Determining the Antecedents Influences on Travel Intention and Willingness to Pay during the Pandemic

Abstract

ABSTRACT The study addresses the modulating effects of the impact of boredom and travel motivation on travel intention; additionally, the resulting model includes the impact of this intention and the fear of COVID-19 on the willingness to pay (WTP) more to benefit from additional safety measures at the destination. Furthermore, the moderating role of fear of COVID-19 was also tested as well as the mediating role of travel motivation in the model. Overall, 549 valid data were collected from potential tourists who live in Turkey and Russia. In the light of the findings of the study, the boredom was found to have a positive and significant effect on the travel motivation and intention. On the other hand, WTP is positively affected by travel intention and fear of COVID-19. Moreover, it was revealed that while the fear of COVID-19 had a moderating role, the travel motivation had a mediating role. The empirical results provide theoretical and practical implications for tourism managers for the development of safety measures in tourism services and the design of effective actions to restore tourism.