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The main goal of this paper is to shed light on risk perception, travel motivation, and destination image as significant factors in travel intention to international destinations. Understanding the influence of these factors is a strong trend in tourism research. However, limited studies have developed a model to understand global tourist travel intentions post-COVID-19. Because of the pandemic constraints, the world economy and the tourism sector have faced severe negative consequences. These consequences led to a drop in the number of international tourists, representing the primary source of tourism income contributing to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for many developing countries. Governments and stakeholders are striving to ensure the recovery of tourism services and products to attract tourists to safe destinations. Based on the review and analysis of selected studies, this study highlights the significance of critical factors influencing tourists' intention to travel post-pandemic. Additionally, this contribution offers a framework for future studies on crisis-related travel behavior.
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This study's objective was to investigate how desire to travel, and perceived behavioral control, affected domestic travel intentions for travel to Bangkok at the time of the COVID-19 epidemic. The study suggests that attitudes and preferences can be considered as moderators for both the association between perceived behavioral control and intentions to travel domestically, as well as the association between perceived behavioral control and desire to travel. It also suggests that attitudes and preferences can moderate the strength of the mediated relationship. The sample used in this study was collected from June 2022, after Thailand began to relax the most recent COVID-19 health regulations. A total of 400 responses were collected and utilized in the study. For testing H1 on the effects of mediation, the data were analyzed using moderated multiple regression via Hayes' Process Macro v4.2 with SPSS, while H2 and H3 were examined using moderated hierarchical regression analysis. H4 was then examined using the moderated mediation model. The results suggest that the magnitude of the mediated association between perceived behavioral control and domestic travel intentions for Thai domestic tourism was moderated by tourists' attitudes and preferences. The conditional indirect effect of perceived behavioral control and the desire to travel on the intention to travel domestically was strong when attitudes and preferences were valued highly.
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This study aimed to elicit the critical factors influencing Indian domestic vacationers' travel intention for leisure vacation destination choice amidst COVID-19. The study proposed a new model based on the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), expanding it by adding contextual variables like perceived risk, perceived knowledge of COVID-19, and information search behaviour. The study used a quantitative approach using online social media platforms and emails of 312 respondents to analyze and test the hypotheses using IBM SPSS and AMOS tools. The results indicated that physical and functional risk negatively influenced attitude;whereas, psychological risk negatively influenced travel intention. Perceived knowledge of COVID-19 significantly influenced travel intention. Attitude strongly mediated subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and perceived knowledge of COVID-19 to travel intention. This explains the strong implications for travel destination marketers for marketing safer destination choices to vacationers. © 2022, Associated Management Consultants Pvt. Ltd.. All rights reserved.
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This study aimed to assess the use of virtual reality (VR) as a tool for destination marketing of sustainable tourism during the COVID-19 pandemic. A questionnaire was administered to a sample of 249 students, who were shown a video about low-impact tourism in Vietnam using one of the two media types, namely VR and on-screen 2D. A structural model was proposed based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) and was estimated using the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) approach. The results provide evidence for VR to have a positive effect on travel intention through both higher perceived enjoyment and higher environmental involvement. However, these effects were observed to be not as significant when considering travel intention during the pandemic. While stronger telepresence achieved by VR may encourage users to engage in more sustainable behaviour and improve enjoyment from the experience, the avoidance to travel stemming from health and safety concerns amidst the pandemic greatly offset the effectiveness of VR as a marketing tool. The results highlight the importance of considering individual-level preferences in tourism. © 2023, Vilnius University. All rights reserved.
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The threat of the COVID-19 pandemic poses risks and stress to travelers over the long term, impeding tourism demand recovery. This study aims to explore the behavioral consequences of potential tourists' personal perceptions of travel risks in pandemic threats. This study integrates risk communication and stress coping theory to address the research objectives and identifies interventions for psychological resilience. A sample of 1,179 potential adult travelers residing in Korea was surveyed online through quota sampling by age, gender, and region of residence, utilizing structural equation modeling to validate the proposed research model. The results showed that the two types of risk perception (personal- and societal-level) had different effects on problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies. It was also found that coping strategies, through psychological resilience, can change travel intentions during and after a pandemic. In particular, in terms of short-term stress relief, individuals using emotion-focused coping strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic have been shown to express a willingness to respond to negative emotions more quickly. Insightful implications for the recovery of tourism demand in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and strategies for managing crises in the tourism industry are provided. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)
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PurposeThis study aims to investigate the impact of travel advisory perception and cultural distance on travel intention based on the push and pull theory, the stimulus–organism–response model and protection motivation theory.Design/methodology/approachThe paper conducts an empirical test with a questionnaire survey. The authors asked respondents to answer questions on a five-point Likert-type scale, which included threat severity, threat susceptibility, advisory perception, perceived cultural distance, travel motivation and travel intention.FindingsIn this paper, through a questionnaire of 424 respondents, the authors found that threat severity has a positive impact on advisory perception and perceived cultural distance, and that advisory perception indirectly affect travel intention through travel motivation.Originality/valuePrevious literature has discussed the influencing factors of travel intention but rarely does it consider the intrinsic relationship and interaction between advisory perception and cultural distance. The results of this study help fill some gaps in the research on advisory perception and perceived cultural distance, guide governments on how to better formulate travel advisories and provide a new perspective for tourism industry practitioners to improve their travel products after the COVID-19 pandemic especially.
