Ninth International Conference on Tourism & Leisure Studies

Abstract

The global economic recession that supervened the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to last for a while. Consequently, policy makers have been saddled with the challenges of devising strategies and policies for stimulating a post-pandemic economic recovery, growth, and development. For tourism-sensitive economies, reviving inbound tourism with its attendant foreign exchange income has, as previous economic crises showed, proved to be one of the effective strategies of revamping a distressed economy. With the two broad divides of predictors of tourism demand, those that impede it against those that stimulate it, this research investigates the moderating effects of perceived risks and technological adoption on tourists’ behavioural intentions using the Structural Equation Modelling. Data were sourced through a survey of 479 tourists, sampled through multi-sampling method. Results show that four out of six COVID-19-induced dimensions of perceived risks have negative moderating influence on tourists’ behavioural intentions while technological adoption in tourism space has positive moderating effects on tourists’ intentions to visit. The study concluded that technological adoption in the tourism industry have the potentials of reversing the negative influence of perceived risks occasioned by COVID-19 pandemic, and therefore, improving tourism destination attractiveness and competitiveness. It recommended, among others, that tourism destination managers and policy makers utilise the benefits of innovative technologies in addressing the negating influence of perceived risks in their tourism industries and further improve the contributions of tourism to their national economies.