Pandemic Views
Asynchronous - Online Only
Featured Virtual Tourism on Social Media in China View Digital Media
Poster Session Yang Liu
During the COVID-19 pandemic, consumption of tourism has been impacted negatively. On the other hand, the willingness to consume tourism may not change that much. On the contrary, some tourists show a higher desire level for tourism. Virtual tourism is considered a substitute choice of enjoy the trip.This paper investigates consumer behavior regarding virtual tourism by collecting data from social media in China before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. We provide insights for a deep understanding of consumer behavior toward virtual tourism on social media, which may enable corporations in this industry to make business and marketing decisions.
Travellers' Willingness to Pay a Price Premium for Airline Service Providers: An Explanatory Model for Economic Crisis Situations View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Hany Ragab Ibrahim Abdelaziz, Ana Isabel Polo Peña
The current economic and political challenges such as the negative repercussions of the health pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine have created an unstable economic environment and caused an energy crisis that has led to a sharp increase in inflation rates and fuel prices to record levels (World Bank, 2023). These difficult circumstances have forced airline service providers to raise their airfare in order to overcome their massive costs (IATA, 2022). Due to the high availability of switching behavior in airline travel services, travellers' willingness to pay a price premium to airline service providers has become a critical factor for airlines' ability to cope with these difficult circumstances. In contrast, empirical investigations about travelers' willingness to pay a price premium and to tolerate this increase in ticket prices, especially during an economic crisis, is still very scarce. Therefore, the current study investigates the role of airline service quality and perceived value on travelers' willingness to pay a price premium for airlines firms, and the extent to which travelers' income and national bias towards airlines belonging to their home-countries can moderate these relationships. Data were collected from 408 international travellers using survey questionnaire and were analyzed using SEM, and multi-group analysis. The results reveal that although perceived service quality and perceived value significantly influences travellers' willingness to pay a price premium, these effects were more prominent for high-income travellers, and more significant for national airlines compared to foreign airlines.
Drivers of Sustainable Tourism in Europe: How to Design Efficient Business Strategies View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Francesca Bassi, Juan Antonio Marmolejo Martin
This paper studies the willingness of the citizens of the 27 EU countries to change their travel and tourism habits to assume a more sustainable behavior. The study wants to contribute to the recent literature on the topic of interconnections between tourism and sustainability. The data comes from the Flash Eurobarometer survey 499, involving more than 25,000 European citizens. The survey took place in October 2021 and wanted to analyze travel behavior and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on it, booking channels and information sources for travel preparation, reasons for selecting destinations, options and information on sustainable tourism. The hierarchical structure of the data - citizens within countries - is assumed applying a multilevel approach of analysis that considers heterogeneity between and within countries. The estimation of the multilevel latent class model allowed to identify seven groups of European citizens similar by their willingness to adopt tourism-related sustainability practices, and the association of these latent groups with the 27 European countries. Using sociodemographic variables, it was also possible to profile these groups as well as to describe the typical citizen belonging to each cluster. Moreover, drivers of sustainable tourism are identified, both at county and citizen level. The results of the analyses give many useful information for strategic management in the tourism sector.