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Vaccination can play a decisive role in reducing travel risk and rebuilding travel confidence. Previous studies pointed out that travel desires moderate or influence vaccination intention, while this paper extends their studies to investigate the relationships between vaccine trust (VT), travel confidence after vaccination (TC), travel intention (TI) and travel behaviour (TB). The VT, TC, and TI clusters were insignificant towards travel behaviour, indicating that travel confidence triggers travel intention but did not reflect on behaviour. The binomial logit model disclosed that only travel confidence was statistically significant toward travel intention, whereby tourists who were more desirous of travelling would be 5.3 times greater in the high-TC cluster. This paper suggests that vaccination should not serve as the only solution for the early stage of tourism reboot, as vaccination can boost travel confidence but not the tourists' behaviour.
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Since the outbreak of COVID-19, tourists have been increasingly concerned over various risks of international travel, while knowledge of the pandemic appears to vary significantly. In addition, as travel restrictions continue to impact adversely on international tourism, tourism efforts should be placed more on the domestic markets. Via structural equation modeling, this study unearthed different risk factors impacting Korean travelers' choices of alternative local destinations in the post-pandemic era. In addition, this study extended the goal-directed behavior framework with the acquisition of perceived risk and knowledge of COVID-19, which was proven to hold a significantly superior explanatory power of tourists' decisions of local alternatives over foreign countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, desire was found to play an imminent mediating role in the conceptual mod-el, maximizing the impact of perceived risk on travel intentions. Henceforth, this research offers meaningful theoretical implication as the first empirical study to deepen the goal-directed behaviour framework with perceived risk and knowledge in the context of post-COVID-19 era. It also serves as insightful knowledge for Korean tourism authorities and practitioners to understand local tourists' decision-making processes and tailor effective recovery strategy for domestic tourism.”. © 2023, Tech Science Press. All rights reserved.
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The extant studies have attested to the effects of media experiences in shaping destination image and influencing the behavioral intentions of potential tourists. However, limited works have focused on the impact of holistic experiences during the interaction with destination-related short-form videos on potential tourists' negative emotional responses and post-COVID travel intention. This study aims to elucidate how cognitive absorption affects tourists' travel anxiety and post-pandemic travel intention in different travel settings (domestic versus international). The comparative results show that users' cognitive absorption when interacting with destination-related short-form videos can effectively influence the behavioral intentions of potential tourists. The result also identified that travel anxiety significantly contributes to higher post-COVID travel intention. This study expands cognitive absorption research in the contexts of tourism and short-form videos, offers an angle for future studies to positively interpret tourists' travel anxiety, and provides tourism practitioners with suggestions on the tourism industry's recovery in the post-COVID era. © 2023, The Author(s).
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PurposeThis study aims to investigate the effect of tourists' anxiety levels regarding pandemic on their intention to travel and intention to destination visit as a reflection of risk perception.Design/methodology/approachThis study employed a quantitative research design. Multivariate statistical methods were used because they predict cause and effect relationships. The data collection process was completed in 32 days between March 20 and April 20, 2020. Smart-PLS software was used for data analysis.FindingsAccording to the study results, the level of concern tourists have about the COVID-19 outbreak directly affected their intention to travel and indirectly affected their intention to visit destinations.Research limitations/implicationsAccording to the results of the study, people's anxiety levels about COVID-19 will negatively affect their travel behavior after the pandemic. Such results suggest that when potential travelers' pandemic-induced anxiety levels increase, their travel intention after the pandemic will decrease. In addition, there is a positive relationship between people's intention to travel and post-COVID-19 touristic visit intentions. Therefore, as people's travel intentions increase, so do their destination visit intentions. Another important theoretical implication of this research is that people's pandemic-induced anxiety levels have been shown to negatively affect their destination visit intention through the mediating variable of travel intention.Practical implicationsA multidimensional and stakeholder engagement process needs to be followed to decrease the influences of the pandemic on destinations. Destination management organizations (DMOs) can take an active role in crisis periods to encourage stakeholder participation while attracting tourism demand in the post-COVID-19 era.Originality/valueThis study is important for its topical relevance and for providing specific theoretical and practical implications concerning tourists' travel behavior.
