ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted tourism education worldwide. In the Great Bay Area of China, where tourism is a key industry, the effects on tourism education directly influence the sector’s development. This study aims to enhance tourism students’ well-being in online education by developing a framework based on social cognitive career theory. This framework explores the antecedents affecting students’ academic performance and life satisfaction during this unprecedented period. Using survey data from tourism students in the Great Bay Area and employing Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) for analysis, the findings confirm a nomological network. This network elucidates the roles of personal affective traits and external environmental factors on both academic and life satisfaction, mediated by personal dispositional factors such as self-efficacy, expectations, and goal progress.