Heterogeneous impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on financial performance among European hotels

The purpose of the paper is to investigate whether there would have been differences in the change of shareholders' funds caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe among medium-sized hotels. Annual data for 17 European countries have been obtained from the Bureau van Dijk Orbis database and clustered with epidemiological data from NUTS-3 regions among selected countries. Using heterogeneous difference-in-differences with cohorts, the average treatment effect on treated has been estimated with panel data. Specifically, differences between the levels of shareholders' funds and the impact of the moderation effect between return on equity and dividends during the pandemic considering the morbidity among pandemic patients in selected regions. The results have suggested that the impact of the pandemic varies between hotels with a high concentration of ownership structure having a major owner and those with a low concentration and dispersed ownership structure.