Pandemic Reflections (Asynchronous Session)
Featured Perceived Stress and Concerns of College Students at a Hispanic-serving Institution in the Time of COVID-19: Health and Leisure Behavior View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jacob Eubank
This quantitative study assesses college student’s perceived stress and key concerns as they experience the impacts of COVID-19. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) has been used as a retrospective measure of stress an individual had experienced within at least the last month in various studies, however, the researchers aimed to measure the perceived stress and key concerns of undergraduate students during a major event. A refined version of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), PSS-12, and a concern inventory that measured key student concerns was completed by 831 undergraduate students at a Hispanic-serving Institution in April 2020. Key findings indicate that during the pandemic, participants experienced high perceived stress. Key concerns of participants for themselves and their families included having enough food, money, essential supplies, and access to opportunities for physical activity when access to these things were limited. Findings from this study help to inform higher education administrators, health/nutrition, and recreation/leisure professionals about the impact that a major event, such as COVID-19, can have on the lives of college students - especially those living in a community and attending a Hispanic-serving Institution who were experiencing income inequality and health disparities prior to the pandemic.
A Pre- and Post-Covid Study of Three University Restaurant Sites View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Paulette R. Hebert
Dining has become a significant leisure activity (White Hutchinson, 2017; Ruggless, R., 2020). Restaurants are important to tourism (Sparks et al, 2001). Universities which offer degrees in hospitality and tourism management may also offer faculty-led, “laboratory” classes, allowing student staff to experience restaurant businesses at on-campus sites (Jáuregui, 2020). Although Covid 19 has significantly affected hospitality and restaurant industries (Parkikh, 2020) it is important that university programs prepare hospitality students for “real-world” issues while safely serving current, on-campus patrons. Three such restaurants sites were examined pre-Covid, Spring 2020 and again after re-opening, post-Covid, Fall 2020. Researchers examined furniture floor plans; field-verified seat counts; documented patrons with digital photography; compared findings to recommendations for mask wearing and social distancing. Results showed that at Site A: pre-Covid, 44 patron seats were available; post-Covid, some portable seats were removed by management; new signage encouraged less density on built-in bench seating; some dining was relocated to nearby areas. These interventions resulted in 29 seats (66 % of original occupancy) remaining for re-opening. At Site B: pre- or post-Covid, 0 tables and 0 seats were specifically provided for patrons. At Site C: pre-Covid, 142 seats were available. post-Covid, some furniture was removed. These interventions resulted in 33 seats (23% of original occupancy) remaining for re-opening. Photography revealed fewer patrons at all three sites post-Covid than pre-Covid, and most post-Covid patrons appeared to be students. Mask-wearing and social distancing were also documented via photography and post-Covid compliance variations were found.
Domestic versus International Tourism after the COVID-19 Pandemic in Cambodia: A Comparative Urban Analysis View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Matthew Trew
Tourism is one of the most important industries in contemporary Cambodia for both economic and nationalistic reasons. Although most discourse about Cambodian tourism focuses on international visitation to major cities like Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, smaller cities benefit from a marginalized but no less powerful domestic tourism industry. In this paper, I compare Cambodia’s biggest tourist city of Siem Reap with the smaller nearby city of Battambang to argue that tourism in smaller cities is better poised for recovery because of their reliance on domestic tourists, and less on international visitors such as the French or the Chinese. Chinese tourists represent over 30% of all visitors to Cambodia. Perceptions of Chinese tourists were already strained before COVID-19, and the pandemic has only amplified anti-Chinese rhetoric amongst the populace. Conversely, the Chinese make up less than 4% of all visitors to Battambang. Since 2011, the government has marketed Battambang as a ‘Charming City’ that exemplifies Cambodian culture and creativity. Domestic tourists are not officially recognized in national statistics, but my fieldwork reveals that Cambodian guests outnumber foreign ones in Battambang by a ratio of 4 to 1 and that domestic tourism numbers remain higher than average even during the pandemic. Through the comparison of Battambang and Siem Reap, I explore the little-publicized reality that Cambodians themselves are the most crucial players for Cambodian tourism, especially as the country emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tourism and the Greek Economy: The Role of Commercial Air Transportation View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Dixie Button, Eva Maleviti, Patti Clark
According to the World Tourism and Travel Council (2019), the tourism sector of Greece represents 20.6% of its GDP. The same source states that this sector grew at a rate of 6.9%, a number that is over three and a half times the pace of the country’s national economy which grew by 2.0%. These numbers highlight the importance of the tourism industry in sustaining Greece’s national economy. The value is evident when compared to nearby countries like Italy and Turkey where tourism has a lower contribution to GDP of 13.2% and 12.1%, respectively. Commercial air travel is a significant contributor to the Greek tourism industry and two-thirds of the spending in this sector is from international travelers. In 2018 over 200,000 domestic and international flights operated out El. Venizelos International airport in Athens (HCCA, 2018). The explanatory research examines the role of air transportation in the Greek tourism industry to define opportunities to augment commercial air transportation; however, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the implications for tourism and commercial transportation will be considered in the current paper. Today 20% of Greece's GDP is derived from the tourism sector which is a large percentage for a country emerging from a persistent decade-long recession. The contribution of commercial air travel to tourism will be parsed out to develop a forecast for air transportation demand and the resulting contribution to the Greek economy for ten years using IATA forecast numbers.
