Business Structure of Marinas as Protection Against COVID-19

Abstract

The threat of COVID-19 has affected all economies of the world, including those of the European Union and Croatia, as well as the sector of nautical tourism. The threat has appeared suddenly, and the responses to it have been varied. The assistance provided by EU member state governments varied, and the Croatian government implemented two sets of measures that were not particularly developmental, but rather focused on preserving jobs and filling the budget. Consequently, the burden fell on entrepreneurs, including marinas, which, apart from the state-owned marina chain ACI, are classified as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Looking at the business performance results for 2020, marinas experienced negative results, similar to other entrepreneurs. However, due to their specific business structure, the negative results for certain marinas were significantly lower. In particular, marinas with five anchors, which have a wide and diversified product range, performed worse than marinas with two anchors. However, the use of management tools and elements of modest controlling in the management of the higher category marinas minimised the negative results for the "other" product group in the service portfolio. Since the results for 2020 and the forecasts for 2021 are known, the objective of this research is to evaluate the segments of the marinas' business structure that have been crucial in reducing the negative results. The research hypothesis states that the specific business structure of marinas has a significant impact on lower negative earnings than expected. The method of sampling and approximating the size of marinas and berths is applied based on statistical data through basic comparative analysis. This is only preliminary research based on limited dataset.