Tourists’ outbound travel behavior in the aftermath of the COVID-19: role of corporate social responsibility, response effort, and health prevention

Abstract

Little is known regarding how the tourists will perceive the post-pandemic travel particularly when planning to travel to the most affected global destinations. This study was designed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its adverse impact on the travel and tourism industry. It primarily investigated the key factors of the U.S. tourists’ destination attachment and the intentions to return to European and Asian destinations after the pandemic. A total of 367 participants were involved in the web-based survey. The results of the structural equation modeling demonstrated that in the event of a pandemic (1) the corporate social responsibility and the perceived response efforts were critical to generate the destination attachment and the approach behavioral intentions, (2) monetary promotions were not sufficient to generate the destination attachment and approach the behavioral intentions to the international destinations, and (3) the health preventive behavior and the destination attachment were important direct predictors of the approach behavioral intentions. These key findings could assist the travel and tourism companies to more effectively overcome the adverse impact of the pandemic on their businesses.

Keywords:

• Corporate social responsibility
• perceived response effort
• health belief model
• approach behavior
• global health crisis
• international tourism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bee-Lia Chua

Bee-Lia Chua is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Food Service and Management at Universiti Putra Malaysia. Her research interests include hospitality and tourism marketing.

Amr Al-Ansi

Amr Al-Ansi is a Researcher in the College of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Sejong University, South Korea. His research interests include Halal tourism, cultural tourism, sustainable tourism, and hospitality marketing.

Myong Jae Lee

Myong Jae Lee is a James A. Collins Distinguished Professor in the Collins College of Hospitality Management at California State Polytechnic University Pomona, USA. His research interests include sustainable tourism, hotel management, and hospitality marketing.

Heesup Han

Heesup Han is a Professor in the College of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Sejong University, South Korea. His research interests include sustainable tourism, airline, medical tourism, and hospitality marketing. His papers have been selected as the most downloaded and read articles in many top-tier hospitality and tourism journals. Heesup Han is a 2019 highly cited researcher (HCR) of the world in social science (identified by the Web of Science Group).