COVID‐19 and Hospitality and Tourism Stock Indices: Insights from European Markets

Abstract

Threatening tourism’s core values, COVID-19 forced a global lockdown with unprecedent economic ramifications across the industry’s sectors. By espousing an econometric methodology, this study investigates the pandemic’s impact on hospitality and tourism (H/T) stock indices trading in five European stock markets and explores the effect of both state-enforced, non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) and vaccinations. Findings suggest that a) the pandemic was the most impactful event in history to affect H/T stock indices trading in major European financial markets; b) the tourism industry reacted differently to the pandemic compared to other major economic sectors; and c) government-enforced measures directly targeting the industry’s core operations had a powerful effect on both stock returns and volatility during the first year of the pandemic, nevertheless, for returns, this effect was mitigated by the rollout of vaccinations. The study enriches our collective knowledge on the impact of COVID-19 on the economics of tourism, with emphasis on H/T stock indices.