Do Tourists stand by the Tourism Industry? Examining Solidarity During and After a Pandemic

How does the suffering of a whole industry influence people's attitudes toward that industry? This research is the first, across disciplines, to examine this question. The authors provide the first conceptual study and empirical test for the phenomenon called tourism solidarity. Based on seminal social psychology research, tourism solidarity is conceptualized and defined as an individual's compassion with and support of an industry, resulting from an observation of suffering. The authors use a covariance-based structural equation model as well as a novel Bayesian estimation approach (i.e., non-parametric) to develop a reliable and easy-to-apply tourism solidarity scale and assess its role of solidarity in two consecutive empirical studies. By doing so, the authors are able to empirically demonstrate the importance of tourism solidarity for tourist behavior, and provide both tourism researchers and practitioners with a conceptual model and measurement tool to assess, quantify and actively manage solidarity toward the tourism industry. © The Author(s) 2023.

Impacts of COVID-19 on Chinese nationals' tourism preferences.

This paper examines the impacts of COVID-19 on Chinese nationals' tourism preferences. Employing a mixed-method research design, two rounds of nation-wide online surveys were conducted, one in February 2020 when COVID-19 cases started to peak in China and another one in June 2020 when COVID-19 was a global pandemic; both survey studies were accompanied with semi-structured in-depth interviews and altogether 37 interviews were conducted in two stages. Based on both quantitative survey data and qualitative interview data, the research identified that: 1) COVID-19 significantly reduced Chinese nationals' preferences to travel to countries with high infection numbers, and geographically faraway, administratively and culturally distant outbound destinations; 2) Chinese nationals reduced their preferences in all travel modes and most of the tourism forms, but most of them would prefer nature-based, rural, and cultural destinations after COVID-19; and 3) shortened trips in short travel distance are preferred after COVID-19. The findings offer rich insights and practical implications for governments, industry organisations, and tourism operators to formulate tourism recovery strategies toward Chinese tourists.