Sound Perspectives for a COVID-19 Tourism Recovery that Reconnects People and Nature View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Trace Gale, Andrés Adiego, Andrea Ednie, Karen Beeftink
The reemergence of travel after COVID-19 represents a unique opportunity for natural protected areas (PAs) and nature-based tourism destinations. If PAs can facilitate positive, direct, personal sensory experiences with natural settings closer to home, they may help reverse the cycle of disconnection and apathy that has resulted from greater urbanization and increasing disconnections between people and nature. This paper draws on the premise that what people experience in one context, they bring into other contexts, expanding current understanding of natural PA soundscape experiences through exploration of the acoustic environments experienced by national tourists from Chile in their home and work contexts. In addition to providing valuable insight for PA managers and post COVID-19 tourism development, this work contributes new perspectives towards categorization and coding taxonomies recommended within the recent ISO 12913-2 standard for soundscape data collection and reporting.
Featured The “New Normal” and London’s Fine Dining Industry View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Carina Jane Mansey
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, England’s fine dining industry has encountered many problems. Policy that had been created to limit the spread of the virus meant that restaurants had to close their doors to the public. While the Westminster Parliament did put in place loan schemes for businesses and a furlough scheme for the staff that they employed, neither initiative has proved adequate for all restaurants, and many have found their closure to be permanent. Fine dining establishments located in England’s capital city, London, have been hit harder than many that exist in other areas of the UK. As Edmonds has posited, restaurants in central London are heavily reliant on tourism (2020). This reliance on gastro tourists, in a world where many people have been unable or unwilling to travel, coupled with hidebound traditionalism, has added to restaurant’s vulnerability. Yet, some fine dining establishments have sought to modify their business models in order to confront the “new normal” and appeal to adapted culinary leisure practices. In this paper, I explore the detrimental impact that COVID-19 has had on London’s fine dining industry and the challenges that it has faced. For this to be achieved, I analyse Parliamentary records, established statistical data, restaurant websites and relevant press content. It is hoped that this will produce a clearer understanding of what has happened, what may continue to happen, and what might happen after the “new normal” ceases to either be “new” or “normal”.
Influence of the Epidemic on Tourism Consumption: Red Tourism among China’s Middle Class
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Abigail Qian Zhou
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on the tourism industry and triggered many changes in market and consumption preferences. The middle class is an important part of society that has always been the greatest driver of tourism. In contemporary China, before the epidemic, the middle class had always been the main consumer group of outbound travel. As epidemic control normalized and the tourism market recovered, China’s middle class, unable to travel abroad, became the mainstream source of “red tourism” (travelling to places of historic communist significance in China). This study thus focuses on red tourism in the middle class in China. Through the analysis of online travel notes and the implementation of semi-structured interviews, this study investigates changes in the ideology and consumption preferences of the middle class brought about by the epidemic and explores the important role of red tourism in the construction of the national identity of the middle class. This study also proposes countermeasures and suggestions for the recovery of the tourism market after the epidemic and the encouragement of new tourism possibilities.
New Meanings and Dimensions of Virtual Recreation, and Their Emotional Impact Among Students in Poland During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Mixed-Method Approach View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Aleksandra Mroczek Żulicka, Justyna Mokras Grabowska
The paper presents the results of the study. The research problem was defined by the authors: what are the new meanings and dimensions of virtual recreation, and what is their emotional impact among students in Poland during the COVID-19 pandemic? Research tools were: query of virtual recreational activities taking place in Lodz institutions facilities related to recreation, survey research on students from various universities and autoethnography - qualitative analysis of the content in research notebooks of students who were conducting this survey research.
