“Nothing Can Stop Me!” Perceived Risk and Travel Intention Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Comparative Study of Wuhan and Sapporo

Abstract

The global tourism industry has been devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic due to strict travel restrictions imposed by most countries. In order to achieve a swift post-pandemic recovery, it is important to understand what psychological obstacles people would face when making travel decisions. Building upon the dual-route theory of information processing, this study examined and compared how the perceived risk of COVID-19 would affect people’s travel intentions in the Japanese city of Sapporo and the Chinese city of Wuhan through two rounds of data collection. While both cities were hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic at an early stage, the cumulative numbers of confirmed human cases and the levels of intervention adopted were largely different. Results from the present study showed that risk perception of COVID-19 had a negative effect on people’s travel intentions in Sapporo. However, no significant effect of COVID-19 perception could be observed in post-lockdown Wuhan. Meanwhile, although the dual-route structure of information processing was obtained in Sapporo and post-lockdown Wuhan, neither routes seemed to predict the perceived risk of COVID-19 in Wuhan when lockdown restrictions were still in place. Several theoretical and practical implications concerning the results are discussed in this study.

The mediation of perceived risk’s impact on destination image and travel intention: An empirical study of Chengdu, China during COVID-19

“…(From 2012 to 2014, Sanya's annual domestic overnight stays increased by 30.59%, 11.97%, and 11.33% [13], respectively; from 2015 to 2018, Qingdao's annual domestic overnight stays increased by 9.03%, 8.44%, 9.2% and 13.7% [14], respectively.) Empirical research has also found the negative impact of perceived risk on behavioral intention to be insignificant [15,16], or even found perceived risk to have a significant positive effect [17].…”

Determining the Differences in Tourist’s Risk Perception and Travel Intention During Covid-19 Health Crisis: Case Study of Serbia

“…Other studies investigating perceived risk and travel intentions have confirmed that risk perception is essential for travel decision making (Agyeiwaah et al, 2021;Falahuddin et al, 2020;Li & Ito, 2021;Zhan et al, 2020). When it comes to the differences between travel in the country and abroad in terms of risk perception, the findings indicate significant differences in terms of health risk, destination risk and travel risk.…”

“…Due to the health crisis caused by the COVID-19 virus, travel has been reduced and limited worldwide. The COVID-19 health crisis has destroyed tourism industry around the world, due to the travel limitations forced by most countries (Li & Ito, 2021). Tourism is certainly the most stricken sectors due the COVID-19 health crisis.…”

“…The pandemic has particularly affected the changing preferences related to tourism (Lee et al, 2020). There are numerous studies that have explored the influence of perceived risk on intentions, also behavior of tourists ongoing COVID-19 health crisis (Abraham et al, 2020;Li & Ito, 2021;Neuburger & Egger, 2020;Perić et al, 2021), but there are no studies examining differences in risk perception and travel intention during a COVID-19 health crisis. Accordingly, the study purpose is to determine the differences in Serbian tourist's perceived risk during the COVID-19 health crisis (travel intention and destination).…”

Impact of perception of COVID-19 on NPI, job satisfaction, and customer orientation: Highlighting three types of NPIs for the airline industry

“…Third, the present study also contributes to the literature by shedding light on the relationship between perception of COVID-19 and job satisfaction. Because perception of COVID-19 has led to greater interest in airline research, several recent studies have focused on travelers perceptions of COVID-19 and how they impact travel intentions and willingness to fly ( Elizabeth et al, 2021 ; Lamb et al, 2020 ; Li and Ito, 2021 ; Neuburger and Egger, 2020 ; Xu et al, 2021 ). Nevertheless, how employees (e.g., airline staff) perceive the recent pandemic and how their perceptions influence job satisfaction remains understudied.…”