Sustainable cross-border tourism management: COVID-19 avoidance motive on resident hospitality

Abstract

The psyche-altering effects of COVID-19 pandemic on sustainable tourism behaviors are underexplored. More so, the scant research largely presents tourists’ perspective. Extending this body of work, our study – deploying evolutionary tourism paradigm, examines whether, the why and when perceived COVID-19 infectability (pathogen avoidance motive) impairs resident hospitality, using a multi-wave data from MTurk U.S. workers (N = 857). As predicted, perceived COVID-19 infectability relates positively with tourist negative stereotype, which then relates negatively with resident hospitality. Unexpectedly, perceived COVID-19 infectability’s relation with resident hospitality was positive. However, tourist negative stereotype transmits the negative effect of perceived COVID-19 infectability to resident hospitality. Moreover, COVID-19 origin belief amplifies the positive effect of perceived COVID-19 infectability on tourist negative stereotype, and further strengthens the indirect effect of perceived COVID-19 infectability on resident hospitality through tourist negative stereotype. Theoretical, social, and managerial implications for sustainable tourism development have been discussed.

Keywords:

• Perceived COVID-19 infectability
• pathogen threat
• negative tourist stereotyping
• COVID-19 origin belief
• resident hospitality

Disclosure statement

We have no known conflict of interest to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by Grant ZC304020924 from the ZJNU Postdoctoral Research and by Grant PJ103018001 from the Open Research Fund of College of Teacher Education, Zhejiang Normal University. Beijing Happiness Foundation's Key Project of Positive Psychology 2021.

Notes on contributors

Collins Opoku Antwi

Collins Opoku Antwi is postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal University (ZJNU), Jinhua – China. His broad research interests span across entrepreneurs and employees' resources and well-being, and service & relationship marketing particularly in service industries. He enjoys listening to calming music.

Seth Yeboah Ntim

Seth Yeboah Ntim is a doctoral student at the International Institute for child Studies, Zhejiang Normal University (ZJNU), Hangzhou – China. His research interests include teacher stress, emotional labor, teacher-student interaction, cognitive development, executive function, and neuropsychological assessment. He likes playing football and badminton.

Evans Asante Boadi

Evans Asante Boadi is a Senior Lecturer at the Sino-British Collaborative Overseas Education Investment Management for Oxford Brookes University – Chengdu University of Technology. He holds a PhD in Management Science and Engineering from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. He is an enthusiastic researcher and teacher with keen interest in Hospitality, Tourism and Strategic Management, and IT for development.

Eric Adom Asante

Eric Adom Asante is Assistant Professor at Lee Shau Kee School of Business and Administration, Hong Kong Metropolitan University, Hong Kong. He received his PhD from Lingnan University, Hong Kong. He is interested in vocational behavior and career development of entrepreneurs and employees. For entrepreneurs, he examines the entrepreneurial behaviors and outcomes of hybrid and aspiring entrepreneurs; for employees, he investigates the issues of job search and transition. He has published in reputable journals such as Journal of Business Research, Human Relations and Journal of Vocational Behavior.

Patrick Brobbey

Patrick Brobbey holds a PhD in African Studies, with a specialization in politics and public policy, from The University of Edinburgh. He is also an Independent Research and Evaluation Consultant. He has published on topics ranging from conflict, development, elections, institutional performance and public opinion formation.

Jun Ren

Jun Ren (PhD in psychology) is a full professor in positive psychology at the Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal University (ZJNU), Jinhua – China. He serves as a principal investigator (P I) on a number of key projects funded by The National Social Science Foundation of China. His research interests are mainly positive psychology and social cognition, and their applications. In his spare time, he likes to play table tennis and volleyball.