Subjective knowledge and health consciousness influences on health tourism intention after the COVID-19 pandemic: A prospective study

Abstract

We aimed to predict health tourism intention after the COVID-19 pandemic, which has made people more cautious about their health status. Our study participants comprised 369 people from Chengdu, China, who completed an online survey on health consciousness, subjective knowledge, perceived usefulness of health tourism, perceived behaviour control, and health tourism intention with COVID-19 mitigation measures (females = 218; age range = 18 to more than 65 years). We utilised hierarchical multiple regression and Structure Equation Modelling to predict health tourism intention from perceived usefulness of health tourism and perceived behaviour control. The results revealed that health consciousness and subjective knowledge predicted perceived usefulness of health tourism while perceived usefulness of health tourism predicted health tourism intention. Perceived behaviour control mediated the relationship between perceived usefulness of health tourism and health tourism intention partially. These findings suggest that people’s tourism intention under the COVID-19 mitigation appears to be influenced by how they perceive the usefulness of health tourism, based on their subjective knowledge and health consciousness.

Keywords:

• COVID-19 pandemic
• health consciousness
• health tourism
• perceived usefulness of health tourism
• subjective knowledge

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funder had no role in the design of this study; in data collection, analysis, or interpretation; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Author contributions

Conceptualisation, B.P. and F.D.; formal analysis, B.P.; investigation, B.P., F.D., and L.Z.; data curation, B.P. and F.D.; writing-original draft preparation, B.P., F.D. and L.Z.; writing-review and editing, B.P., F.D and L.Z.; funding acquisi- tion, B.P.; supervision, B.P. and Y. Q.

Additional information

Funding

This research was a project funded by “National Natural Science Foundation of China, grant number 71804119”, “China Postdoctoral Science Foundation, grant number 2019M663482”, “Research Center for Economy of Upper Reaches of the Yangtse River, Chongqing Technology and Business University (Key research basement of Humanities and social sciences of Ministry of Education, China), grant number KT2017014” and “Research Foundation of Education Bureau of Sichuan Province, China, grant number 18SB0526”.