Is it better to support tourism after pandemic regionally or globally? Case of European Union from the socio-economic perspective

The study is devoted to examining the tourism efficiency of European Union countries in the years after the financial crisis and before the pandemic crisis to understand the processes that can be instrumental in post-pandemic crisis measures. The DEA CCR and BCC models and truncated regression analysis were implemented to reach the study’s goal. Double bootstrapped efficiency values were detailed to cluster analysis. Our findings confirmed that measures following the Coronavirus pandemic must be directed regionally with regards to socio-economic convergence. Some tourism-oriented countries, which were more affected by the previous crisis, tend to be less efficient. And more vulnerable. Also, the convergence of countries, which joined the European Union in the last decades, is insufficient, so the efficiencies tend to be lower. We have also shown that various socio-economic factories impact efficiency, and their improvement can also mean improving the state of tourist efficiency in European Union countries.