Banking Risks and Lending to Tourism and Hotel Businesses amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore the risks associated with lending to tourism and hospitality businesses in the context of COVID-19 restrictions. The author proposes a scoring methodology to assess the quantitative and qualitative factors of borrowers’ credit standing based on industry-related risks and the quantification of potential loss given default. The analysis of credit standing draws on actual figures from financial statements of the ten biggest tour operators present in the Russian and Kazakh tourism markets, as well as a survey of experts specialising in bank lending. The findings confirm the proposed hypothesis of a negative impact of the pandemic on the financial condition and credit standing of tourism and hospitality businesses and an increase of banks’ credit risks. The trends of lending to tourism and hotel businesses have indicated a contraction of credit supply as a result of the low credit standing of borrowers. An industry analysis shows that losses from the materialisation of credit risks in the group of tourism businesses could be significant for banks. The author concludes that to maintain financial stability and the level of credit in the industry, the state should continue to support the sector, including the provision of soft loans to help finance some items of expenses.