How did the COVID 19 transform the competitiveness of wine businesses in Tokaj: is it any better?

Abstract

Despite the fact that Tokaj is part of one of the poorest NUTS 2 regions of Europe
it contains a wine region where wine businesses produce Tokaj wine. Wine business
in this case did not make the geographical region and her inhabitants well
off. It is only a small part of the local economy despite the fact that her presence
in the landscape is spectacular and easy to see from the roads. What this article
investigated was the structural break that the COVID 19 pandemic might have
caused in the wine business of the region. In most industries of the economy the
collapse of employment and performance was huge, however, in wine sector that
was not the case. Qe immediate decline in demand was swiXly compensated for
by various demand side self-correcting mechanisms. On top of that it took more
time for the supply side response to materialize. In this article we analysed the
supply side adjustment of the Tokaj grapes and wine business to the COVID19
pandemic. What we found was that a lot of companies actually managed to benefit
a lot from the COVID period by growing more rapidly than before. A new factor
combination could be observed that was associated with this success.