Travel behaviour after the pandemic: the case of Bulgaria

ABSTRACT

The paper analyses the travel intentions of tourists in the post-pandemic world. The sample includes 974 respondents from Bulgaria. The findings show that most of the respondents are ready to travel within 2 months after travel is allowed in the country. For their first trip, respondents will travel in the country, by their car and with their family. Hygiene, disinfection and reliable health system in a destination will be the leading factors in travellers’ decisions, according to the findings. Women and older respondents have higher health and safety preferences than do men and younger respondents.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• travel behaviour
• pandemic
• bulgaria

Acknowledgments

None

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Authors’ contributions

Maya Ivanova: Supervision, Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – Original Draft. Ivan Krasimirov Ivanov: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation (Data collection). Stanislav Ivanov: Formal analysis, Writing – Review & Editing.

Additional information

Funding

None

Notes on contributors

Maya Ivanova

Maya Ivanova is an Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Tourism at Varna University of Management, Bulgaria (http://www.vum.bg), and CEO of the consulting company Zangador Ltd. (http://www.zangador.eu). Her research interests include tourism and hospitality management, air transport, tourism intermediaries, platform economy. She has published in journals such as Annals of Tourism Research, Tourism Management Perspectives, International Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Administration, Tourism, and Anatolia.

Ivan Krasimirov Ivanov

Ivan Ivanov is a Bachelor student in International Hospitality Management at Varna University of Management, Bulgaria.

Stanislav Ivanov

Stanislav Ivanov is Professor and Vice Rector (Research) at Varna University of Management, Bulgaria. Prof. Ivanov is the Founder and Editor-in-chief of two academic journals: European Journal of Tourism Research (http://ejtr.vumk.eu) and ROBONOMICS: The Journal of the Automated Economy (https://journal.robonomics.science). His research interests include robonomics, robots in tourism/hospitality, the economics of technology, revenue management, etc. For more information, please visit his personal website: http://www.stanislavivanov.com