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The global health pandemic (COVID-19) has led to a significant decline in tourism activities and challenged existing norms and practices of the tourism sector. As international travel is restricted, the tourism sector is trying to promote domestic tourism by following health guidelines. This study aims to measure the relationships among social media travel content, perceived social risk of travel, attitude toward travel, and intention to travel during the pandemic time. The data were collected from young travellers in Bangladesh. The structural equation modelling (SEM) technique was used to estimate the relationships among the constructs. The results show that both social media travel content and perceived social risk of travel are significantly related to attitude toward travel and intention to travel. The association between attitude toward travel and intention to travel is also found significant. Destination managers are recommended to implement social media activation programs (e.g., a persuasive advertising campaign) and promote safe travel on their social media platforms (e.g., Facebook) to reduce perceived social risk of travel and create a positive attitude of travellers toward travel domestically during the global pandemic. Copyright © 2022 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
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The Covid-19 pandemic negatively affected many sectors including aviation and travel. Travel bans and forced lockdowns prevented transportation activity, especially air travel. Accordingly, huge amounts of emission reductions occurred. On the other hand, travel restrictions are not the only cause of emissions reductions. Changing travel intention in the era of Covid-19 is another important factor that affects aviation emissions. This paper aims to investigate the Landing/Take-Off (LTO) emission changes at Turkish airports. An emission inventory has been implemented for the years 2019 and 2020 to reveal the impacts of Covid-19 on aviation emissions. Domestic, international, and cargo flights have been included in the inventory. According to the results, total emissions of SO2, CO2, CO, NOx, NMVOC, CH4, N2O, and PM2.5 have decreased in 2020 compared to 2019 by 49.8%, 49.7%, 41.0%, 52.6%, 40.0%, 33.8%, 49.8%, and 50.3%, respectively. Total CO2 reductions in the Q2, Q3, and Q4 periods of 2020 compared to that of 2019 are 87%, 50% and 43%, respectively. Another aim of this paper is to find the underlying reasons for emission reductions. For Turkish airports, emission reductions have resulted from travel bans in Q2. After the relaxation of restrictions with the declaration of the "New Normal" in Turkey, flight traffic rebounded to a certain level but was lower than 2019 levels. Therefore, changing travel intention is the main cause of emission reductions in Q3 and Q4 of 2020. The results of this study contribute to both the areas of air pollution and tourism management. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10668-023-02916-8.
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The outbreak of COVID-19 has brought increasing attention to proximity travel. This mode of travel is a convenient travel setup for both tourists and neighboring destinations. With the help of the model of goal-directed behavior (MGB), this study investigates the influence of tourists' perception of epidemic risk on their intentions for proximity travel during the normalization of epidemic prevention and control. This study takes Shenzhen, China as the research area, and carried out the investigation in the context of normalization of the epidemic in China. A total of 489 pieces of valid sample data were collected through questionnaire surveys. Statistical analysis software, such as SPSS26.0 and AMOS23.0, were used to analyze the collected data information quantitatively, including descriptive statistical analysis, reliability and validity test, CFA and SEM. The results showed that attitude, subjective norms, positive anticipated emotions, and perceptual behavior control have significant positive effects on travel desire. Travel desire has a significant positive impact on travel intention, whereas negative anticipated emotions have no significant effect on travel desire. Meanwhile, the epidemic risk perception has a significant positive effect on attitudinal travel desire and travel intention. Under the background of the COVID-19, the stronger that the epidemic risk is perceived by tourists, the more the desire and intention to proximity travel are enhanced.
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The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has compelled tourism experts to devise efficient ways to attract visitors. Based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB) model, this study created a comprehensive model of residents' trust in government performance, perceived risk, and travel intention. The model was tested on 469 Vietnamese residents using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. The findings reveal that perceived risk negatively impacts attitudes toward travel, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norms, while trust in government performance positively impacts these categories. Furthermore, attitude toward travel, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norms positively influence a tourist's travel intention. This study offers theoretical and practical insights into how to build safe tourism practices and design appropriate COVID-19 recovery programs in the tourism industry.
ABSTRACT
The global health pandemic (COVID-19) has led to a significant decline in tourism activities and challenged existing norms and practices of the tourism sector. As international travel is restricted, the tourism sector is trying to promote domestic tourism by following health guidelines. This study aims to measure the relationships among social media travel content, perceived social risk of travel, attitude toward travel, and intention to travel during the pandemic time. The data were collected from young travellers in Bangladesh. The structural equation modelling (SEM) technique was used to estimate the relationships among the constructs. The results show that both social media travel content and perceived social risk of travel are significantly related to attitude toward travel and intention to travel. The association between attitude toward travel and intention to travel is also found significant. Destination managers are recommended to implement social media activation programs (e.g., a persuasive advertising campaign) and promote safe travel on their social media platforms (e.g., Facebook) to reduce perceived social risk of travel and create a positive attitude of travellers toward travel domestically during the global pandemic.
