IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/globus/v27y2026i3p665-682.html

Business Survival in Times of COVID-19: Empirical Evidence from Tourism Enterprises in Thailand

Author

Listed:
  • Pungpond Rukumnuaykit
  • Piriya Pholphirul
  • Akkaranai Kwanyou

Abstract

The impact of COVID-19 has been extensively explored, but little research has been conducted on its impact on business sector adaption. This study analyses business adaptation and business survival in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic by focusing on tourism enterprises in Thailand as a case study. Based on a survey of 316 tourism enterprises taken during the pandemic, the survey found that the pandemic resulted in the decline in revenues of most enterprises, and more than half of businesses tried to survive by reducing wages, reducing the number of branches and cutting back on store-opening hours. Using the Cox Proportional Hazard Model to predict length of business survival from the pandemic, it was found that most enterprises were unable to survive for more than 6 months (after the survey). Survival was found to be shorter in areas and business sectors that relied mainly on foreign tourists. Therefore, as for business implications, the traditional business model should be adapted to meet the needs of tourists in their new post-COVID lifestyles. In addition, tourism businesses need to focus on human resource management. Moreover, each type of tourism business needs to adapt its service model in different ways in order to meet the challenges of catering to a new normal.

Suggested Citation

  • Pungpond Rukumnuaykit & Piriya Pholphirul & Akkaranai Kwanyou, 2026. "Business Survival in Times of COVID-19: Empirical Evidence from Tourism Enterprises in Thailand," Global Business Review, International Management Institute, vol. 27(3), pages 665-682, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:globus:v:27:y:2026:i:3:p:665-682
    DOI: 10.1177/09721509221116002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09721509221116002
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/09721509221116002?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
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:sae:globus:v:27:y:2026:i:3:p:665-682. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.imi.edu/ .

    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.