Tourism & Covid: Before v. After

After a global standstill due to the Covid pandemic, travel came back, but not unchanged. Values had shifted, habits had hardened, and a new sense of meaning and responsibility marked the global travel economy. With Tourism AC/BC (shorthand for After/Before Covid), VisitDenmark asked Group NAO to explore how the pandemic had rewritten the rules of tourism. The goal was to understand what drives travellers now, and how Denmark can remain relevant in a radically changed global travel market.

The pandemic was a reset for tourism. Travel was one of the first industries to fall and one of the last to recover. When borders reopened, new questions arose: What does “value” mean when time and togetherness have become luxury goods? How does a meeting feel meaningful after years of Zoom fatigue? And what does sustainable travel really look like in an age of climate anxiety and conscious consumption? Group NAO's analysis identified 13 defining market shifts, from “Rejs og mærk livet!” (the YOLO mindset of post-crisis hedonism) and Slow & Low (the new slow travel movement), to wellness, regenerative tourism, and the rise of climate-conscious travel choices. The resulting final report became a compass for VisitDenmark’s strategic marketing and destination development. It inspired a new narrative about Danish tourism as more purposeful, people-centred and planet-aware – a destination that “stands for something”.