Abstract
Vaxication (i.e., post-vaccination travel) and branding destinations for COVID-19 safety have emerged as the cornerstones to fully rebound global tourism. Numerous destination brands are now stimulating tourism demand through realigned travel incentives specifically for fully vaccinated travelers. However, there is growing fear and incidents of travel shaming across destinations, especially due to the recent outbreaks of the highly contagious COVID-19 ‘delta and omicron’ variants. Addressing this critical research gap, the present study makes pioneering efforts to empirically examine the effects of COVID-19 branded destination safety (CBDS) on vaxication intentions, under the moderating influence of travel shaming and travel incentives. Drawing on study data from 560 fully-vaccinated residents from Hawaii, United States and structural equation modeling (SEM) with Mplus, the evidence suggests that the positive impact of CBDS on vaxication intention can be further strengthened by travel incentives, or weakened when travel shaming picks up more momentum. Besides the validation of newly developed scales, the study offers strategic insights based on dominant theories (e.g., theory of planned behavior and protection motivation theory) to interpret the changing tourism demand, and to transform the emerging challenges into opportunities through and beyond the pandemic.
Highlights
A sense of travel optimism continues to rise with the increasing scale of global immunization against COVID-19 and the cautious easing of the pandemic-induced travel restrictions [1,2]
The findings suggest that the feeling of shame that arises from traveling while the pandemic is not yet saturated can negatively influence vaxication intention despite COVID-19 branded destination safety (CBDS); Hypothesis 3 (H3) was accepted (β = −0.148; t = 3.020; p < 0.01)
With the reopening of international borders and relatively relaxed measures for global travel, destinations worldwide are devising strategies to offset the devastating effects of the pandemic [2]
Summary
A sense of travel optimism continues to rise with the increasing scale of global immunization against COVID-19 and the cautious easing of the pandemic-induced travel restrictions (e.g., lockdowns, quarantines, and social distancing, etc.) [1,2]. Restarting tourism operations requires destination reassurance for COVID-19 safety in order to attract fully-vaccinated travelers seeking reliable and safer options to travel [2,6,7]. In order to reopen safely, tourism destinations have started to rebrand themselves for the Sustainability 2021, 13, 14043. As fully-vaccinated travelers (e.g., 59% of nationals in the United States) may be more eager to travel again, CBDS reinforces their travel decisions, despite the emerging gaps between the least and the most safe destinations for tourism during the pandemic [3,7,8]. CBDS balances the safety and branding needs of destinations that strive to reopen themselves for international visitors by restoring confidence, boosting re-bookings, and avoiding frequent cancellations [9,10]. Leveraging CBDS can be a turning point for destinations to survive and remain strong during and after the pandemic [3,11,12]
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