IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/prg/jnlcbr/v2020y2020i5id259p81-98.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

COVID-19 and Central European Tourism: The Competitiveness of Slovak Tourist Guides

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Grančay

Abstract

When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in the Central European region in March 2020, one of the hardest-hit economic sectors was the tourism industry which virtually came to a complete standstill. The present paper uses licensed tourist guides from Slovakia as a case study of how significant the financial impact of the crisis was and what effect it might have on the future competitiveness of the industry, as perceived by the tourist guides themselves. The research is based on a questionnaire which was distributed among licensed tourist guides in Slovakia in July 2020. It is shown that the guiding income of more than four-fifths of the respondents decreased by at least 80% between March and June 2020, and the profession's outlook for the future is pessimistic. The main concerns are a decline in the number of visitors, a decline in demand for guided tours and lower market prices for guiding services. The lower share of group travel, faster development of proximity tourism, partial de-professionalisation of the tourist guide profession and higher emphasis on tour hygiene are the expected impacts of the pandemic. A wave of consolidation is almost guaranteed to influence the tourism industry, though its extent is hard to predict. Implications for Central European audience: The article deals with tourism, which represents an important part of Central European countries' economies. Its results constitute the first preview of impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the sector in the region and as such are valuable for stakeholders in the Central European tourism industry. Even though the research is based on data obtained only from one tourism-related profession, tourist guides, given their unique position between travel agencies and travellers, their insights are applicable and interpretable much more broadly.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Grančay, 2020. "COVID-19 and Central European Tourism: The Competitiveness of Slovak Tourist Guides," Central European Business Review, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2020(5), pages 81-98.
    • Handle: RePEc:prg:jnlcbr:v:2020:y:2020:i:5:id:259:p:81-98
    DOI: 10.18267/j.cebr.259
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://cebr.vse.cz/doi/10.18267/j.cebr.259.html
    Download Restriction: free of charge
    File URL: http://cebr.vse.cz/doi/10.18267/j.cebr.259.pdf
    Download Restriction: free of charge
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.18267/j.cebr.259?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Micklewright & Sylke V. Schnepf & Chris Skinner, 2012. "Non-response biases in surveys of schoolchildren: the case of the English Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) samples," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 175(4), pages 915-938, October.
    2. Mak, Athena H.N. & Wong, Kevin K.F. & Chang, Richard C.Y., 2011. "Critical issues affecting the service quality and professionalism of the tour guides in Hong Kong and Macau," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1442-1452.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tsaur, Sheng-Hshiung & Teng, Hsiu-Yu, 2017. "Exploring tour guiding styles: The perspective of tour leader roles," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 438-448.
    2. Jakubowski, Maciej & Pokropek, Artur, 2015. "Reading achievement progress across countries," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 77-88.
    3. Laura Zieger & John Jerrim & Jake Anders & Nikki Shure, 2020. "Conditioning: How background variables can influence PISA scores," CEPEO Working Paper Series 20-09, UCL Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities, revised Apr 2020.
    4. Lisa Meehan & Gail Pacheco & Thomas Schober, 2023. "Basic Reading and Mathematics Skills and the Labour Market Outcomes of Young People: Evidence from PISA and Linked Administrative Data," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 99(327), pages 473-491, December.
    5. Tsaur, Ruey-Chyn & Chen, Chyoug-Hwa, 2018. "Strategies for cross-border travel supply chains: Gaming chinese group tours to Taiwan," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 154-169.
    6. Ozlem Koroglu & Ozlem Guzel, 2013. "Visitor Perceptions Of The Role Of Tour Guides In Natural Resource Management And Sustainable Tourism," Romanian Economic Business Review, Romanian-American University, vol. 8(4.1), pages 69-80, december.
    7. Liu, Yixue & Zhang, Rouran & Yao, Yanbo, 2021. "How tourist power in social media affects tourism market regulation after unethical incidents: Evidence from China," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    8. Liu, Jui Shiang & Tsaur, Sheng-Hshiung, 2014. "We are in the same boat: Tourist citizenship behaviors," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 88-100.
    9. Daniel K. Lew & Amber Himes-Cornell & Jean Lee, 2015. "Weighting and Imputation for Missing Data in a Cost and Earnings Fishery Survey," Marine Resource Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(2), pages 219-230.
    10. Leanard Otwori Juma & Anikó Khademi-Vidra, 2022. "Nature Interpretation as an Environmental Educational Approach in Visitor Management; The Application Dilemma for Different Target Groups at Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-21, March.
    11. Gabriele B. Durrant & Sylke V. Schnepf, 2018. "Which schools and pupils respond to educational achievement surveys?: a focus on the English Programme for International Student Assessment sample," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 181(4), pages 1057-1075, October.
    12. Houge Mackenzie, Susan & Kerr, John H., 2013. "Stress and emotions at work: An adventure tourism guide's experiences," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 3-14.
    13. John Jerrim & Anna Vignoles & Ross Finnie, 2012. "University access for disadvantaged children: A comparison across English speaking countries," DoQSS Working Papers 12-11, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
    14. Dan Hedlin, 2020. "Is there a 'safe area' where the nonresponse rate has only a modest effect on bias despite non‐ignorable nonresponse?," International Statistical Review, International Statistical Institute, vol. 88(3), pages 642-657, December.
    15. Stringfellow, Lindsay & MacLaren, Andrew & Maclean, Mairi & O’Gorman, Kevin, 2013. "Conceptualizing taste: Food, culture and celebrities," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 77-85.
    16. Micklewright, John & Schnepf, Sylke V. & Silva, Pedro N., 2012. "Peer effects and measurement error: The impact of sampling variation in school survey data (evidence from PISA)," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 1136-1142.
    17. Brick J. Michael, 2013. "Unit Nonresponse and Weighting Adjustments: A Critical Review," Journal of Official Statistics, Sciendo, vol. 29(3), pages 329-353, June.
    18. Tsaur, Sheng-Hshiung & Lin, Wei-Rong, 2014. "Hassles of tour leaders," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 28-38.
    19. Rutherford, Matthew W. & O’Boyle, Ernest H. & Miao, Chao & Goering, Daniel & Coombs, Joseph E., 2017. "Do response rates matter in entrepreneurship research?," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 8(C), pages 93-98.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    tourism; tourist guide; competitiveness; COVID-19;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L83 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism
    • Z31 - Other Special Topics - - Tourism Economics - - - Industry Studies

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:prg:jnlcbr:v:2020:y:2020:i:5:id:259:p:81-98. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Stanislav Vojir (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/uevsecz.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.