Tourism Resilience and the EU Regional Economy

Regions around the world have faced many unexpected events, such as terrorist attacks, political crises, economic crises and pandemics, and these have affected their functions and structures, leading to destabilization. Each region responded differently to these shocks and crises: some regions overcame successfully, while others did not, some regions reacted directly and quickly, and others more slowly. Following the economic crisis of 2008-2009, the tourism industry has shown in some regions that it is more resilient to the economy of those regions. Given the current context caused by the new coronavirus COVID-19, the tourism industry has felt the effects as hotels and restaurants have been closed, international flights canceled, and depending on each region or country, various measures have been taken to ban travel, isolation and social distancing, and these measures can make major differences in the recovery of tourism. This paper presents a method of measuring the economic resilience of the European Union's tourism industry, assuming that regions based on domestic tourism will recover much faster than the rest of the regions. The questions that determined me to choose this research topic starting from the approach that in conditions of crisis the tourism industry is affected but it recovers would be: The tourism industry recovers faster than the regional economy following an economic crisis? Are the cycles of the regional economy and the tourism industry correlated?