The economic impacts of Covid-19 on 4-star hotels in London and Stockholm in 2020

The global tourism and hospitality industry has benefitted from years of consecutive growth over recent times. However, the health crisis of Covid-19 in 2020 wiped trillions in USD off the industry’s economy taking it back to 1990 levels. Travel restrictions have been implemented across 100% of the world’s destinations at some point since the start of the pandemic, leaving many tourism organisations fighting for economic survival. The impacts to both the demand (travellers) and supply (hotels) to tourism destinations and organisations has resulted in loss of revenue and jobs globally, impacting individuals, families, tourism organisations and countries. With little or no tourism demand, the hospitality industry has been one of the biggest sectors impacted by Covid-19, with hotels bearing the brunt of the economic impacts. This paper looks to discuss if the economic impacts of crises in hotels can be limited by implementing certain strategies or crisis management techniques (CMTs). The paper contributes to the tourism and hospitality industry’s knowledge of crises and the impacts on 4-star hotels specifically, comparing two destinations in Europe, London and Stockholm, to identify if CMTs can be implemented to limit the economic impacts for future crises. This in turn will allow hotel senior managers (HSMs) to implement CMTs to reduce the economic impacts of crises in their hotels. Research is gathered from academic sources, media outlets and primary sources, offering a holistic analysis of Covid-19’s economic impacts in hotels, looking past just financial impacts but wider. A cross comparison of city hotels looks to assess differences in CMTs, gathering primary research and data from HSMs who are in the middle of the crisis and its impacts. Results determine that crises impact destinations differently and thus CMTs will alter depending upon the crisis impacts to a specific hotel or destination. However, there are many strategies that can be implemented to reduce the economic impacts, with the empirical results alluding to many successful CMTs, although these must be relevant and specific to the crisis, hotel and destination