As Europe heads into its second summer with the pandemic, we bring some thoughts on the recovery drivers that will shape the sector. In the long run, economic fundamentals drive recovery. Factors we considered are the appeal of domestic tourism, past dependency on air travel, strength of health services, and share of business and leisure travel.

Substitution of land-based and alternate accommodation means the tourism sector in general can recover faster than aviation or larger hotels. Domestic travel—less hampered by air travel, restrictions, and insurance requirements—recovered faster in most geographies, a trend we expect to continue. Business travel will take longer to recover, and countries with high dependence on this traffic will need to look at other sources of demand generation—or focus on the right corporate-travel personas as companies restart travelling.

In the short term though, the situation is highly fluid. These materials are preliminary and non-exhaustive and are being made available on a non-exclusive basis solely for information purposes in response to the urgent need for measures to address the COVID-19 crisis. They reflect general insight and may present potential options for consideration based on currently available information, which is inherently uncertain and subject to change, but do not contain all of the information needed to determine a future course of action.

Below you can access our deep dives into six key markets to learn more about the peculiarities of these countries’ current situation and recovery.