This study investigates travel behavior and psychosocial factors that influence it during the COVID-19 pandemic. In a cross-sectional study, using an online survey, we examined changes in travel behavior and preferences after lifting travel restrictions, and how these changes were influenced by exposure to COVID-19, COVID-19 travel-related risk and severity, personality, fear of travel, coping, and self-efficacy appraisals in the Romanian population. Our results showed that participants traveled less in the pandemic year than the year before—especially group and foreign travel—yet more participants reported individual traveling in their home county during the pandemic period. Distinct types of exposure to COVID-19 risk, as well as cognitive and affective factors, were related to travel behavior and preferences. However, fun-seeking personality was the only major predictor of travel intention, while fear of travel was the only predictor of travel avoidance. Instead, people traveled more cautiously when they perceived more risk of infection at the destination, and had higher levels of fear of travel, but also a high sense of efficacy in controlling the infection and problem-solving capacity. The results suggest that specific information about COVID-19, coping mechanisms, fear of travel, and neuropsychological personality traits may affect travel behavior in the pandemic period.

Park-people relationships are crucial for the effective operation of national parks (NPs). According to this new paradigm, protected areas are increasingly considered as instruments for regional development, particularly in marginal regions. However, park-people relationships often comprise conflicts. We tried to understand park-people relationships through the views and attitudes of local people living in or around the area of the Slovak Karst NP, which is found in a marginal, less developed region within Slovakia. We carried out a questionnaire survey and applied multidimensional statistical methods for the results. We identified four attitude dimensions and six local people clusters. Clusters were compared in terms of socio-demographic characteristics, views on NP tasks, attitudes towards the NP, tourism and nature, as well as migration intentions. We found that 45% of the sampled population had positive attitudes towards the NP and nature, 29.5% were neutral and 25.5% had somewhat negative feelings. Results showed that the personal economic situation, the relationship with tourism, age, education level and profession all influence the attitude of local people towards the NP. As for the socio-economic development of the region, we found that till now, the Slovak Karst NP had only a limited role. Nonetheless, understanding the views and attitudes of local people may help to refine the NP strategy. Results suggest that NP management should strengthen the interaction with local communities and improve resource efficiency through a participatory approach to preserve natural values, improve the quality of life and stop outward migration from the region.

Identifying rural, non-rural or urban areas in Slovakia, Central Europe, is a complex task for extensive transformation of countryside during the last decades. The processes of suburbanization, which started in Slovakia in the 1990s after the change of the political regime, also contributed to this complexity. Therefore, the identification of rural / urban regions is even more difficult. Our research focuses on the application of a multidimensional approach to delimitation of rural and non-rural areas where the aim is to establish a rurality index that presents a more comprehensive definition of the rurality. We used the Factor Analysis of socioeconomic data to show rural and non-rural transitional character of municipalities. The resulting data were assigned to spatial polygons of municipalities of the Slovak Republic and visualized as choropleth maps categorizing the spatial units based on the strength of the rurality. In this way, the spatial aspects of rural vs. non-rural character in Slovakia can be perceived and compared with other sources of spatial information.