Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Title
Tourism Management Perspectives
Volume
40
Publisher
Elsevier
School
School of Business and Law
RAS ID
37056
Funders
Edith Cowan University Sichuan University
Abstract
This paper examines the impacts of COVID-19 on Chinese nationals' tourism preferences. Employing a mixed-method research design, two rounds of nation-wide online surveys were conducted, one in February 2020 when COVID-19 cases started to peak in China and another one in June 2020 when COVID-19 was a global pandemic; both survey studies were accompanied with semi-structured in-depth interviews and altogether 37 interviews were conducted in two stages. Based on both quantitative survey data and qualitative interview data, the research identified that: 1) COVID-19 significantly reduced Chinese nationals' preferences to travel to countries with high infection numbers, and geographically faraway, administratively and culturally distant outbound destinations; 2) Chinese nationals reduced their preferences in all travel modes and most of the tourism forms, but most of them would prefer nature-based, rural, and cultural destinations after COVID-19; and 3) shortened trips in short travel distance are preferred after COVID-19. The findings offer rich insights and practical implications for governments, industry organisations, and tourism operators to formulate tourism recovery strategies toward Chinese tourists.
DOI
10.1016/j.tmp.2021.100895
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Comments
This is an author's accepted manuscript of: Huang, S., Shao, Y., Zeng, Y., Liu, X., & Li, Z. (2021). Impacts of COVID-19 on Chinese nationals' tourism preferences. Tourism Management Perspectives, 40, Article 100895.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmp.2021.100895