The impact of Covid-19 on the tourism activity in Portugal and Greece: a comparative study

• Autor(a) principal: Fernandes, Joel
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Outros Autores: Albuquerque, Eduardo B., Silva, Amândio F. C. da, Sousa, Gisela P. de, Anjo, Manuel M., Brito, Miguel A., Cardoso, Miguel P.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.22/23421
• topic: Covid-19; Greece; Portugal; Tourism; Hotel industry

The objective of this study was to analyze the impact of Covid-19 on the tourism sector of Portugal and Greece. Both countries have similar tourism demand and supply characteristics and the industry is very important for their economies. In the methodology, we reviewed the literature of the topic and analyzed several statistical data for the period of 2018 to 2021. The main results confirm that in both countries, tourism is the backbone of the economic activity, having a considerable weight on the gross domestic product. Regarding Covid-19´s impact on the tourism sector in 2020 and 2021, we noted that Portugal fared better than Greece in terms of revenue, even though the number of arrivals was lower in the former than in the latter. The number of hotel establishments increased in Greece and reduced in Portugal, during the same period. We conclude that in the tourism sector, Portugal fared better during the Covid-19 pandemic while Greece increased its investment even though there was a very high uncertainty in the market.