The Impacts of Perceived Risks on Information Search and Risk Reduction Strategies: A Study of the Hotel Industry during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Yi-Wei Zhang, Jeong-Gil Choi and Armigon Ravshanovich Akhmedov
Additional contact information
Yi-Wei Zhang: Department of Hotel Management, Graduate School, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 02447, Korea
Jeong-Gil Choi: Department of Hotel Management, Graduate School, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 02447, Korea
Armigon Ravshanovich Akhmedov: Department of Hotel Management, Graduate School, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 02447, Korea

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 21, 1-17

Abstract: This study examined the impacts of perceived risks on information search and risk reduction strategies as well as the relative importance of each risk reduction strategy. Multiple regression analysis was applied to analyze the sample of South Korean hotel customers and to test the hypotheses of the study. It was found that when hotel customers faced the same kind of risk, they adopted different information search strategies to reduce various risks during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, ‘following hotel employee’s advice’ was perceived to be the most important information search strategy to reduce risks. This is the first study to compare the differences of perceived risk and information search strategies under the COVID-19 pandemic and normal conditions to help hotels to develop more effective strategies to recover from the pandemic. The results of the study should be interpreted with care since it was based on Korean hotel customers. The influence of cultural differences in perceived risk and information search strategy should be addressed in future studies. The study contributes to the tourism and hospitality information search and risk reduction strategy-related literature and recommends avenues for further research in the field.

Keywords: COVID-19; information searching; perceived risk; risk reduction strategy; flexible management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/21/12221/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/21/12221/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:21:p:12221-:d:672900

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().