Abstract
During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which is caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), hotel-sector employees attempted to cope with the fear of becoming infected; however, they were also faced with job insecurity. Both the anxiety over COVID-19 and the risk of job insecurity have affected the employees’ economic and social conditions as well as their mental state. The present study examined the effect of COVID-19 anxiety and job insecurity perceptions on the burnout levels of hotel-sector employees and the moderator role of the employees’ financial well-being on this relationship. The study was conducted by collecting data from 396 participants who worked in 17 different five-star hotels in Antalya, Turkey. Because of social isolation and social distancing rules, our research data were obtained using an online questionnaire to avoid close contact with other people. The findings showed that COVID-19 anxiety and perceptions of job insecurity had negative effects on hotel employees in the form of mental burnout. In addition, we determined that as an individual characteristic, financial well-being was a moderator variable that affected the severity of burnout based on COVID-19 anxiety and job insecurity. The research findings exhibited theoretical and practical contributions for decision makers and researchers.
Highlights
The tourism and hotel industry is one of the primary defenseless sectors against external shock, such as epidemic diseases and natural disasters [1,2]
For the individuals with high financial well-being, job insecurity did not have a significant effect on burnout, while for those with low financial well-being, job insecurity was directly correlated and had a negative effect on burnout. These results suggest that the effect of the COVID-19 anxiety and job insecurity on burnout significantly differ depending on whether an individual’s financial well-being is high or low. These results indicated that the effect of the COVID-19 anxiety and job insecurity perception on burnout is moderated by financial well-being
Yu et al [11] using qualitative and quantitative methods suggested that because hotel employees are in close contact with various customers, they have a perception of a risk of becoming infected, which causes them to have serious mental stress
Summary
The tourism and hotel industry is one of the primary defenseless sectors against external shock, such as epidemic diseases and natural disasters [1,2]. In 2003, after the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak, the tourism industry lost more than 3 million jobs, which caused an economic loss of >$20 billion in East Asia [3,4,5]. SARS coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), was an epidemic that first broke out in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 and spread throughout the world within a very short period of time [9] This “pandemic” devastated the tourism and hotel industries more than any other disasters and epidemics and brought hotel operations nearly to a standstill in most countries [10]. These results very clearly and tragically illustrated how defenseless the tourism sector is against epidemic diseases and disasters
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