The Contagion Effect of COVID-19-induced Uncertainty on US Tourism Sector: Evidence from Time-varying Granger Causality Test

This study investigates the effect of COVID-19-induced uncertainty on the overall stock market and the stock performance of the tourism and hospitality industry and its subsectors utilizing a novel time-varying robust Granger causality test. The results show that the COVID-19 pandemic–induced uncertainty has an adverse impact on the overall economy, tourism and hospitality industry, and subsectors of tourism and hospitality. However, the impact of COVID-19 pandemic–induced uncertainty is more significant in the tourism and hospitality industry and its subsectors. In particular, hotels sector has experienced the largest impact from the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by restaurants and airline sectors, respectively. Research and practical implications are discussed.