Impacts of COVID-19 on Chinese nationals' tourism preferences

Songshan Sam Huang; Yuhong Shao; Ying Zeng; Xinyi Liu; Zhiyong Li

doi:10.1016/j.tmp.2021.100895

Impacts of COVID-19 on Chinese nationals' tourism preferences

Tour Manag Perspect. 2021 Oct:40:100895. doi: 10.1016/j.tmp.2021.100895. Epub 2021 Oct 8.

Authors

Songshan Sam Huang¹, Yuhong Shao², Ying Zeng², Xinyi Liu², Zhiyong Li²

Affiliations

¹ School of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia.
² School of Tourism, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.

Abstract

This paper examines the impacts of COVID-19 on Chinese nationals' tourism preferences. Employing a mixed-method research design, two rounds of nation-wide online surveys were conducted, one in February 2020 when COVID-19 cases started to peak in China and another one in June 2020 when COVID-19 was a global pandemic; both survey studies were accompanied with semi-structured in-depth interviews and altogether 37 interviews were conducted in two stages. Based on both quantitative survey data and qualitative interview data, the research identified that: 1) COVID-19 significantly reduced Chinese nationals' preferences to travel to countries with high infection numbers, and geographically faraway, administratively and culturally distant outbound destinations; 2) Chinese nationals reduced their preferences in all travel modes and most of the tourism forms, but most of them would prefer nature-based, rural, and cultural destinations after COVID-19; and 3) shortened trips in short travel distance are preferred after COVID-19. The findings offer rich insights and practical implications for governments, industry organisations, and tourism operators to formulate tourism recovery strategies toward Chinese tourists.

Keywords: COVID-19; Chinese tourist; Outbound travel; Tourist psychology; Travel preference.