The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on foreign tourism in European countries

Abstract

The subject of this study is the COVID-19 pandemic that has shaken the world’s tourism industry since March 2020. The aim is to propose the use of the Perkal index to assess the impact of the pandemic on tourism in European countries. Five variables from the UNWTO and Eurostat were used in the research and they concerned thirty European countries. These variables are: data on the percentage change in nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments, percentage change in international tourist arrivals, percentage change in international tourism receipts, percentage change in persons employed in tourism, and percentage change in net occupancy rate of bed-places and bedrooms in hotels and similar accommodation. On the basis of the Perkal index value, it is evident that the crisis of 2020 affected the countries located in the Mediterranean (including Italy and Greece) to a largest extent. On the other hand, the pandemic least influenced the Scandinavian countries, the Baltic countries and those located in the central part of the European continent. The proposed index allows to evaluate changes in a time series system and enables comparative analysis between territorial units. In both international and domestic comparisons, the impact of COVID-19 on tourism assessment index may be a useful analysis tool and is likely to be widely used in the future.