A study on tourists’ perceived risks from COVID-19 using Q-methodology

ABSTRACT

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has led to constraints on tourism-related activities and a slowdown in the tourism industry. This study’s main purpose is to identify tourists’ perceived risks regarding COVID-19 to establish a strategy for the tourism industry to rebound when the pandemic stabilizes or dissipates. To better understand this, Q-methodology, an exploratory research methodology, was used. According to our results, the types of tourist constraints caused by COVID-19 can be divided into four categories: “worrying about health”; “worrying about potential problems”; “worrying about tourism itself”; and “worrying about issues” The implications from these will be discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Q-methodology
• perceived risk
• tourism industry
• COVID-19
• tourism constraints

Disclosure statement

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