Crisis-resilience of small-scale tourism businesses in the pandemic era: the case of Yazd World Heritage Site, Iran

Resilience to severe crises like COVID-19 is critical for small businesses. However, little empirical research has been conducted to examine the crisis resilience of small businesses to the pandemic from the perspective of business operators. This research note aims at exploring the resilience of small tourism businesses to the COVID-19 crisis in a world heritage city. In-depth interviews with 25 operators were conducted and the results showed that the operators considered the pandemic crisis as a flame to the previous political and economic crises. Different resilience strategies such as business closure, survival, adaption and innovation were applied by different business operators. The results also confirmed that integration and togetherness helped businesses find better resilience when they share pains. The study further found that despite negative impacts, the pandemic created positive social impacts such as cohesion and solidarity among small businesses. In addition, the government supportive policies were not healing, and their plans in dealing with the crisis were not transparent and professional.