VOLUNTARY DISCLOSURE OF CROATIAN HOTEL COMPANIES BEFORE AND DURING THE COVID CRISIS

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to determine the difference in the quality of voluntary disclosure of listed hotel companies in Croatia for the observed 2013 and 2020. It has been proven that quality reporting reduces capital costs, promotes the company and in this way the company gains the trust of investors. There are two types of disclosure that apply to listed companies, mandatory - regulated by law and voluntary - depends on the decision of management. The notion of quality of voluntary disclosure in this paper refers to the amount of voluntarily published information regarding the business of a company that helps users of this information in making correct judgments regarding the current situation and future business results. For the purposes of operationalizing the research, an aggregate measure called the transparency index was used. In this paper each voluntarily published information has equal significance, so an unweighted index was used. In accordance with the above methodology, a questionnaire of 50 questions was prepared, which includes historical data, business information, managerial analysis, business plans, non-financial and statistical information, as well as information on the management, supervisory board and shareholders. The research for the purposes of this paper was conducted on a sample of 14 hotel companies whose shares were listed on the Zagreb Stock Exchange at the end of 2013 and at the end of 2020. The difference in the quality of voluntary disclosure between 2013 and 2020 was determined by the Wilcoxon test. The results obtained by testing indicate that in 2020 voluntary disclosure is significantly better.