Search results

Since the first moment of the pandemic, national and international travel restrictions are in place to reduce human mobility. This actual situation makes the tourism industry one of the areas most affected by the pandemic. Many microeconomic factors (households and firms) were adversely affected by the pandemic, and this situation brought about macroeconomic contraction. Naturally, governments seek to sustain production and employment by offering financial packages to reduce the negative economic effects of the pandemic. Given such information, the study aims to examine the financial policies implemented by countries to support the tourism industry during the pandemic period.

Content analysis, which is a technique of qualitative research method, was applied in the analysis process of the data. Assessments were made based on data published by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) on the financial and monetary policies implemented by countries to support the tourism industry. The data were analyzed using the MAXQDA qualitative analysis program.

According to the results of the study, countries support the tourism industry financially in terms of credit and liquidity. Also, tourism investments are encouraged by tax breaks and low interest rates.

It is aimed to determine what issues the financial and monetary policies published by the UNWTO focus on to solve the problems in the tourism sector. In this way, it is thought that the study will reveal the problems experienced by tourism enterprises during the pandemic period with a holistic perspective.

This study aims to investigate the effect of tourists' anxiety levels regarding pandemic on their intention to travel and intention to destination visit as a reflection of risk perception.

This study employed a quantitative research design. Multivariate statistical methods were used because they predict cause and effect relationships. The data collection process was completed in 32 days between March 20 and April 20, 2020. Smart-PLS software was used for data analysis.

According to the study results, the level of concern tourists have about the COVID-19 outbreak directly affected their intention to travel and indirectly affected their intention to visit destinations.

According to the results of the study, people's anxiety levels about COVID-19 will negatively affect their travel behavior after the pandemic. Such results suggest that when potential travelers' pandemic-induced anxiety levels increase, their travel intention after the pandemic will decrease. In addition, there is a positive relationship between people's intention to travel and post-COVID-19 touristic visit intentions. Therefore, as people's travel intentions increase, so do their destination visit intentions. Another important theoretical implication of this research is that people's pandemic-induced anxiety levels have been shown to negatively affect their destination visit intention through the mediating variable of travel intention.

A multidimensional and stakeholder engagement process needs to be followed to decrease the influences of the pandemic on destinations. Destination management organizations (DMOs) can take an active role in crisis periods to encourage stakeholder participation while attracting tourism demand in the post-COVID-19 era.

This study is important for its topical relevance and for providing specific theoretical and practical implications concerning tourists' travel behavior.

This study examines the relationship of COVID-19 with the tourism industry in the context of news coverage. More specifically, this study analyzes the relationship between COVID-19 and subsectors of tourism throughout different periods of the pandemic.

Qualitative research techniques were applied, and content analysis used, to analyze the collected data. The news contents obtained cover two one-week periods: March 5–12, 2020, and April 5–12, 2020. The content analysis method and MAXQDA program were used to analyze the data.

The research findings reveal that tourism and news related to COVID-19 were heavily connected with the travel industry during March 5–12, 2020, with concentrations slightly favoring the hospitality industry. In the period of April 5–12, 2020, the strong relationship between tourism and travel continued. During the latter period, the hospitality and the events industries were both subjects of relevant news.

This study examined the news during a short period of time. In addition, the sample of the study does not represent all news in all media. Examining different media outlets and different news cycles may produce different results.

This is one of the first studies to examine the relationship between the pandemic and the tourism industry from a macro perspective in the context of news coverage. The study provides implications for policy-makers, tourism planners and industry.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which appeared in China in late 2019, has affected the world psychologically, socially and economically in 2020. Tourism is one of the areas where the effects of COVID-19 have been felt most clearly. The study aims to determine the effect of negative problem orientation (NPO) and perceived risk related to the COVID-19 pandemic on travel and destination visit intention.

This study employed a convenience and probabilistic sampling method for collecting data from 531 respondents using an online questionnaire. Partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used for testing research model.

According to the findings, NPO and perceived risk related to the pandemic were found to have direct and indirect effects on the travel behavior of tourists. The results of this research provide theoretical and practical implications for hospitality and travel businesses on topics such as the psychological effects of the pandemic and the travel behaviors of tourists.

It is estimated that the pandemic will also affect tourist behavior due to its effects on human psychology. For this reason, a study conducted in the context of tourist behavior theories is expected to contribute to the literature, managers and future of the tourism.

Health-care tourism has become a major industry in the past decade. Following the increasing activity in health-care tourism, the decision-making process of consumers in choosing an international health-care facility has become increasingly important to the related parties. The present study aims to offer a holistic model of international health-care facility choice that incorporates the important dimensions by assessing the growth drivers and the alternative factors proposed in the literature and by validating them via a survey study.

The factors deemed important in the existing literature were used as the basis of a study in Turkey. In total, 65 structured interviews were conducted with health-care professionals and international health tourists to understand the perspective of the two important parties that affect policymaking.

The findings of the study support the significance of the majority of the variables proposed as important factors affecting international health-care facility choice.

The study was carried out in four large hospital chains in Turkey; however, this creates a limitation in scope and may have limited representativeness of the overall market. The model has yet to be tested on a larger scale.

There are significant differences in the opinions of professionals and international health-care tourists in terms of choice criteria. This indicates problems with health professionals’ understanding of the consumer decision process.

The study provides a model that can be used to gain insights on the consumer decision process and also provides the policymakers and stakeholders of the international health-care industry with a sound theoretical foundation to build further studies upon. Only a limited number of studies was carried out in Turkey that focus on international health-care tourism, and the present study will fill a substantial research gap.

It is understood that the personality traits and intelligence levels of the tourist guides directly or indirectly affect their ability to solve the problems they encounter on tours. This study aims to test whether emotional intelligence has an intermediary effect on the problem-solving skills of professional tourist guides with perfectionist personality traits.

Field research was conducted within the study to analyze suggestions on the interaction of variables on an empirical basis, and data were collected using interview, document review and survey technique. Thus, the mixed-methods approach was used in the study. Within the scope of this study in which 410 professional tourist guides were surveyed, a substantial part of the research data was obtained through the application of the survey technique. Besides, interviews were carried out with 12 professional tourist guides. The clues obtained by the qualitative study were transformed into hypotheses within the scope of the quantitative study, and the intermediary effect was tested.

A relationship between the main themes, sub-themes and codes was determined within the framework of the qualitative method. As a result of the mediation test, it has been revealed that emotional intelligence has an intermediary role in the relationship between perfectionism and problem-solving skills. According to the results of bootstrapping, the indirect effect of emotional intelligence on perfectionism and problem-solving skills was found out to be significant.

The study acknowledged that positive perfectionism, high emotional intelligence and problem-solving skills contributed to the professional tourist guides being willing to provide better service. In tune with the assumption that the more the quality of the tours carried out through agencies increases, the more satisfied tourists are; the study implicated that it would be advisable for agencies to prioritize the trainings provided for their tour guides to enhance their positive perfectionist, emotionally intelligent personalities and problem-solving skills. Given that professional tourist guides may create a positive country image with the quality service they provide, the significance of such trainings stretch beyond the benefits of such organizations.

Relevant variables were analyzed with a mixed method and applied on professional tourist guides.