This article aims at analyzing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the tourism activity of the European Union (EU) countries, as well as the link between the synthetic index of tourism competitiveness and the possibility of supporting tourism in times of crisis. In order to demonstrate this connection, but also the other correlations that present the overall situation of tourism from 2019 to 2022, the specialized literature that dealt with this common issue worldwide, and especially at the EU level, was reviewed; similarly, specialized statistical sources, as well as qualitative and quantitative research methods were also synthetized. From the analysis of the four hypotheses (of which only three were validated) the authors conclude that: the connection between GDP and the number of tourists is a direct one and of medium intensity, the developed countries managing to support their tourist activity even in less favorable conditions; the association between the index of competitiveness in tourism and the arrivals of tourists is a direct one, of medium intensity, which demonstrates that the index of competitiveness in tourism influences the flows of tourists, especially towards the developed countries; the third hypothesis correlates GDP per capita with the number of tourists, but the results did not highlight the existence of a link between these two variables, which led to the rejection of this hypothesis; the last researched and confirmed aspect is the degree of influence for the vaccination rate in the receiving countries and the number of international tourist arrivals, thus, the large number of vaccinated residents encouraging tourist arrivals.