Abstract
The main goal of the article is to describe the short-term impacts of reported new cases and deaths of the COVID-19 disease on hotels’ performances in the nine major Polish urban hotel markets: Kraków, Warszawa, Poznań, Wrocław, Gdańsk, Lublin, Łódź, Katowice, and Sopot. Time range of the analysis covers the period from January 5, 2020 (the beginning of the very first week when the COVID-19 cases were evidenced) to March 14, 2020 (the initial phase of lockdown was introduced by the Polish government). Various geographical contexts of the COVID-19 impacts are considered: national, European, and global. Generalized method of moments was applied to investigate the influence of reported COVID-19 cases (deaths) on both occupancy and revenue per available room. The results show that the most significant, negative impact of the pandemic on hotel performances is confirmed at the European level of the COVID-19 outbreak. Moreover, the negative influence of national cases of COVID-19 is more significant in less internationalized (or less-populated) urban destinations. Thus, the hotel industry (especially in the most internationalized, biggest Polish cities) might be recovered only when issues of the COVID-19 epidemic will be solved at the European level.
Highlights
The COVID-19 epidemic started in China in January 2020 and, in two months, spread to other countries all over the world
A significant decrease of the year-to-year dynamics of both occupancy and revenue per available room (RevPAR) in hotels operating in Polish major urban markets was evidenced
It was indirectly confirmed that Polish major urban hotel markets are dependent on factors affecting European tourism
Summary
The COVID-19 epidemic started in China in January 2020 and, in two months, spread to other countries all over the world. This started a major global crisis affecting various human activities, including travel and tourism [1]. The outbreak of COVID-19 poses a major public health challenge for years. As Di Gennaro et al [5], Haushofer and Metcalf [6], Amodio et al [7], and McKibbin and Fernando [8] emphasized, the COVID-19 outbreak affects mostly aspects such as health, social or economic, especially in the most affected regions like China, Europe, or the U.S The medical and psychological aspects of the COVID-19 cases [9], worldwide spread of the pandemic [4,5,10], or the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on public health or quality of life [11,12,13] have been already widely investigated. The influences of the COVID-19 cases’ distributions on travel restrictions [14,15,16,17] or education on different levels [18,19] have been discussed in scientific literature as well
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