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The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically altered people's travel behaviors. This research, based upon a set of data that encompassed 16 months of the pandemic, looks at a significant US sample to determine, from a political perspective, who was most likely to travel at a time when the science and their government were suggesting they stay home. The results, extending prior research, found a strong relationship between political party affiliation and one's travel proclivity, with Republicans, the conservative American political party, far more likely to have indicated their likelihood to travel during the pandemic than were more liberal Democrats. The theories of Perceived Behavioral Control and Social Amplification of Risk are considered as concepts to help explain the differences between the two segments and serve as guides for the recommendations provided for travel marketing during future crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 50 USA states each approached the challenges of COVID-19 as they felt best for their people and their economy. This research evaluates the impacts of the decisions made by the individual states as this relates to their hospitality and tourism industry. As the title of this paper suggests, those states making the hard decision to impose strict restrictions often found their tourism industry to have suffered most during the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Letter updates and expands a study conducted during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. That study confirmed the applicability of Plog's model of Allocentricity and Psychocentricity within the context of the pandemic, as Allocentrics were found to be much more open to travel during the first 4 months of the pandemic, as the theory would predict. The current research, employing the identical survey instrument and research method, extended the data collection for an additional year as the pandemic evolved. This has allowed a far more extensive examination that confirmed and expanded the earlier findings, providing significant value to both academics and practitioners while again affirming the value of Plog's model for destination marketers during a period of crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2020 year-end holidays were a time of much apprehension regarding COVID-19, with U.S. health officials concerned that travel would result in a post-holiday surge of the disease. As such, much effort was expended encouraging people to forego their normal travel. Many Americans, however, ignored this advice and a strong uptick of travel within the U.S. was soon followed by an alarming increase in COVID cases. A U.S. online survey was conducted to better understand those individuals who made the risky decision to travel despite being encouraged by their government not to do so. Those who traveled for the holidays were compared with those who stayed home, based on their attitudes toward COVID, various psychographic characteristics associated with risk, political attitudes, and demographics. The between-group differences, shared herein, were startlingly clear. The findings are of theoretical value and will prove useful when setting policy and messaging during future crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourism and politics are symbiotic. This research, conducted before the impacts of COVID-19 were evident to most Americans, provides insight into the influence one's political persuasion has upon their view toward travel issues related to the disease. The key finding: political tribalism was highly evident, with Republicans, the more conservative USA political party, significantly more supportive of closing the country's borders to those visiting from places where the virus was apparent than were Democratic respondents. Republicans were also considerably less supportive of governmental financial support to hospitality and tourism providers negatively impacted by the then evolving pandemic. Documenting this early glimpse is valuable, helping us better prepare for similar episodes that may follow by depoliticizing actions that are based on health science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia has been the recipient of significant negative press as a result of the politics of Pauline Hanson and Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party, with the Singapore press routinely reporting stories of what are said to be One Nation's anti-Asian and racist policies. Despite this, Singapore, a key tourism origination market for Australia, has been held up by Australian tourism officials as a bright spot for Australian tourism among Asian nations. This paper presents an empirical analysis of the impact that the Australian political situation has had on Singaporean travel to Australia, and reports that, although visitor numbers have shown an increase, many tourists are choosing not to go 'down under' for their holidays, specifically in reaction to the perceived racial situation.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented many challenges to destinations. Even those with thoughtful and comprehensive crisis management plans likely have struggled to navigate this difficult period. This research, based upon an application of Plog's Model of Allocentricity and Psychocentricity and utilizing data collected during the early stages of the pandemic, provides insight regarding consumer attitudes toward vacation and VFR travel from early in the pandemic when no end to the crisis was in sight. The research provides strategic guidance to tourism marketers as they look for solutions during future challenging times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low response rates are pointed as a critical problem in online travel surveys. Tourism researchers need to strive to find ways to increase response rates in order to improve the surveys' coverage as well as representativeness. Through an experiment, this paper specifically examines the design factors that provide social clues in online survey, and the timing of the solicitation. The results indicated that solicitations sent with a researcher's Western name induced dramatically more responses (>60%) than did the same solicitation sent with a Chinese name; the attachment of an authoritative title for the Chinese researcher did not mitigate the problem; surveys sent out on Saturday with a reminder on Monday generated the highest response rate; among the variations tested, wording of the solicitation email's subject line had insignificant impact on response rates. Details of the experiment and an explanation of results based upon underlying social factors are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author presents an empirical analysis of the effects of Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party on Singaporean travel to Australia, and concludes that the increase in visitor numbers masks a reaction of many tourists to the perceived racial situation by deciding not to travel to Australia for their holidays

This research, conducted during the COVID‐19 pandemic, applied Stanley Plog's seminal tourism Model of Allocentricity and Psychocentricity and discovered surprising relationships between one's Plog classification and their political attitudes and travel behaviors during the crisis. Though expecting Plog's Allocentrics to have the more politically liberal views and Psychocentrics to be more conservative, we found the opposite to be true. Two previous datasets were revisited, each confirming the relationship. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This applied tourism research note considers employment growth and volatility in the hospitality industry, using hospitality, that is, lodging, as surrogate for the broader tourism economy. The research, with data collected prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, is relevant to communities concerned with balancing the economic opportunities presented by tourism development with the employment impacts of the industry. Findings suggest that employment trends in the industry are far from stable. Based on US data over a recent 5-year period, it was determined that hospitality employment was significantly more volatile than was the national economy. The industry's growth, however, significantly outpaced the broad economy. The research considers the implication of these findings, adding to the tourism economics academic literature while providing important insight for communities as they consider tourism as part of their future development plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research note considers the relationship between international travel experience and one's political views. The findings reveal that those who travel internationally have strongly differentiated views from those who do not, but that these are neither necessarily more liberal nor conservative than those who have not traveled abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We noted the sample's party distribution as a demographic characteristic, however, no analysis utilizing political party as a segmentation variable was conducted. Mr. McMahon's comment triggered the thought that it would be interesting to revisit our still fresh dataset to determine if political party affiliation was predictive of the residents' attitudes towards local tourism issues. On a macro-basis, based upon the two macro-policy questions, respondents provided answers one would expect based upon political party affiliation. Conclusion Summarizing the above, the results suggest, as Mr. McMahon indicated in his keynote speech, that attitudes towards local tourism issues are not politically dualistic and that people 'care more about the place they live than the [political] party they belong to'. [Extracted from the article]