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The immense returns generated from tourist destinations have caused governments to invest to a greater extent in developing the tourism industry, with the aim of improving its market share. Scholars and policy makers for tourism destinations are not simply focusing on attracting more tourists but also on improving the competitive position of their destinations. For this reason, destination marketing has become a fountain for future growth and sustainability of tourism destinations in an increasingly globalized and competitive tourist market. The need to maintain a steady growth in tourism gains has increased pressure on marketers and promoters of Zimbabwe as a destination as they strive to attract and convince current and prospective tourists to partake in their tourism offerings. However, the efforts of various destination marketers in Zimbabwe have been undercut by the hyperinflation and unemployment of the country, which have destroyed both the supply and demand of tourism in Zimbabwe, as it became increasingly expensive, and where social unrest has grown. From a political perspective, the country witnessed fights and other forms of mayhem, which labeled the tourism destination unsafe for tourists' visits.

Globalization has intensified marketing pressures for tourism destinations in their operations at a national, regional, and international level. The dynamics of the twenty-first century have resulted in immense competition, causing organizations in the tourism and hospitality business to adopt new strategic management and operational marketing processes. Branding has become one of the important marketing strategies in withstanding the competitive nature of the tourism industry when offering products and services to tourists. Zimbabwe as a tourism destination has also experienced various changes due to globalization, induced by its socioeconomic and political state of affairs. In order to survive and adhere to the changing market demands, Zimbabwe as a tourism destination has also adopted branding as a marketing strategy, with the aim of holding a high-valued global market position through an extensive brand identity.

This chapter is influenced by the globally renowned pillars of good governance which are independence, transparency, accountability, fairness and responsibility. Even, with a plethora of literature on these five pillars, little has been published with regards to how these conform or contradict with the upsurge of virtualised teaching and learning. Current developments in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are supporting application of educational technologies as a trajectory into the Zimbabwean Education 5.0 (teaching, research, community service, industrialisation and innovation) accompanied by the COVID-19 pandemic. There is an increasing use of e-learning platforms for individual and collaborated learning which are both synchronous and asynchronous. It gave path to the adoption of e-learning systems which includes ZOOM, Google Class, Microsoft Teams and many others. The challenge with these learning platforms is that they reduce or totally eliminate physical and human interaction in higher education. Though there is little evidence, it has become a cause of concern that through virtualised learning, there is an increase in unethical classroom practices. In the interest of the aforementioned, this book chapter interrogated literature on e-learning resources in line with the needed governing ethics influenced by COVID-19 pandemic.

The purpose of this chapter is to explore the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on tourism and hospitality. Motivation of the researchers in constructing the chapter was to logically alert the present-day and future world tourism and hospitality business leaders on how to respond to the disruptive forces attributed to deadly viral pandemics like that of COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose being to draw conclusions and identifying the research gaps. It is based on a structural analysis methodology to frame the categories of the major analysis in combination with scientific rigour to a broad and complex problem. Research results proved that the primary effects of COVID-19 pandemic on tourism and hospitality industry include technology disruption, globalisation problems and logistical inefficiencies. Implications to contemporary tourism and hospitality industry business leaders include bringing-in technologies, incubating survival plans of actions. The study results underscore the necessity of understanding effects of COVID-19 pandemic on tourism and hospitality so as to craft both proactive and reactive strategic stances. The research contributes to literature and theoretical novel introspections into the depth and breadth of how various tourism and hospitality industry metamorphoses can lead to navigation and survival in such COVID-19 pandemic environments.