Quantifying the COVID-19-affected tourism education in China: a potential crisis in tourism recovery

ABSTRACT

Human resources is a crucial factor in supporting the development of tourism as a labour-intensive industry. This research enhances the understanding of China’s tourism education associated with the spread of COVID-19 and its implications for tourism recovery. Initial findings imply that: COVID-19 had a profound lagging negative effect on the intention to apply for tourism-related majors of examinees, which is severe challenging for tourism recovery, and the impact was more pronounced in typical tourism-dependent cities than in non-tourism-dependent cities. The MICE Economics and Management was least affected, while the Sports Tourism was most affected.

KEYWORDS:

• Tourism education
• intention to learn
• COVID-19
• Baidu index
• China

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 https://www.mct.gov.cn/whzx/whyw/202006/t20200629_872897.htm

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Education and Teaching Reform Research Project of Hainan University [grant number hdjy2248]; the Project of National Social Science Foundation of China [grant number 21BJY194]; the Youth Project of Hainan Natural Science Foundation [grant number 721QN219].