The impact of COVID-19 on tourism firm value in an emerging market during various pandemic prevention periods

The tourism industry is one of the hardest hit by Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). A growing number of studies have examined the negative impact of COVID-19 on the tourism industry, but what remains less explored is the underlying mechanism of such a negative impact of the pandemic on tourism firm value. This study focuses on three COVID-19 prevention and control periods to test the impact of COVID-19 on stock returns and the mediating effect of investors’ attention over the COVID-19 prevention and control periods. The results show that the impact of COVID-19 on stock returns varies among the lockdown and travel ban, open-up, and travel ban lifting periods. Our findings suggest that investors’ attention to COVID-19 is a critical underlying mechanism between the pandemic and the value of tourism firms.