How COVID-19 impacts travel-health information seeking and tourists' travel intentions: A protection motivation theory-based model

ABSTRACT

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.