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This paper aims to provide swift feedback to readers and investors on the early effect of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak on tourism industry.

Three leading consolidators of hotel accommodations, airline tickets and travel services in the tourism industry around the globe, namely, Booking Holdings Inc., Expedia Group and Trip.com Group Ltd. are chosen in this study. First, numerical description is performed on their shares prices and a set of control variables to compare their performances before and during the lockdown because of COVID-19 outbreak. Next, this paper estimates ordinary least squares models with and without exponential generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic specification to establish the nature, significance and magnitude of the pandemic’s early effect on the shares performance of these online travel companies (OTCs).

This paper discovers a rapid decline in the performance of tourism industry amid the pandemic outbreak, from the perspective of three leading OTCs, which derive their profits from tourists by providing them online hotel reservation, air-ticketing and packaged-tour business services around the globe. These significant adverse direct and indirect effects testify that tourism-related businesses are extensively locked down by the pandemic outbreak.

Future studies are encouraged to examine each of the tourism sectors for individual effects.

This paper provides implications for investors to protect their wealth, and for policymakers to ensure sustainability of tourism industry in the pandemic outbreak and in the future.

From the perspective of corporate finance, this paper empirically quantifies the early effect of COVID-19 on tourism industry for a quick snapshot.