Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Tourist Risk Perceptions—The Case Study of Porto

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic outbreak (in early 2020) has dictated significant changes in society and territories by anticipating trends, changing priorities, and creating challenges, which are manifested in the territories. These are influenced by the levels of economic, cultural, and social restructuring, in the measures implemented by public administration or in attempts to redefine strategies for tourism destinations. This paper examines the perceptions and behaviors of tourists before and during COVID-19 in the municipality of Porto, the main area of the Porto Metropolitan Area, in Portugal. Research was based on the application of a questionnaire survey, probing the sensitivity of tourists to the crisis in the decision-making of daily routines, as well as future travel plans in the presence of a serious health concern. A total of 417 surveys were collected in the summers of 2019 and 2020. In addition to descriptive statistics, this paper also includes the results of the analysis of explanatory factors, being a reference for future studies. There were significant changes in the use of public space and the way tourist visits are handled, namely: (i) the concentration of visiting time (shorter visit than usual in certain tourist profiles); (ii) spatially limited visiting areas; and (iii) the ability to attract standard tourists from certain countries where tighter lockdown rules were imposed. Main implications of this study are reflected in the challenges that are imposed on the local agenda, where traditional problems are added to the responsibilities in crisis management and the ability to establish a third order of intervention in tourism.

Experiences of Polish Tourists Traveling for Leisure Purposes during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…This preference is consistent with the results of other studies and should benefit small towns and rural areas that were not popular tourist destinations before the pandemic [65,66]. Lopes et al [37] directly indicate that rural tourism has gained in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, while city-breaks have suffered the most. Resignation from travels abroad is also associated with the fear of possible complications with returning to the country, the risk of flight suspension, compulsory quarantine, etc.…”

“…Mitchell et al [35] and Chiu et al [36] indicate that the perceived physical risk, financial risk and psychological risk had negative impact on tourists' travel intentions. Safety concerns affect both domestic and international leisure travel [37]. Perceived risk is the main reason for choosing a destination or resigning from taking a trip [38][39][40].…”

Seasonality in Tourism: Do Senior Programs Mitigate It?

“…We can note that the year 2020 is not considered in this study because, firstly, the irregular behaviour of the tourist campaign and its high volatility for this year; secondly, information about the Imserso programme is not available for this year. However, as noted above, we can indicate some works about tourism and the COVID-19 pandemic [35,36].…”

“…If, on the contrary, seasonality responds to economic factors, such as income, the relative price or the exchange rate, then the appropriate policies would need to aim at influencing economic factors. Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic is involving a review of the management and marketing strategies of tourism [35,36]. One last group of studies focuses on analysis of the effectiveness of economic policy measures aimed at reducing the seasonality of tourism activity and its adverse effects [6,[37][38][39][40][41][42].…”

Sustainable Determinants That Affect Tourist Arrival Forecasting

“…Some forms of tourism associated with the SDGs, such as low-carbon tourism [34][35][36], nomadic tourism [37][38][39], individual tourism with discrete individual tourist systems [40] and sustainable tourism [41,42], are used as independent variables in this study, while tourist arrivals are the dependent variable [43]. In analysing Croatian and Slovenian [43] tourism further development in the long run [44][45][46], the imperishable employees, as well as the tourism science competencies and the everlasting tourist should be considered as key elements where a shock [47] or an interruption of rain [48] or a crisis [49] should not be crucial development issues.…”