Resilience of the hospitality industry during crises: A comparison between the 2008 financial crisis and COVID-19

Crises play a significant role in the business world by causing unexpected and negative impacts, and the hospitality industry is known to be volatile and highly sensitive to external forces, such as crises. Due to the on-going global crisis of the COVID-19, impacts of the pandemic on businesses in both general and hospitality contexts have been extensively examined. Especially, how firm-specific characteristics help a firm survive a crisis with better resilience has been closely explored based on the resource-based view, but this investigation has not been fully extended to a comparison between major crises. Therefore, this study is conducted to compare two major crises, the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, on how seven firmspecific financial characteristics (firm size, leverage, dividend payout, retained earnings, capital intensity, cash holdings, and previous return on assets) and two business strategies (franchising and internationalization) provide better resilience for the hospitality industry. •The study compares the two crises, the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.•This study examines seven firm-specific characteristics and two firm strategies.•Hospitality firms performed better during the COVID-19 pandemic market-wise.•Hospitality firms performed better during the 2008 financial crisis operating-wise.