ABSTRACT
Purpose - Staycation became a popular alternative to vacation during the pandemic. This study seeks to examine the factors that influence Indonesian tourists' staycation intention during COVID-19 using an extended model of goal-directed behaviour. Design - A model of goal-directed behaviour incorporates motivation variables, perceptions of COVID, and personal non-pharmaceutical interventions developed to predict people's staycation intention during COVID-19. Methodology - Purposive sampling was used to determine samples aged above 17, domiciled in Indonesia, and willing to staycation during COVID-19. An online survey produced 534 responses and data were evaluated with PLS-SEM. Approach - A quantitative exploratory study was used to identify how Indonesian tourists intend to staycation during COVID-19. The measurement items were constructed from prior studies to evaluate the model. Findings - The staycation intention during COVID-19 was positively affected by desire, followed by perceived behavioural control, with perception of COVID-19 showing the opposite impact. Attitude plays essential role in influencing staycation intention. However, staycation intention was not associated with personal nonpharmaceutical interventions. Originality of the research - This study provides novel insights into motivational and nonpharmaceutical intervention variables in MGB, which are still underexplored in tourism literature, to assist hospitality and tourism management in optimizing the staycation trend and market during the pandemic.
ABSTRACT
This special issue brings together five articles that present an analysis of the state of tourism in Southern Africa due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and provide some insightful recommendations and ways forward in terms of navigating the pandemic's impacts. The articles cover: the challenges of the ongoing pandemic in the Southern Africa region;the application of virtual reality technologies as a response to the pandemic;the economic impacts of the pandemic on guesthouses and nature-based tourism;and the management of community ecotourism to cope and recover from COVID-19 shock.
ABSTRACT
The paper analyzed tourist arrivals in tourist and agri-tourist guesthouses of Romania in the year 2020 compared to 2019 in order to evaluate in what measure this tourism indicator was affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. The data provided by National Institute of Statistics allow to establish the dispersion of tourist arrivals in the territory of the country by the eight microregions of development and also to quantify the levels of the specific concentration indices: Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, Gini-Struck Index and Coefficient of Concentration. After the year 2019, which reached the top arrivals, overnight stays and receipts in Romania's tourism, the year 2020 brought the Covid-19 pandemic which has disturbed tourism performance. However, in Romania the effects on tourism industry were lower than in other countries. In the periods of relaxation measures, tourists chose safe destinations for combining both the visits to objectives of high interest with tourist services of accommodation and meals at a convenient tariff. From this point of view, tourist and agri-tourist guesthouses were among the best alternatives, and they recorded a higher growth rate of tourist arrivals than at the national level in tourism industry. In 2019, tourist arrivals were higher in the tourist pensions located in the Center, North West, North East and West parts of the country, and in agri-tourist pensions situated in Center, North East, and North West. In 2020, the guesthouses situated in Centre, North West and North East regions registered the highest tourist arrivals. A moderate concentration of the arrivals was confirmed by the values of Herfindahl-Hirschman index which varied between 0.15 and 0.25, by the values of Gini-Struck index which were higher than 0.3 in the year 2019, but a little lower than 0.3 in 2020, and the values of Concentration coefficient which were higher than 0.33. Due to the reduced arrivals in 2020, all the concentration indices had lower values than in the year 2019. As final conclusion, in Romania,it is a moderate concentration of tourist arrivals, and even thou in 2020 there were problems caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, tourist and agri-tourist guesthouses were an alternative for accommodation and meals, harmoniously combining the need of safety with the desire to visit the tourist attractions of high interest.
ABSTRACT
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has rapidly spread throughout the globe, and recovering from the pandemic will be a massive test on economic systems. The pandemic has severely affected the accommodation sector as global travel has come to an almost complete standstill as of April 2020. This paper provides a preliminary assessment of the economic impacts of the pandemic on guesthouses in South Africa and the response measures adopted by this sector. Through online surveys, the empirical results show that guesthouse operations were severely disrupted by the pandemic, leading to a critical decline in revenue and a pronounced threat to job security. Despite implementing various response measures and strategies, guesthouses were somewhat concerned about the future of their businesses due to the uncertainty of the pandemic. This research can assist in developing intervention measures to support guesthouses in addressing the economic challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.