An Exploratory Study of Consumers’ Travel-Related Concerns About COVID-19

Wenqi Wei () and Irem Önder ()
Additional contact information
Wenqi Wei: University of Massachusetts
Irem Önder: University of Massachusetts

A chapter in Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2022, 2022, pp 245-255 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This study explores consumers’ travel-related concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic via YouTube comments. Drawing on the risk perception theory and adopting a Markov Chain approach, this study demonstrates the topics that consumers discussed and empirically illustrates perceived risk in the tourism and hospitality industry via sentiment analysis across four sectors: recreation and entertainment, accommodation, transportation, and food and beverages. Results indicate discussion regarding travel-related videos is not only limited to travel-related topics but also includes a broad perspective of social, political, and historical topics. For instance, hotels have a new function as quarantine facilities with effective disease control procedures and social responsibility for public health. Additionally, health, performance, financial, social, and psychological risks are identified. Whereas the presence of travelers is typically regarded as positive, travelers during the crisis are regarded as “irresponsible” and “selfish” individuals who spread the virus and endanger public health. This shift of perception calls for both the industry and academia at large to educate people about the importance of disease control and rebuild travelers’ image and reputation. Recommendations to reduce the perceived risk in each sector are also provided.

Keywords: Risk perception; Sentiment analysis; Markov chain; YouTube comments; User-generated content (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:spr:sprchp:978-3-030-94751-4_22

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783030947514

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-94751-4_22

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().