Abstract:
The Crimea annexation and the military aggression of the Russian Federation, which
first began in some territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in 2014 and escalated
into a full-scale war on February 24, 2022, resulted in heavy losses of life and a
humanitarian crisis, exacerbating economic, political and social instability. To restore
Ukraine’s economy, all businesses, including hospitality (hotel and restaurant business)
sector, should continue functioning, though it is a challenging but crucial task. The
paper aims to analyze the state of the hospitality market in the current war conditions
in Ukraine and assess the possibilities of its restoration and development. An online
survey was conducted among 282 representatives of the hospitality business in Kyiv,
Sumy, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Poltava, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Ternopil,
and Zakarpattia regions. Based on the results, in 2022, almost 23% of hospitality industry
representatives suspended their activities, and 54% functioned only partially.
Many surveyed hotels and restaurants (36%) have gradually changed and adapted their
business strategies. For more than half of the hospitality representatives, expenses increased
by 20-50%, and profits dropped by more than 20%. The critical consequences
of the full-scale war for the Ukrainian hospitality market are as follows: disruption
of supply chains, reduction in consumers’ purchasing power, changes in consumer
demand, shortage of certain types of products, shortage of personnel, and business
unprofitability.
