Tourism is an important part of the European economy involving 3 million enterprises, employing 22.6 million people (11% of total EU employment) and accounting for 9.5% of EU GDP in 2019. It is also one of the sectors mostly heavily affected by COVID-19, both in the short-term and in the medium to long-term. The impacts are felt throughout complex tourism ecosystems and value chains across a wide range of sectors.
The study assesses how different tourist regions are affected by COVID-19 and potential future developments. It combines analysis of territorial diversity and the economic importance of tourism with the territorially diverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. There is also a time dimension, as the impacts differ territoriality between what we have seen so far and what we can expect to in the short- and medium-term.
To support recovery towards more resilient and green tourism all levels, from local to European, must cooperate. The crisis must be used to develop new solutions for sustainable tourism and embrace digitisation as a tool. All this needs to be done in multilevel governance processes involving a wide range of players from many different sectors and levels of governance.