THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON TOURISM SUSTAINABILITY: EVIDENCE FROM PORTUGAL

Portugal is a country in which the tourism sector assumes great importance, contributing around 15% of the national GDP and with more than 1 million jobs. In this sense, COVID-19 is expected to have a dramatic impact on the Portuguese economy aggravated by the existence of a reduced internal market with low purchasing power and in which there is a high dependence on the external market. This perspective study explores the challenges and opportunities that Portuguese companies in the field of tourism are facing due to the emergence of this pandemic. The challenges faced by companies are both short-term and long-term. In the short term, it is essential to ensure sufficient liquidity to reopen activities and in the long term, it is necessary to be prepared and reactive to disruptive movements that may arise in tourist demand. However, it is also important to recognize that some opportunities can be exploited, such as the quality of the health response, the exploitation of a less mass tourism supply based on the components of social and environmental sustainability, the increase of tourism among the elderly population from countries with greater purchasing power and the acceleration of the digitalization of tourism operations.