Trends in Tourism and Economy in Hungary and in the European Union in the Shadow of Covid-19

Abstract

In 2020 at the beginning of March the Covid-19 epidemic caused a huge challenge in both the European Union and in the Hungarian economic and social processes. The aim of the analysis was to assess the impact of Covid-19 on the tourism sector in the European Union and in Hungary. We performed a complete data analysis of the CSO and data protection data from Eurostat databases, on the basis of tourism and hospitality. We assessed and compared the room occupancy, the number of guest nights at accommodation establishments, the number of foreign and home guests, the turnover of restaurants and accommodation establishments, the scale of people employed in tourism and their aggregated economic impact. Our results show that the number of room occupancy, overnight stays decreased in Hungary and in the European Union in 2020 compared to 2019. As the result of the above, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the turnover and sales of tourism sector decreased significantly, as well as the number of people employed in tourism, the economic impact of which was reflected in the general government deficit too. The deficit of the general government decreased significantly in Hungary and in the European Union.