PROFITABILITY OF HOTEL ENTERPRISES OF THE VISEGRAD GROUP (V4) COUNTRIES IN THE CONTEXT OF THE WAR IN UKRAINE

Purpose:The main aim of the article is determine the impact of selected economic and noneconomic factors on the profitability of hotel enterprises in the V4 Group countries.Design/methodology/approach: Hypothesis verification procedures based on the nonparametric Kruskal-Wallis test and panel data regression models were selected from among the available research methods.The study adopted the dependent variable defined by net return on assets and used data for 697 hotel enterprises.The research sample includes annual economic data for the years 2019-2023.Findings: The analysis has showed that the economic variables affecting profitability are GDP and the inflation rate.These variables behaved as expected, namely the research confirmed the positive impact of economic growth and the negative impact of high inflation in the economy.In turn, among non-economic factors, the significant variables turned out to be the variable regarding the occurrence of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic, which was also in line with expectations, while it is worth noting that the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation had a positive impact on hotel enterprises in the V4 Group countries. Research limitations:The results achieved in the work can be treated as an incentive for further action, in a much broader scope.However, the limitations of the study should be taken into consideration, such as the size of the sample resulting from the annual and complete financial statements only and the adopted research methodology.Practical and social implications: This research deepen the knowledge of hotel decisionmakers on how to identify key factors influencing hotel profitability or understand non-financial factors that can increase the resilience of companies to shocks such as a pandemic or a war in the region.Orginality: Many hotels in the V4 Group countries, after the outbreak of the war in February 2022, have been rented by governments, local governments and international organizations for the purpose of temporary accommodation of refugees.The adaptation hotels to the challenges of migration due to the war has shown the importance of flexibility and the ability of companies to quickly attract external resources to support new customer segments in crisis conditions.