Family support and posttraumatic growth among tourism workers during the COVID-19 shutdown: The role of positive stress mindset

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a severe hit on the health of workers in the tourism industry. It is crucial to understand how to help the workforce in this service industry become resilient and adaptive through this crisis. The primary objective of this research is to examine how family support nurtures tourism workers' posttraumatic growth (PTG), an adaptation form in the resilience process. The valid data were collected from 384 tourism workers who were on unpaid leave or layoff during the COVID-19 crisis. The results demonstrated the positive relationship between family support and tourism workers' PTG, for which positive stress mindset was identified as a mediation mechanism. Deliberate and intrusive ruminative thinking styles moderated the effect of family support on positive stress mindset. Theoretical and practical implications of the mechanisms through which family support promotes tourism workers’ PTG are discussed.

COVID-19 Related Stress and Mental Health Outcomes 1 Year After the Peak of the Pandemic Outbreak in China: the Mediating Effect of Resilience and Social Support

“…It can serve as a buffer to the severity of the traumatic events and foster people's recovery from the difficulties (27). As a coping resource, empirical studies indicated that a higher level of support from family, friends, and significant others would predict a higher level of post-traumatic growth under the context of the COVID-19 pandemic (28)(29)(30). Meanwhile, perceived social support works as a protective factor in reducing depression and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic (31,32).…”

Business Shifting During the Outbreak; Impulsive or Contrived? Generation Cohort Perspective

“…People across generation, X, Y, Z have high intensity with smartphone even for increasing productivity (remote work) or personal matter such as entertainment particularly during this outbreak to keep themselves busy and distract their tense about COVID-19 threats. The previous studies found that people tend to distress during the outbreak with negative emotion such as feeling angry, easily get bored, laziness etc (Kimhi et al, 2020;Luu, 2022). However, there is a question whether they can cope the emotional damage with technology.…”

The Impacts of Environmental Dynamism on Chinese Tour Guides’ Sustainable Performance: Factors Related to Vitality, Positive Stress Mindset and Supportive Policy

“…Tourism workers are the most directly affected because of the closure of tourism. They are faced with unpaid leave or dismissal during the crisis period [ 3 ]. Being frontline employees and always playing multiple roles during the journey, tour guides are an important part of the tourism industry in China, where organized tours still enjoy great popularity [ 4 ].…”

“…The literature about the effects of COVID-19 on psychological behavior and employee performance in the hospitality industry remains scant [ 11 ]. It is unclear what kinds of impacts have been composed on tour guides’ physical and mental well-being, as well as their sustainable performance [ 3 ].…”

“…Stress is often seen as negative and destructive, while the individual mindset towards stress can influence their response to stress [ 19 ]. A stress mindset refers to an employee’s view of how stress affects their life and how to respond to it [ 3 ]. A positive stress mindset is the extent to which employees hold the mindset that stress can be a source of personal growth, well-being and performance [ 55 ].…”