COVID-19 and profitability of hotel companies in the Republic of Serbia

ABSTRACT

Besides obvious negative consequences for people's health, the COVID-19 pandemic placed significant negative consequences on the economy as well. Since pandemic made tourism and travel almost impossible, these industries of tourism and hospitality suffered the most. The aim of this paper is to assess whether the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a change in the level of profitability of companies from hotel industry in the Republic of Serbia. The research sample consisted of 100 companies from hotel industry in the Republic of Serbia, where their operations in 2019 and 2020 were observed. The Operating Profit Margin, Net Profit Margin, Return on Assets and Return on Equity were used for the purposes of measuring profitability. The research determined that in the largest number of observed hotel companies in 2020, there was a decrease in profitability considering all four used indicators. By applying the Wilcoxon rank test and the t-test of paired samples, it was determined that the mentioned reductions in the used profitability indicators are statistically significant.