Zurab Pololikashvili, secretary-general of the UNWTO, stated that “Growth in inter[1]national tourist arrivals and receipts continues to outpace the world economy and both emerging and advanced economies are benefiting from rising tourism income [1]”. In 2019, the total international tourist arrivals worldwide were 1460 million, with total international tourism receipts of USD 1481 billion; Asia and the Pacific had 362 million tourists, with receipts of USD 443 billion [2]. In 2019, in Taiwan, tourist receipts and expenditure totaled USD 535.44 billion, with a total number of tourists of 28.9 million, including inbound and outbound tourists (international travel); the number of people engaging in Taiwanese domestic travel numbered over 160 million [3]. Taiwan has a population of 23.8 million [4] Tourism is one of the most important industries in Taiwan. On 23 January 2020, Wuhan declared a lockdown. On January 30, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a global health emergency. On 11 March, the WHO declared the outbreak a COVID-19 pandemic; on 20 April, 100% of worldwide destinations introduced travel restrictions; in 2020, the number of international tourists suffered 70% to 75% negative growth; 100–120 million direct tourism jobs at risk, and international tourism could plunge to the levels of 1990 [5]. Tourism mobility led to COVID-19 becoming a global pandemic [6]. The irresistible risk industry is already synonymous with tourism. It is an unstable industry. In 2003, 2 million tourists were lost due to SARS. In 2009, the Global Economic Crisis reduced the number of tourists by 37 million. In 2020, COVID-19 caused a reduction of 1.1 billion tourists, and a loss in international tourism receipts US$ 1.1 trillion [5]. The tourism industry is the most frequently impacted industry under the crisis [7,8]. Several researchers have highlighted that the impact of COVID-19 on the tourism industry is significant [9–13]. However, impactive decision-making is lacking, and few studies have determined the solutions in the tourism industry. How the tourism industry survives under the crisis context is an urgent issue.

The tourism industry must respond to the tourism disaster caused by COVID-19. The world has been in a panic in the past year, and tourism-related industries have suffered unprecedented significant effects. From the disappearance of international tourists to the instantaneous cessation of the tourism market, many related industries ceased opera[1]tions. [14]. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a significant crisis to all of the industries in the world [15], and this crisis has a significant impact on the tourism industry [12]. Scholars believe that global tourism and population movements have caused the emergence or re-emergence of infectious diseases as one inevitable result of such movements [16]. The early evidence of the effects of travel, flights, cruise ships and accommodations under the pandemic is devastating [17]. The global pandemic of COVID-19 has severely hit economic industries such as tourism, hospitality and airlines [18]. The government has forcibly closed hotels, restaurants, attractions and tourism-related businesses [19]. Travel and tourism have always been significant factors in globalization, and are the industries most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic [20]. The COVID-19 pandemic has not been controlled, and the situation is unpredictable; therefore, research is essential for the restoration of tourism and the associated industries [21]. In the COVID-19 pandemic, for the tourism industry to form a new normal [11,22], a new approach to the crisis is required. Nevertheless, to the best of our knowledge, the previous literature has not found a crisis solution for tourism industry stakeholders. Most of the early literature may be limited to the exploration of a wide range of issues related to the quantitative or qualitative nature of second-hand data analysis related to tourism issues [23–27], tourism management issues and related strategic issues under the pandemic [28–33], and the satisfaction issues of accommodation and restaurants under the pandemic [34–37]. Some of the researchers study the economic issues that affect the tourism industry in the COVID-19 pandemic [38–44], discuss the psychological issues of travel stakeholders in the pandemic [45–50], or perform research on Tourism and Virtual Reality (VR) [51–53]. Past research has focused on six functions. When tourism resources are invested, they cannot provide tourism stakeholders with the correct decision-making methods efficiently and quickly. In order to overcome this situation, we propose a decision-making method for tourism stakeholders to address these problems.

The past literature shows the significance of the issues of cooperation between the tourism industry and its partners [54,55]. Tourism stakeholders include tourists, travel companies, travel providers, destination organizations, governments, local communities, and practitioners [11]. Many studies discuss the hospitality industry, the transportation industry, travel companies, and government in the tourism industry, but research discussing a gap model of decision-making is lacking. Therefore, this research will adopt innovative methods to construct a GMTS. Kock and Assaf [56] aimed to advocate for the originality of tourism research. They hoped that tourism scholars would propose an innovative and creative transformation process for the tourism industry [57]. Owing to the fragmented natureof the tourism industry, any person or organization that can involve disaster management or beneficial participants in the tourism industry is a stakeholder of the industry [58]. Tourism has been widely recognized as a sustainability industry, and stakeholder collaboration for the sustainability of tourism development has been examined [59]. Using Teorija Rezhenija Izobretatelskikh Zadach (TRIZ) principles, the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) has been applied to complex and interrelated group problems, solving contradictions in the care cloud system and innovating the principles of the long-term care cloud system [60]. Altuntas and Gok [61] adopted the DEMATEL method to evaluate COVID-19 quarantine decisions based on the number of visitors and the local population, solving complex problems and decision-making criteria factors.

This research uses the TRIZ principle to reason about the issues among relevant stakeholders in the tourism industry, to clarify the complex relationship results produced by contradictory problems across industries, to resolve contradictions and innovate principles, and to determine the extent of influence between innovation principles and which principles have exerted the most critical impact. Experts’ questionnaires are used from hospitality, transportation, travel companies, academic universities and the government. Methods such as multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM), explanatory structure modeling and DEMATEL are used to determine the degree of influence between the criteria factors, and to make decisions. First, the information on the issues that led to the contradictory system construction is summarized; second, the innovative principles of the system are derived in order to adopt TRIZ heuristic reasoning; third, these innovative principles are evaluated by adopting the expert questionnaire survey approach, which uses DEMATEL to measure the standard steps and compute the key innovation principles, such as the criteria factors and feasibility. This study aims to provide GMTS in order to address this issue; tourism stakeholders will establish the new GMTS to solve the dilemma under the influence of COVID-19 and provide research literature and practical applications in order to bridge the research gap. This article has three aspects. First, this research provides a new model which integrates the TRIZ and DEMATEL methods to solve the problems of tourism stakeholders. Second, this study identifies the decision-making criteria factors implemented by tourism stakeholders so that decision-makers can evaluate their industry’s approach to sustainable development. Finally, this study explores the practice of the identified criteria factors that provide stakeholders with insight into the existing capabilities in the implementation of decision-making under crisis, and this research will drive useful implications for stakeholders in the tourism industry. On the contrary, if the relevant stakeholders in the tourism industry cannot make effective decisions to face the crisis, they will not be able to sustain the sustainable operation of the industry