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This paper aims to address the following questions: What is the impact of the pandemic on the hospitality industry in South Africa? Which innovations and strategies are in place to rebuild hospitality in South Africa?

This article emanates from the resent pandemic situation, and it is structured to include conceptual information drawn from the literature, empirical study and industry observation. These were conducted in 2020 and 2021 using, concepts from the literature, online questionnaires and observation to gather data about the impact of COVID-19 on hospitality operations across South Africa.

Historically literature shows that the hospitality industry positively impacts the economy and employment However, the pandemic greatly affected these contributions. The findings reported in the empirical study revealed that the pandemic affected business operations and employment and caused financial hardship for the industry.

There are relatively few studies that report on the issues relating to the pandemic and the hospitality industry in South Africa. This paper contributes to the literature regarding a pre-COVID-19 overview, the impact of the pandemic and the innovations and strategies in place to rebuild the hospitality industry.

This paper discusses the outcomes of an exploratory study into the innovations, adaptations, and best practices that the tourism and hospitality sector in Africa should implement in dealing with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic-induced disruptions.

This paper was based on data collected through qualitative approaches by reviewing published academic articles and unpublished documents, including websites, media reports and global public health entities such as the World Health Organization (WHO). Because of the lack of reliable data in some cases, this study is inductive in nature.

The main finding of this research suggests that Africa which is seemingly the least affected in infection and casualty rates has conversely borne the brunt of the negative responses from the global community in travel restrictions and mobility curtailment. Overwhelming trends suggest the domestic tourism market does not have the spending capacity of international visitors who arrive with foreign currency, inevitably main-stream in the form of USD, EURO and GBP, with their spending power estimated at between 1:18 and 1:22. The fragmented, cascaded and sometimes disorganised approach in dealing with policy adoptions and implementation in managing developments around the pandemic further inhibits a compelling approach to continent-wide tourism and hospitality revival.

This paper highlights trends, innovations, and adaptations to COVID-19-related revival strategies for Africa and contributes to academic debates on the topic which, in the Global South context is currently under-researched.

This paper aims to provide answers to the question: “What innovations would enable the tourism and hospitality industry to re-build?”.

At the outset, it redefines the concept of ‘Innovation” in the context of the hospitality and tourism industry. It then focuses on post-pandemic re-building best practices in tourism and hospitality. It captures the essence of the articles in this theme issue collection on innovative actions from around the world and presents concluding remarks.

This article summarises the key findings of this theme issue and it draws generalized conclusions about re-building the tourism and hospitality industry. In conclusion, 14 key learning outcomes are presented. These include topics such as: rethinking tourism and hospitality products and services, sustaining resilience, collaboration between the government, academia and industry, special interest tourism, domestic tourism, crisis management, digital transformation, the health and safety of all stakeholders, operational efficiencies and environmental sustainability.

This research contributes to the emerging research theme of tourism and hospitality post-pandemic re-building.

There are a number of practical implications in terms of industry approaches to the adoption of innovative strategies to re-build tourism and hospitality operations around the world.

Readers who are interested in international best practices of hospitality and tourism should find this concluding article of interest.