Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on International Tourism Income in Tourism Receiving Countries

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on international tourism income in tourism reception countries, in which the greatest tourist traffic in the world is observed. The analysis was performed on the basis of data obtained from the UNWTO, which was used to create a single-feature classification of subregions (using Hellwig’s method) and to create a single-feature classification (using a method based on positional measures) of the most important reception countries, i.e., generating the highest tourist traffic. Based on the research, it was found that the critical range of Hellwig occurred between Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia, North America, the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa, and between the Caribbean and South Asia. The largest percentage drops in revenues from international tourism in 2020 in comparison to 2019 occurred in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Greece and Spain. These countries recorded values above the upper quartile, which was −76.23%.