Moderation impact of sustainability disclosures in linking external uncertainties and default risk of tourism businesses

ABSTRACT

Despite growing attention towards corporate sustainability among tourism businesses, the association between sustainability initiatives and default risk, which is one of the fundamental elements in determining company value, has received minimal consideration in tourism research. The study emphasizes how crucial sustainability initiatives are for reducing the tourism businesses’ default risk. The study also emphasizes the crucial role played by external uncertainties in raising the default risk of tourism businesses. The study further demonstrates the relevance of sustainability initiatives in mitigating the repercussions of uncertainties on default risk of tourism businesses. The study considers two uncertain periods (COVID-19 outbreak and global financial crisis) to illustrate the relevance of sustainability initiatives in mitigating the consequences of heightened uncertainties on the default risk. The results are essential for economic stakeholders to consider sustainability disclosures before investing in tourism businesses.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainability disclosures
• default risk
• economic policy uncertainty; political uncertainty
• climate change induced uncertainty
• tourism businesses

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 https://www.atlasbig.com/en-us/countries-tourism-income

2 https://www.atlasbig.com/en-us/countries-tourism-income