The Impact of Covid-19 on Italian Accommodation: A Supply-Perspective

11 Pages Posted: 11 Feb 2021

See all articles by Giacomo Del Chiappa

Giacomo Del Chiappa

Università degli Studi di Sassari - Department of Economics and Business

Ilenia Bregoli

University of Lincoln (UK)

Anestis K. Fotiadis

Zayed University

Date Written: February 15, 2021

Abstract

Purpose: The current COVID-19 pandemic has created an extremely dynamic and uncertain environment in which businesses find it very difficult to operate, particularly those in the hospitality industry. It is therefore very important to understand which actions hospitality businesses think the private and public sectors should adopt in order to cope with the pandemic and its impact. To facilitate this, this research adopted chaos theory to investigate Italian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the hospitality sector.

Methods: A mixed method approach, based on a convergent parallel design data validation variant, was adopted. A survey with open and closed questions was developed and sent to a sample of businesses. 1,040 completed questionnaires were collected and analysed through descriptive statistics; in addition to these usable surveys, 361 open-ended answers were analysed thematically.

Results: The results showed that Italian entrepreneurs and managers were over-relying on interventions from the public sector and that there was a lack of business actions being made, thus evidencing a deficit in terms of long-term strategic thinking and the innovation required during such turbulent times.

Implications: Although these results cannot be generalised to the whole of the hospitality industry, they shed light on important elements that industry associations should take into account.

Keywords: chaos theory, COVID-19, accommodation, mixed method, convergent parallel design, Italy

JEL Classification: H12, I15, L83

Suggested Citation

Del Chiappa, Giacomo and Bregoli, Ilenia and Fotiadis, Anestis K., The Impact of Covid-19 on Italian Accommodation: A Supply-Perspective (February 15, 2021). Journal of Tourism, Heritage & Services Marketing (JTHSM), Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 13-22, 2021, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4516187, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3783391

Giacomo Del Chiappa (Contact Author)

Università degli Studi di Sassari - Department of Economics and Business ( email )

Piazza D'Armi, 17
Sassari, 07100
Italy

Ilenia Bregoli

University of Lincoln (UK)

Lincoln LN2
United Kingdom

Anestis K. Fotiadis

Zayed University

P.O. Box 4783
Abu Dhabi
United Arab Emirates

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