse crisis responses and recovery in tourism contexts. Thus, the present findings bridge the gap by elucidating business strategies for adapting to a crisis, namely, the COVID-19 pandemic. The model contains four groups of strategies, which commence with the reactive strategies encompassing immediate responses and focusing on short-term survival, followed by adaptive strategies with pertinent calibrations to existing operations and strategies to address the obstacles experienced. Subsequently, the priority of protective strategies for the eventual recovery of a business by implementing forward-thinking methods to leverage emerging opportunities is stabilisation.
The limitation of this study was that the focus of the qualitative methodology was on Malaysian tour operators, which might limit its generalisability. Future scholars can expand the current findings to other countries and contexts while employing different methodologies, such as longitudinal research, to increase the generalisability and theoretical rigour of the findings. Nevertheless, the sole reliance on interviews, while rich in depth, risked overlooking quantifiable trends, such as the financial metrics of strategy efficacy. Future researchers can utilise mixed-mode methods, combining both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, and employ larger and more diverse samples to corroborate and generalise the current findings. Evaluating the evolution of phase-specific approaches under the RAPP framework can also reinforce the robustness of the current study results while improving their theoretical rigour for a more holistic comprehension of crisis management measures in the tourism sector.
Supplemental Material
Supplemental Material - Phase-specific pandemic survival strategies: Insights from tour operators
Supplemental Material for Phase-specific pandemic survival strategies: Insights from tour operators by Kai Xin Tay, Thanam Subramaniam, Jennifer Kim Lian Chan, Neethiahnanthan Ari Ragavan, S Mostafa Rasoolimanesh, Joaquim Dias Soeiro in Tourism and Hospitality Research
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Collaboration Research Grant Universiti Malaysia Sabah and Taylors’ University (GKP 0040-2022).
Supplemental Material
Supplemental material for this article is available online.
Author Biographies
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
