Horwath HTL Croatia conducted a sentiment survey to monitor and assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Croatian hotel industry.
As time is passing and the number of COVID-19 cases is increasing, expectations are becoming even more pessimistic, encouraged by constant travel regulation changes and negative media coverage on key source markets.
Key findings:
- Soon after COVID-19 appeared in Croatia, hoteliers promptly introduced strict cost control, primarily through reducing the cost of employees, closing the hotels and/or postponing the capital investments.
- The government also acted promptly and supported the industry by offering number of incentives with the main goal of ensuring liquidity and saving jobs. Therefore, use of the government support was a key risk mitigation measure during the past few months.
- As a result of pandemic, hoteliers expect significant drop in overall performance. In 2020 hotel revenues are expected to decrease by almost 60% on average, mainly due to the very low occupancy (average decrease of -55.7%).
- As a highly affected industry, hoteliers consider government should further support business through tax rebates (77% of respondents), wage support (74%), loan moratoriums (66%) and lower interest rates (53%).
- Full business recovery is expected in a mid-term period.
About Horwath HTL
Horwath HTL is the world”s largest hospitality consulting brand with 45 offices across the world providing expert local knowledge. Since 1915 we have been providing impartial, specialist advice to our clients and are recognized as the founders of the Uniform System of Accounts which subsequently has become the industry standard for hospitality accounting. We focus one hundred percent on hotels, tourism and leisure consulting and have successfully completed over 16,000 projects. If you have any questions, please contact James Chappell, Global Business Director at [email protected].
