The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on travel cryptocurrency and stock market performances: an event-study approach

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the performance of travel cryptocurrency and stock markets over a long period during the pandemic.

Design/methodology/approach

A generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity model was developed for 6 travel cryptocurrencies and the top 10 hotel, 7 airline and 26 restaurant stocks listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange. An event-study approach was applied to the emergence of the novel coronavirus and its variant, Omicron. Additionally, abnormal returns of the respective assets in response to such events were estimated.

Findings

Results indicated that the travel cryptocurrency market did not respond to the early stage of the pandemic, but NASDAQ hotel, restaurant and airline stocks revealed abnormal negative returns when the pandemic manifested in the USA. Upon the official US declaration of a pandemic, both cryptocurrencies and tourism stocks showed abnormal negative returns, but these were considerably greater among stocks than cryptocurrencies. Conversely, in response to the Omicron variant, only hotel, restaurant and airline stocks showed abnormal negative returns.

Practical implications

These results imply that travel cryptocurrencies are a financial instrument independent of hotel, restaurant or airline stocks. Thus, adopting travel cryptocurrencies may help investors and businesses diversify risk during long-duration crises such as COVID-19.

Originality/value

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the first empirical study to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the recently emerging travel cryptocurrency market using an event-study approach to investigate how it differs from tourism stock performances.

研究目的

本文评估了 COVID 大流行在疫情期间很长一段时间对旅游加密货币和股票市场表现的影响。

研究设计/方法/途径

为 6 种旅行加密货币和纳斯达克证券交易所上市的前 10 大酒店、7 家航空公司和 26 家餐厅股票开发了 GARCH（广义自回归条件异方差）模型。 将事件研究方法应用于新型冠状病毒及其变种 Omicron 的出现。 此外, 还估计了相应资产因此类事件而产生的异常收益。

研究发现

结果表明, 旅游加密货币市场对疫情初期没有反应, 但纳斯达克酒店、餐厅和航空公司股票在美国出现疫情时出现异常负回报。 在美国正式宣布大流行后, 加密货币和旅游股均出现异常负回报, 但股票中的负回报要远高于加密货币。 相反, 作为对 Omicron 变体的回应, 只有酒店、餐厅和航空股出现异常的负回报。

实际意义

这些结果表明, 旅行加密货币是一种独立于酒店、餐厅或航空公司股票的金融工具。因此, 采用旅游加密货币可能有助于投资者和企业在 COVID-19 等长期危机期间分散风险。

原创性/价值

本文是第一份旨在调查 COVID-19 大流行对最近新兴的旅游加密货币市场的影响的实证研究, 并使用事件研究方法来调查它与旅游股票表现有何不同。

Citation

Kim, H. (2023), "The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on travel cryptocurrency and stock market performances: an event-study approach", Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology, Vol. 14 No. 2, pp. 172-187. https://doi.org/10.1108/JHTT-02-2022-0053