COVID-19 and Tourism: Analyzing the Effects of COVID-19 Statistics and Media Coverage on Attitudes toward Tourism

Abstract

COVID-19 has significantly influenced tourism, including tourists’ and residents’ attitudes toward tourism. At the same time, attitudes and consumer confidence are important for economic recovery in the tourism sector. This study explores the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on people’s attitudes toward tourism by analyzing time-series data on the number of COVID-19 positive cases, vaccinations, news sentiment, a total number of daily mentions of tourism, and the share of voice for positive and negative sentiment toward tourism. The applied data analysis techniques include descriptive analysis, visual representation of data, data decomposition into trend and cycle components, unit root tests, Granger causality test, and multiple time series regression. The results demonstrate that the COVID-19 statistics and media coverage have significant effects on interest in tourism in general, as well as the positive and negative sentiment toward tourism. The results contribute to knowledge and practice by describing the effects of the disease statistics on attitudes toward tourism, introducing social media sentiment analysis as an opportunity to measure positive and negative sentiment toward tourism, and providing recommendations for government authorities, destination management organizations, and tourism providers.

Financial performance of selected hotel groups and resorts during COVID-19 pandemic: 2019/2020 comparison

“…An epidemic or pandemic is not a new occurrence. There have been multiple infectious disease crises like SARS or MERS in the past, which impeded tourism activities and hotel operations (Godovykh et al, 2021). However, it could be argued that they did not have adverse effects on global tourism activities and international travel.…”

COVID-19 Pandemic and Local Cultural Tourism in the Buzău Carpathians and Subcarpathians (Romania)

“…Most of the world’s markets were faced with pandemic-related hardships, the scale of this crisis and its devastating effects on operations, employees and customers being unmatched by previous crises [ 17 , 18 ]. After the pandemic spread across the globe, its intensification and the related consequences have become dependent on a wider variety of factors, generating a system of complex interrelationships [ 19 ].…”

“…In 2021, tourism experienced a 4% increase (i.e.,15 million more international tourist arrivals compared to 2020), but the international arrivals were still 72% below the pre-pandemic level of 2019 [ 42 ]. The health risk has become an important factor impacting tourists’ behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic [ 17 , 44 , 45 ]. COVID-19 can be regarded as a health hazard for tourism, and the consumer’s perception of risk would be higher during a pandemic [ 46 ], having the strongest effect on a person’s intention to travel [ 47 ].…”

“…There are multiple factors which influence a host community, such as the level of concern displayed by the community, its involvement in tourism, the community’s level of attachment, the development level of the local economy, the economic and social benefits, and the socio-cultural costs [ 50 ]. The perception of positive or negative impacts within the resident communities depends on the demographic factors (e.g., age, gender, income, education, location) [ 17 ]. Regardless of the economic benefits that tourists may bring, residents have expressed their concerns about the health risks that would accompany the arrival of tourists [ 51 ].…”

“…Despite the fact that the Romanian territory has a rich and valuable heritage potential with tourist attractions included on the map of European cultural routes [ 54 ], the country offers a great variety of cultural heritage to travellers in a short time, such as Byzantine churches, roman basilicas, gothic cathedrals, Turkish mosques, Greek fortresses, cubist or 1900’s style buildings [ 55 , 56 ], the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic were significant. In Romania, the patient zero infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus was found on 26 February 2020 and one year later, on 24 February 2021, there were 788,048 cases of people infected with COVID-19 declared (the real numbers likely far surpass this figure due to insufficient testing [ 3 , 17 ]), 731,049 patients had been cured, and 20,287 were deceased. For the tourism industry, the year 2020, the most atypical year in the history of Romanian tourism, was full of trials and challenges [ 57 ].…”