COVID 19 RAMIFICATIONS ON TOURISTIC RESULTS IN 2020

Abstract

The number of COVID 19 infections worldwide by the end of September 2020 rose to more than 34 million cases. At the same time number of fatalities caused by the same virus exceeds one million. In the year 2020 about ten per cent drop of economic growth was experienced compared to the previous year due to COVID 19 crisis and with probably the biggest impact on tourism industry. The results of global tourist international arrivals in April, May and June 2020 with drop of 95-98 per cent are self-explanatory. Thus, stabile and continuing growth from the beginning of 21st century has been suddenly brutally interrupted returning the tourism industry on level of at least 30-40 years back, maybe even more. The consequences of COVID 19 on touristic results have been analysed in the paper. The analysis is based on four different geographical areas – global, European, Southeast European and Croatian, based on the last 20 years of tourism results. Since similar dramatic situation has also affected air transport industry, the correlation between the tourism and air carriers’ results in the last two decades is also considered in this paper. Different scenarios of the future recovery of tourism industry are considered in the paper.