Profitability structure of tourist companies during and after crises

The aim of this paper is to analyse the financial performance of tourism companies, tour operators and travel agencies on one hand and hotels on the other hand during and after the period of the financial crisis (2008). W e have used secondary data from AIDA database about the Italian tourism companies. The profitability has been analysed using the main profitability ratios, ROA and ROE. A trend analysis have been employed for the period 2008-2017. The crisis hasn’t had strong impacts on these companies. In fact, there has been only a small decrease in profitability ratios in 2009. The type of business is the main factor that affects these types of businesses, instead the geographical localization doesn’t show relevant effects. The paper is one of the first to use an historical prospective to analyse the effects of a major crisis such as the financial crisis of 2008 in a country like Italy where tourism is a very significant part of the GDP. Furthermore, this analysis has been carried out using profitability ratios and in particular ROE that expresses the overall profitability of a company.