The Impact of COVID-19 on Tourism and Hospitality in Poland

Beyond severe illness and deaths, the COVID-19 pandemic brought widespread economic disruption, businesses closing, and unemployment surging to levels not experienced since the Great Depression. The effect of this pandemic on global tourism has been fast, extensive, widespread, and devastating. This paper identifies the significant characteristics of female entrepreneurial businesses. It examines the strategies taken between 2015 and 2022 to influence the firm's growth and reduce the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings are based on the interviews conducted with ten female entrepreneurs who own and operate small family-based entrepreneurial firms in Poland's tourism and hospitality industry. This paper aims to deliver recommendations for policy actions and entrepreneurship strategies to effectively grow and curtail or counterbalance the impact of exogenous shocks such as the economic shutdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.