Vaccines may soon make travel possible again. But how quickly will it return — and will it be forever changed?

The COVID-19 pandemic brought the global tourism industry to a screeching halt in 2020. With vaccines starting to be rolled out, there is hope international travel can resume soon, but exactly when — and how — is the million-dollar question.

Before COVID-19, there was much concern about whether tourism had grown too big for our planet. There were calls to scale back tourism, make it more environmentally sustainable and help over-touristed locations become more resilient to crises.

However, with almost no international travel in 2020, we now have the opposite problem. The pandemic has caused a 70 per cent drop in international tourist arrivals globally from January to August, compared to the same period last year.

Destinations reliant…