Abstract
This study investigates the effects of cognitive destination image shaped by media during the COVID-19 pandemic on willingness to support and post-pandemic travel intention. Drawing upon the concept of cognitive destination image and through an online self-administered survey, the effects of four factors including trust, crisis management, healthcare system, and solidarity on travel behavioral intention are compared based on tourists’ prior experience of a given destination. To achieve this aim, ten countries with different coping strategies, numbers of positive cases and mortality rate were studied. A total number of 518 useable questionnaires were collected from the prospect international tourists who followed news related to COVID-19 for one of the selected countries and plan to travel in the future. Partial least squares – structural equation modeling and multi-group analysis were used to test the model and hypotheses. The results showed the high predictive power of the model on post COVID-19 travel behavioral intention. The findings revealed the strong and positive effects of trust and healthcare system on behavioral intention of respondents without past experience to visit a destination, whereas the effect of solidarity on behavioral intention was identified much stronger for the prospect tourists with past experience of visiting a destination. This research provides unique theoretical contributions by investigating the effects of trust, crisis management, healthcare system, and solidarity shaped by media during COVID-19 outbreak as the components of cognitive destination image on future behavioral intention across past experience of visiting a destination. This study also provides insights on post-crisis recovery factors affecting travel behavioral intention and demand. • Media-framed destination image was a significant trigger of post-pandemic behavioural intent. • Trust and healthcare system positively impact travel intention for those without past experience. • Solidarity positively impacts travel intention for those with past experience.
Highlights
The novel coronavirus COVID-19 has profoundly affected the world economy
Using out of sample PLSpredict approach, the pre dictive power was assessed for two groups, and the results showed high predictive power of model to predict willingness to support a designa tion and travel intention for two groups by assessing the value of Q2predict for the items of each construct and comparing the root mean squared error (RMSE) between partial least squares – structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and linear model (LM) (Danks & Ray, 2018)
This study considers the cognitive aspect of destination image, shaped by the media during COVID-19 outbreak period, and based on the ways that countries managed COVID-19
Summary
The novel coronavirus COVID-19 has profoundly affected the world economy. The tourism industry has been among the most severely affected sectors due to the unprecedented restrictions on mobility (Gossling et al, 2021; Rastegar, Seyfi, & Rasoolimanesh, 2021; Rastegar, Higgins-Desbiolles, & Ruhanen, 2021; Seyfi et al, 2020). Countries’ different responses and coping strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic have received extensive media coverage which potentially affect their destination image (Gossling et al, 2021). Yang et al (2021) found that media coverage surrounding COVID-19 has negatively affected China’s desti nation image and potential visitors’ travel intentions in some markets. The studies of Xie et al (2021) and Jin et al (2021) on Chinese travellers; Pappas (2021) and Pappas and Glyptou (2021) on adult res idents of Athens; and Peric et al (2021) on Serbian travellers, all highlight the significant influence of the COVID-19 on potential tourist’s perceived risk and post-pandemic travel intention and decision-making
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