IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON STOCK MARKET PERFORMANCE OF TOURISM AND LEISURE INDUSTRY

The COVID-19 pandemic has inflicted significant damage to the world economy, and the tourism and leisure industry is no exception. This article investigates the effect of COVID-19 pandemic, vaccine rollouts, and government policy responses on Australia's tourism and leisure industry. To do so, we use data on stock market performances of the travel and leisure industry as key indicators. Our findings show that while vaccine rollouts help for a partial recovery of the travel and leisure industry, full and speedy recovery remains a challenge under stringent policies related to COVID-19 safety, suggesting the enormous magnitude of the task ahead in terms of policy responses.