The impact of Covid-19 media coverage on tourist's awareness for future travelling

ABSTRACT

This research investigates the influence of Media Coverage and the perceived risks related to travel and tourism by the pandemic's time on the odds of potential outbound tourists’ level of awareness. The data of 1845 individuals nested from more than 12 countries and 4 continents representing quarantined and most impacted areas in the world during the crisis phase. A multilevel model with a categorical dichotomous outcome was applied. The findings confirm that media have preeminent control on accentuating potential travellers’ awareness during a crisis as the primary source of information. Besides, the physical perceived risk influences the likelihood to fall in the group of aware individuals. The research gives insights and evidence to practitioners of the tourism industry in destinations to plan and organize better with governmental authorities and provide ethical, responsible, and accurate information about the real situation and the health system's responses through their communication and information efforts during the recovery phase.

KEYWORDS:

• Media coverage
• perceived risk
• Covid-19 pandemic
• destination management
• change management
• outbound tourists’ awareness

Disclosure statement

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