Assessment of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the tourism sector of ES countries

Abstract

Tourism is one of the leading and most dynamic types of economic activity and occupies an important place in the economy of all countries. Abundant natural, cultural, and historical resources and convenient geographical locations create favourable conditions for tourism development. The rapidly spreading virus Covid-19, which appeared in 2020 at the beginning, gradually turned into a global pandemic that stopped people's movement, devastatingly affecting the tourism sector, both in Europe and on other continents. Given that different countries apply different restrictions, the aim is to identify which EU indoor tourism sector has suffered the most, identify the reasons for this, and assess the consequences. The purpose of this article is to determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the tourism sector at the level of countries of the European Union after analyzing and summarizing the scientific literature. The research methods: are secondary data analysis and cluster analysis. Applying hierarchical cluster analysis according to Ward's joining method, a dendrogram was obtained, which divided the European Union countries into four clusters.