Start-ups’ resilience to the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The case of tourism industry

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24917/20801653.362.12

Keywords:

start-up, COVID-19, crisis resilience, tourism

Abstract

Tourism industry has been one of the most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Some actors have been forced out of business, but for some the pandemic has proven to be an opportunity for growth and development. The article has two main aims. The first is to synthesize the conclusions of research regarding the operation of start-ups and their resilience to crises. The second is to identify research directions on the effects of the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on start-ups operating in tourism industry. The article presents the results of previous work on tourism start-ups and the findings of a secondary data review, which are organised into two themes: start-ups as a response to a pandemic and the effects of a pandemic on existing start-ups, coping strategies, and conditions for start-up resilience to crisis phenomena. The studied cases indicate that the pandemic period for tourism start-ups has the character of “creative destruction”, in which access to critical resources (financial, relational, and organisational) will not only enable their survival but will bring about an improvement in their situation. The analysis allowed for the development of key research questions by further studies on tourism start-ups.

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Author Biography

Marcin Olszewski, Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny w Poznaniu

Marcin Olszewski, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of International Economics at the Poznań University of Economics and Business, Poland. He finished his PhD in 2011 with a doctoral thesis on knowledge management in hospitality industry. Areas of his research include university­‑industry collaboration, knowledge management, tourism industry competitiveness, economics of tourism enterprise. He participated in several research projects on tourism and hospitality industry (including those financed by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and the National Science Center).

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Published

2022-06-29

How to Cite

Olszewski, M. (2022). Start-ups’ resilience to the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The case of tourism industry. Studies of the Industrial Geography Commission of the Polish Geographical Society, 36(2), 190–202. https://doi.org/10.24917/20801653.362.12