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Most of the previous studies on the impact of risk perception on travel intention are based on an individual psychological perspective, and the understanding based on the perspective of macropsychology is insufficient. Analyzing the temporal and spatial characteristics of risk perception theory at the macropsychological and regional levels will expand the scope of risk perception theory, which may help to promote the orderly recovery of tourism activities under the normalization of epidemics at the regional level. This study uses Baidu big data, through a panel VAR analysis, to explore the impact of people's epidemic risk perception on travelers intentions from a macropsychological level and to analyze the temporal and spatial differences of this impact. From a temporal perspective, this study found that the early stage of epidemic risk perception had a negative impact on travel intentions, and later, a compensatory effect on travelers intentions appeared. From the perspective of risks at different threat levels, the Wuhan epidemic with a high degree of threat had a greater impact, while foreign epidemics had less impact. From the perspective of spatial differences, this study indicated that the negative impact of attention to epidemics on attention to tourism basically shows a gradual decay from the core to secondary and then to peripheral areas. This research will reveal some new findings on the impact of perceived risk on behavior intention at the temporal and spatial levels, and will have certain reference value for regional tourism restoration and marketing under the influence of epidemics. © The Author(s) 2022.
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Due to people's anxieties about COVID-19, it may take years before international tourism returns to pre-pandemic levels. Thus, it is crucial to understand how tourists' health beliefs influence their travel decision-making processes during and after the SARS-COV2 pandemic, and to develop new strategies to support and meet tourists' current needs and concerns. The current study employs a Health Belief Model (HBM) perspective to examine the influence on tourists' health risk prevention - and subsequently on their travel intention - of reading travel health information online, while considering tourists' perceptions of threat susceptibility and severity, and usefulness of travel health information. As risk perception is influenced by individual differences such as gender and previous experience, the study model includes the demographic factors of age, gender, and health status. The model was tested using a survey questionnaire completed by 261 respondents in Saudi Arabia who were considering travelling abroad for tourism. Results were analyzed using PLS-SEM. The study found that perceived susceptibility and perceived usefulness each significantly and positively influenced the perception of importance of reading health information, and the perception of importance of reading travel health information online significantly and positively influenced travel intention. The discussion includes additional findings as well as implications for industry practice and policy regarding online pandemic-related information, in order to improve protection efficacy and enhance information content and style to adequately serve the needs of tourists from a health belief perspective.
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To promote tourism recovery in the post-COVID-19 pandemic era, it is critical to understand the psychological factors that either boost or suppress travel demands. However, little is known about the underlying psychological mechanism that affects compensatory travel intention. Therefore, by scrutinizing the roles that autonomous self -motivation, sensation seeking, and perceived susceptibility to COVID-19 play, this study conducted two scenario -based experiments (N = 223 + 200) to explore the psychological mechanism and boundary conditions behind the influence of boredom on compensatory travel intention. The findings reveal that people are more likely to generate compensatory travel intention when there is a higher level of boredom during the COVID-19 pandemic due to their desire for sensation seeking. This effect is magnified when people adopt autonomous self-motivating strategies. However, for people with high (vs. low) perceived susceptibility to COVID-19, a high level of boredom evokes lower compensatory travel intention through sensation seeking.
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This study investigates health-information seeking influences on tourists' travel intentions during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, in the context of online information.An integrative model based on Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) is developed to examine the relationships between protection motivation behaviour incorporating COVID-19 involvement, and their influence on information seeking attitude and travel intention, while considering the role of subjective norms (SNs) as a moderator between attitude and intention.Using the data collected from 274 international tourists in Saudi Arabia, this research shows that, while not all PMT factors have a positive influence on travel intention, COVID-19 involvement has the strongest influence, while SNs found to have non-significant role as a moderator.This study's findings include important implications for industry practice within the online travel-health information seeking context.
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Considerable research on COVID-19 in tourism and hospitality literature has focused on identifying the negative effects of this crisis and exploring measures to suppress factors that demotivate people from traveling. However, factors that can fuel people's motivation to travel again remain underexplored. In response to this gap, the present research proposes unique psychology that is related to the current pandemic environment, inaction regret, as a key motivator for people to resume their travel activities. Specifically, this research hypothesizes that two constructs, namely, "anticipated loss of not traveling in the future" and "change in perceived value of travel," mediate the positive effect of inaction regret on the future intention to travel. Overall, this research extends the existing research on COVID-19 in tourism and hospitality literature by identifying unique emotions pertinent to the current pandemic. At the same time, the findings of this research contribute to deriving post-pandemic marketing strategies to reinvigorate travel demand.