Abstract: Although the definitive effect is not measurable yet, it is evident that the hospitality and tourism sectors have endured the greatest pressure in the coronavirus pandemic crisis. This paper presents the analysis of the impact of the crisis on the thematic tourism routes. The emphasis is placed on investigating the impacts on market structure and seasonality, being the external dimensions, and on employment and cost-controlled measures as instruments of the internal management dimension. The case study analysis employed is based on the empirical examples of Pan-European thematic routes titled “Roman Emperors & Danube Wine Route” (RER & DWR) and “Via Dinarica Route” (VDR). The paper also discusses models of various scenarios for business recovery and further development. The findings show that COVID-19 has had a minimal impact of -2% on employment in the thematic routes and that massive cost control measures have been predominantly aimed at fixed operational costs. Thematic routes have experienced a decrease in operating time of up to 50%, and at the same time are undergoing market restructuring, with domestic and regional guests being the leading segments. Research further shows that the most needed form of government support through crisis mitigation measures is destination promotion support, followed by wage support and utility cost reduction Sažetak: Uprkos tome što konačni efekti još uvek nisu merljivi, evidentno je da su ugostiteljski i turistički sektor pretrpeli najveći pritisak tokom krize koju izaziva pandemija korona virusa. Rad predstavlja analizu uticaja kovida 19 na tematske turističke rute. Naglasak je stavljen na istraživanje uticaja pandemije na tržišnu strukturu i sezonalnost, kao eksterne dimenzije, kao i na zapošljavanje i mere kontrole troškova, instrumente unutrašnje dimenzije upravljanja. Analiza studije slučaja zasnovana je na empirijskim primerima panevropskih tematskih ruta pod nazivom „Rimski carevi i Dunavski put vina“ (RER & DWR) i „Via Dinarica Route“ (VDR). Rad takođe nudi modele različitih scenarija za oporavak biznisa i dalji razvoj. Nalazi pokazuju da je kovid 19 imao minimalan uticaj od -2% na zapošljavanje na tematskim putevima, a da su značajne kontrolne mere troškova dominantno usmerene ka fiksnim operativnim troškovima. Tematske rute su zabeležile smanjenje operativnog vremena poslovanja do 50%, a istovremeno su doživele restrukturiranje tržišta, pri čemu su domaći i regionalni gosti postali vodeći segmenti. Analiza pokazuje i da je najpotrebniji vid podrške koju vlada pruža kroz mere ublažavanja krize podrška unapređenju destinacija, kao i podrška platama i smanjenje troškova komunalnih usluga. Project: The authors acknowledge the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia, and support from the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) under the Project "WB6 tourism and travel industry assessment: COVID-19 diagnostics and future prospects" info:eu-repo/semantics/article https://phaidrabg.bg.ac.rs/o:28322 doi:10.5937/EKOPRE2106357K Kovačević, Igor Bradić Martinović, Aleksandra Petković, Goran eng Ekonomika preduzeća 69(5-6) 2022 Keywords: COVID-19, thematic routes, cultural routes, tourism, performances Ključne reči: kovid 19, tematske rute, kulturne rute, turizam, performanse All rights reserved application/pdf 473813 bytes COVID-19 impact on cultural and natural Pan-European thematic routes