Assessing the Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic over the Azores Region’s Touristic Companies

Abstract

It is understood that some types of tourism, as is the case of rural tourism, have an even more relevant role in achieving regional sustainability. Considering the actual COVID-19 sanitary crisis and its horizontal impacts over all the society and economy spheres, along with the relevance of rural tourism over the regional development, the current paper explores the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic over the Azores Region’s Touristic Companies. Thus, through direct testing tools, such as questionnaires and site analysis, the present article enabled us to provide more insights into the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic over the Azores Region’s touristic companies. The sample comprises 506 business managers of establishments of the touristic sector of the Azores, an outermost region of Portugal. The study has a descriptive focus and uses some methods of descriptive statistics, including the multiple response analysis. Most respondents consider that COVID-19 has a strong negative impact on their companies and expect a drop in turnover in 2020/2021. Our results suggest that government support is essential to offset the effects of the pandemic on companies of the tourism sector and show that the seal “Clean & Safe Azores” is an asset for companies operating in this region. Therefore, the results of this study could be used as a practical application for the Regional Authorities for the measurement of the impacts caused by the recent health crisis on the economy of the Azores.