Travel risk perceptions and behavior in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic 2021: a cluster analysis.

This paper discusses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism destinations in Uruguay by exploring travel behavior. Through a survey carried out between DEC2020 and JAN2021, the study reveals that despite the pandemic, the desire for holiday tourism remained. The empirical results show that, despite the fact that the vast majority have a high perception of the risk of COVID-19, there are differentiated behaviors regarding the decisions to travel and the health measures to be taken. Depending on their socio-demographic characteristics, respondents behave differently when faced with risk, and the study identifies groups more willing to travel within the country and abroad in times of a pandemic, compared to others that are more moderate and cautious about risking travel. Due to the absence of visitor databases, this sample is based on the convenience sampling method and is composed of individuals engaged or interested in Uruguay as a destination. Although this research does not allow for extensions or extrapolations to a wider set of respondents, it does provide relevant demand-side information to tourism service providers in Uruguay, such as how to shape services and products to respond to the level of risk shown by this study. Moreover, the special period in which the survey was administered, coinciding with the implementation of measures by the Uruguayan government to manage the pandemic, could on the one hand be considered a bias in the analysis, but on the other hand it sheds light on the influence of these measures on demand behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]