The impacts of the coronavirus on tourism demand in Uruguay during the 2021 high season: a factor analysis

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on sun & beach tourism in Uruguay by exploring the perceptions of domestic tourists. On the basis of a survey carried out at the early beginning of summer holidays in South America, the study reveals that the desire for a vacation of the respondents has remained, despite the pandemic. The majority of the respondents express a high desire to take vacations soon. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed on data. The results suggested an eight-factor structure, where the variables that make explicit the requirements that would make the interviewees renounce to make a trip are located, which are present in half of the identified factors. Finally, sociodemographic characteristics, such as level of education, profession, and age, are also present as components of the factor but in a negligible percentage of contribution.

KEYWORDS:

• Sun & beach tourism
• risk
• COVID-19
• destination management
• Uruguay

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the many valuable suggestions made by the participants of this event.

Additional information

Funding

Our research was supported by CSIC -UDELAR (project ‘Grupo de investigacion en Dinamica Economica’; ID 881928). A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the GAET seminar (http://fcea.edu.uy/seminarios-gaet.html) in March 2 and June 24, 2021.