Strategic financial resilience in crisis: How COVID-19 affected the 20 largest hotel companies in Greece

The paper examines the financial performance of the Greek hotel sector from 2018 to 2021, emphasizing the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of the study is to assess the crisis’s effect on hotel enterprises and their recovery by 2021, a topic also investigated by other research (Pavlatos et al., 2020; Dimitrić et al., 2019). We analyze performance trends and identify the traits of organizations that effectively anticipated and responded to the crisis by utilizing key financial ratios — liquidity, profitability, and leverage. Our sample comprises the 20 largest hotel chains in Greece, determined using 2021 revenue statistics. We examine the hospitality sector’s contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) growth from 2019 to 2021 to underscore the industry’s significance to the Greek economy. The results demonstrate a substantial decrease in financial performance during the pandemic, followed by a marked recovery by 2021 for the majority of enterprises. The research indicates that the hospitality sector is acutely susceptible to external shocks, highlighting the Greek economy’s sensitivity to disturbances in tourism-related industries.