Abstract
Travel patterns have dramatically changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Tourism has been both a vector and a victim of the disease. This paper explores the pandemic’s impact on rural tourism, using the theoretical framework of the “mobilities turn” to investigate issues of corporeal and communicative travel found between the first and second waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. A sample of 874 guests visiting the Italian region of South Tyrol, where rural tourism is the norm, identified different patterns of physical travel and approaches to collecting on-site information on COVID-19. Results from a principal component analysis (PCA) and a cluster analysis highlighted at least two different approaches from visitors to the region: the first is more cautious, mostly practiced by domestic tourists, with limited mobility on-site, coupled with a need for information; the second is instead a more adventurous approach, with higher on-site mobility, more use of sustainable forms of transport and less interest in data evidence on COVID-19. Implications for rural tourism and its future are discussed. The hypothesis of an inverse relationship between corporeal and communicative travel needs further exploration in future research.
Highlights
Tourism is both a vehicle for and a victim of the COVID-19 pandemic [1]
The compromise between sedentarism and hypermobility on the one hand and the possibility to investigate mobilities using a qualitative perspective are key assets to assess travel during the COVID-19 pandemic, as the physical displacement of objects and the digital circulation of information have both been profoundly affected by lockdowns and travel restrictions
Argues that multiple modes of mobility co-exist in contemporary society: (a) corporeal travel, both for business and for leisure; (b) physical movement of objects, for commercial or individual purposes; (c) imaginative travel, imaginative journeys inspired by print and visual media; (d) communicative travel, happening through traditional or digital media with the aim of exchanging information; and (e) virtual travel, enabling virtual reality (VR) trips without physical displacement
Summary
Tourism is both a vehicle for and a victim of the COVID-19 pandemic [1]. The spread of the virus by tourists [2] was among the reasons for recent travel restrictions and for raising geopolitical anxieties among local people in European countries, and in Italy [3]. Sustainability 2021, 13, 11190 between viral, corporeal, and communicative travel, an issue that is relevant during the pandemic [8] This paper addresses these and other mobilities issues, focusing on a unique case study of a rural, tourism-intensive Alpine destination: Italy’s South Tyrol region. Key features include many small-scale enterprises, a decentralised destination structure, pluri-activity practices, with tourism often operating within farming or other businesses, typically with a lack of professional governance across and within the destination All these factors have, anecdotally, been found to make rural tourism businesses especially susceptible to the uncertainties and stresses created by the pandemic. Results explore differing individual traveler attitudes towards the pandemic and their potential effects in terms of sustainability
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