Podcast BSB-817: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on accommodation structures in the Republic of Moldova

This podcast describes the situation in which the accommodation structures in the Republic of Moldova have reached due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Veaceslav Ioniță, the business development expert of the BSB-817 project, says in this podcast that due to the pandemic, hotels in the Republic of Moldova have gone through the biggest drama in the history of their existence. For almost two years, foreigners have not visited the Republic of Moldova. The hotel industry had three to four times less activity than before the pandemic. Moldovan pensions, even if they were still poorly developed, even the number of tourists was much lower than their activity capacity, in the pandemic they survived thanks to the rest at home of the Moldovans.

The expert also spoke about the fact that on the eve of the pandemic, in all types of accommodation that the Republic of Moldova had, 375 thousand people rested. In the first quarter of 2021, their number decreased to 74 thousand, in annual value. If in 2005 there were 67 thousand foreigners who rested in the Republic of Moldova, in 2019, around the pandemic, their number was over 174 thousand people. Due to the pandemic, the lowest level was reached in the first quarter of this year, when there were less than 18 thousand. In the second quarter, it reached 29 thousand.