Russian tourism industry: consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Aim. The presented study aims to statistically assess the scale of the pandemic’s negative impact on the major indicators of the tourism industry in the Russian Federation.Tasks. The author shows the dynamics of the key indicators of the tourism industry before and during the pandemic; assesses the impact of the crisis on the activities of travel agencies; compares the amount of funds received from the sale of tourist products in Russian regions before and during the pandemic; assesses the statistical significance of changes in funds received from the sale of tourist products per company before and during the pandemic in the federal districts of Russiа.Methods. This study presents and analyzes data of the Federal State Statistics Service on the major activity indicators of organizations in the Russian travel industry from 2017 to 2020. The data mart of the Federal State Statistics Service serves as a source of information about the activities of travel agencies in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. In the course of the study, the author uses the methods of grouping, variation, structural and dynamic data analysis. To obtain region-specific information, a corresponding analysis was performed in 2019–2020 in 85 constituent entities of the Russian Federation. A hypothesis about data distribution normality is tested using the Shapiro–Wilk test. A hypothesis about the significance of the differences in tourist activity indicators before and during the pandemic is tested using the non-parametric Wilcoxon test, since the nature of data distribution is different from normal.Results. It is found that the pandemic-related crisis has had a negative impact on all key indicators of the tourism industry. There have been significant job cuts, and the seasonality that is typical of the ‘healthy’ stage of the tourism industry’s development has been interrupted. The biggest decline in the number of employees is observed in the summer months of 2020. The impact of the crisis on average wages is manifested in a significant decline in April 2020 and fluctuations in the level of yearly average wages becoming more pronounced during the crisis. Quarantine measures contributed to the withdrawal of 227 companies from the Russian tourist services market, a 3.7-fold decrease in the number of tourist trips, and a 54.4% reduction in funds received from the sale of tourist products. The study presents the results of estimating the statistical significance of changes in the amount of funds received from the sale of tourist products per company before and during the pandemic in the federal districts of Russia.Conclusions. The impact of the pandemic is expressed in the breakdown of tourism development trends that preceded it, creating prerequisites for the restructuring of the industry and the emergence of new trends. A set of measures and joint actions of the state and tourism enterprises are needed to overcome the consequences of the pandemic in the tourism sector.