La estructura financiera de los hoteles italianos, antes y durante la pandemia

Hotel companies, especially in Italy, play an important role in the economy of a tourist country. Tourism, in fact, presupposes an excellent hospitality system. This paper analyses the evolution of some financial structure indices of a sample of large Italian hotels, relating to the period before the pandemic and the year of Covid 19. For this purpose, financial statements extracted from the AIDA database were used. The financial dynamics of these companies were analyzed using two indices: the debt ratio and the current ratio. The study was carried out for the whole country and its three macro-regions (North, Center, South and Islands). The analysis showed an over-indebtedness of companies, which however tends to improve over the decade and especially in the year of Covid 19. The short-term financial structure is also gradually improving, with an increasing predominance of current assets over short-term liabilities. The predominant limitation of this study is its quantitative character only, limited to a sample of hotels with a turnover of more than 800,000 euros per year. The results are useful for Italian and foreign entrepreneurs who can relate their situation to the average situation of the sector. In the future, the survey should also consider other asset and revenue ratios, as well as investigate investments in sustainability, considering the role of hotels in the development of fair, ethical and sustainable tourism.