Exploring the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the perceptions and sentiments of tourism employees: evidence from a small island tourism economy in the Caribbean

Abstract

PurposeBuilding on tourism crisis studies and behavioral economics, this study describes a national survey conducted among 439 Aruban tourism and nontourism employees.Design/methodology/approachRegression analysis was subsequently conducted to analyze the relationship between experienced well-being, crisis duration and tourism and nontourism employee sentiments.FindingsThe findings indicate that tourism employee sentiments are generally, and significantly, more negative and their concerns about the future are significantly more pessimistic than nontourism employees. The results show that the experienced well-being and expected duration of the COVID-19 crisis have a significant negative effect on tourism employees' sentiments. The paper provides several policies and industry recommendations for strengthening tourism employee well-being and economic resilience. Several avenues for future research are presented.Originality/valueThe current study contributes to this literature by showing that the increased pessimism and negativity of the tourism employees as compared to nontourism employees during the current pandemic influence their thoughts about future income and earnings as well as future purchases.

Evaluating the Resilience of Human Resources Practices in Travel Agencies During Covid-19 Pandemic

“…The COVID-19 (declared as a pandemic by WHO, 12 March 2020) significantly impacts the global economic, political, and socio-cultural systems (Peterson and DiPietro, 2021). Health communication strategies and measures (e.g.…”

Island Tourism-Based Sustainable Development at a Crossroads: Facing the Challenges of the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Current analyses and discussions on what the future holds for island tourism development and possible tourism paradigm shifts are obviously mostly tentative and speculative. The conclusion of most such research is that, taking into account the effects of the pandemic, climate change, the negative impacts of unsustainable island tourism development, and the need to improve islands' resilience in the face of crises, islands need to focus on developing a greener and more sustainable island tourism [45,49], on domestic tourism [50,51], on developing alternative, nature-based types of tourism experiences [51,52], and on economic diversification [52,53].…”

A Study on the Current Impact on Island Tourism Development under COVID-19 Epidemic Environment and Infection Risk: A Case Study of Penghu

“…However, decisions and developments can still have both positive and negative effects. Therefore, we analyzed the current situation of tourism development in the island during the COVID-19 epidemic environment with risks of infection in terms of economic [1,11,29,30], social [1,38,39], and environmental [14,16,23,41] aspects and from the perspective of different stakeholders by referring to the results of national studies in the literature and the theoretical framework of related studies [1,14,21]. The research framework is shown in Figure 2.…”

“…The Cronbach's alpha for the three scales was 0.927, 0.925, and 0.933, respectively, which indicated that the scales had high reliability and could be used for further study. Based on the literature [14][15][16]30,39], an 11-question social dimension questionnaire was developed. The analysis revealed that it had a KMO value > 0.932, a Bartlett's approximate χ 2 value of 4107.088, a degree of freedom (df) of 55, and a significance of 0.000 (p < 0.001), making it suitable for factor analysis.…”

“…Before a vaccine can completely stop the virus, government agencies and scholars around the world are trying to find solutions to mitigate or ameliorate the negative effects of the virus [24][25][26]. According to the literature review, in recent years, scholars have explored many different issues regarding the impact of the epidemic on tourist areas [10][11][12][13][14][15]27,28], including investigating the impact of tourism in island areas [29,30] and studying tourism in the Penghu Islands [31]. However, the impact of the epidemic on the tourism industry of the Penghu Islands has not been investigated.…”