To Dine, or Not to Dine on a Cruise Ship in the Time of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Tripartite Approach towards an Understanding of Behavioral Intentions among Female Passengers

Abstract

Given that cruise line companies are rushing to restart their operations with modified dining services, the aim of this research is to establish a conceptual framework that precisely outlines female passengers’ behavioral intentions towards dining on cruise ships in the time of the COVID-19 crisis. It does so by extending the theory of reasoned action (TRA) by including the social servicescape of the cruise ship dining experiencescape (stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) paradigm) and perceived health risk from COVID-19 (the prospect theory). The developed theoretical framework based on this tripartite approach has predictive power for intentions. Its effectiveness and comprehensiveness are also demonstrated. Despite the positive effect of the social servicescape on attitude and emotions and the positive attitude of female cruise travelers, the negative effect of the perceived health risk from COVID-19 appears to be the dominant factor that ultimately discourages the behavioral intentions of female cruise passengers towards dining on a cruise ship in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. The present research provides a crucial guiding framework that helps cruise academics and operators to maximize existing and potential passengers’ favorable decisions and behaviors for cruise ship dining.

Intention to Take COVID-19 Vaccine as a Precondition for International Travel: Application of Extended Norm-Activation Model

“…Mass media's effect is evident in green international convention tourism as mass media holds a strong positive influence on participants' attitude [36]. In a recent study by Radic et al [37] on intention of female passengers to dine on board cruise ships in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic was negatively affected by the mass media coverage. Mass media coverage can affect the perception of audience awareness and behavior [38] and the full strength of mass media coverage influence on audience behavior is evident in the current COVID-19 pandemic [39][40][41].…”

COVID-19’s impact on the perceived risk of ocean cruising: A best-worst scaling study of Australian consumers

“…More recently, researchers have begun to explore cruise consumers' decision-making through the lens of TRA and TPB. Radic et al (2021) applied TRA and Prospect Theory to better understand behavioural intentions of female cruise passengers during the pandemic, finding perceived health risk negatively affected onboard dining behaviours as a result of COVID-19.…”

Customers’ Intention to Recommend Takeaway Food during COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Many studies used Prospect Theory to predict consumer behaviour based on reallife choices (Al-Ansi, Olya and Han, 2019;Olya and Al-Ansi, 2018;Radic et al, 2021). This theory reveals that consumers make decisions based on the value of potential loss and gain outcomes and evaluate these losses and gains using specific heuristics (Olya and Al-Ansi, 2018).…”

“…This theory reveals that consumers make decisions based on the value of potential loss and gain outcomes and evaluate these losses and gains using specific heuristics (Olya and Al-Ansi, 2018). During Pandemic COVID-19 most consumers consider uncertain situation with relatively high health risk, so their final decision to buy or consume the product is based on the perceived advantage (Radic et al, 2021). Therefore, Prospect Theory is recommended and suitable to utilize in times of crisis with full of risk and uncertainty by using Health Risk, Psychological Risk, Quality Risk as the consumer consideration (Al-Ansi and Day et al, 2020).…”