Tourists’ Perception of Haze Pollution and the Potential Impacts on Travel: Reshaping the Features of Tourism Seasonality in Beijing, China

Abstract

Abstract:Haze pollution has worsened and has received close attention by news agencies in the past two years. This type of environmental pollution might have a great effect on tourism image and the entire tourism industry of a destination. This study aimed to reveal the potential impacts of haze pollution on the tourism industry. Based on a case study in Beijing using questionnaires for potential tourists, awareness of haze pollution, impacts of haze pollution on travel and attitudes toward the impacts were discussed. The results indicated that haze pollution has a considerable potential impact on travel, and there are distinct differences among travel elements and tourism market segments. Due to its impacts, haze pollution could be taken into account in tourists' decision-making processes, causing a portion of potential tourists to cancel tourism plans. As a result, tourist arrivals to similar destinations could decrease by a small margin, but the most significant impact could be on the temporal distribution of tourist arrivals, namely tourism seasonality, due to tourists' "avoiding" psychology.

Air pollution and tourism demand: A case study of Beijing, China

“…Therefore, the air‐quality classification (Table ) correctly represents tourists' perceptions of air pollution and is a relevant factor in their travel plans. This finding is in line with previous studies, according to which domestic tourists are not strongly aware of the levels of an individual pollutant (PM 2.5 ), but are influenced by the degree of haze pollution recorded (Zhang et al, ).…”

“…This result agrees with previous empirical findings for the whole China, revealing that air pollution negatively affect both the intention to visit (Becken et al, ) and real inbound tourist arrivals (Deng et al, ; Xu & Reed, ). The negative effect of haze pollution for travel intentions to Beijing has been also observed for domestic tourism (Zhang et al, ). Nevertheless, the estimation outcome also shows that the pollutant PM 2.5 , which is the main factor influencing haze pollution, does not significantly influence tourist flows.…”

Adoption of Protective Behaviours: Residents Response to City Smog in Hefei, China

“…Many previous studies have discussed the effects of city smog on tourism. Indeed, city smog could ‘cause potential visitors to change their travel plans’ (Zhang, Zhong, Xu, Wang & Dang, : 2397). Considering people's reaction to smog, it is important to understand the factors that can influence risk perception and individual protective behaviours in response to this particular hazard.…”

Effect of economic growth and environmental quality on tourism in Southeast Asian Countries

“…The specific destination tourist arrivals such as beach and mountains, or destination places that require the clean air and beautiful environment, so that the attention of the environmental sustainability, cleanliness, and freshness of the air are very decisive on tourism sustainability. Some studies especially on China tourism were conducted by [8], [9], and [10]. They investigates the importance of the effect of pollution on tourists' satisfaction.…”