The tourism performance of spa destinations during crises in Central and Eastern Europe: An adjusted RCA index

Tourism is affected by natural and man-made disasters, such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war. The impacts of these on tourism have been analysed at national and regional levels, and at the level of individual destinations. However, the impacts on spa towns near the Ukrainian border are much less researched. The paper focuses on seven Hungarian spa destinations, one spa destination in Romania, and one in Slovakia to analyse the changes in their revealed comparative advantages between 2017 and 2023, covering the years of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian-Ukrainian war outbreak. The index of revealed comparative advantage was modified to make it applicable at town level in tourism, comparing destinations of various sizes and types. Findings show that the large, internationally focused destinations lost their comparative advantage during the pandemic, while smaller spa towns, orientated towards domestic tourism, benefited from the border lockdowns. The war outbreak led to considerable losses of comparative advantage in the spa destinations, while their countries and capital cities could increase their comparative advantages. Despite the crises, the competitiveness of spa resorts was better than the European Union average, though their countries remained less competitive than the EU.