There is No Place Like Home for the Holidays: Who Travels in the Midst of a Deadly Pandemic?

Abstract

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.

When, where, and with whom during crisis: The effect of risk perceptions and psychological distance on travel intentions

“…For example, people who perceive Covid-19 as more severe and believe they have a higher probability of being infected adopt preventative practices to reduce the risk (e.g., social distancing) ( Adunlin et al, 2021 ) and postpone their travel. In contrast, those who perceive Covid-19 as less severe, are more likely to travel immediately ( Zheng et al, 2021 ), even during the pandemic ( Litvin & Guttentag, 2022 ).…”

“…Still, different travel destinations experienced different phases of the pandemic simultaneously ( WHO, 2020 ). As a result, people's pandemic-related risk perceptions varied with their geographical location ( Zhang et al, 2020 ), time and stage of the pandemic ( Litvin & Guttentag, 2022 ; Ren et al, 2022 ). In this study, we look at different risk perceptions involved in travel-related decision making during the pandemic: perceived risk of Covid-19 and perceived risk at destination .…”

Fear and travel: extending our understanding of pandemic (non-) travel

“…All differences between the segments were significantly different at p < 0.05. A Pearson correlation [r(5729) ¼ 0.27, p < 0.001] using the above variables over the full 16-month data collection period confirmed their linear relationship Source: Created by authors Those fearful of the pandemic generally chose not to travel, likely believingas they were told to believethat travel was dangerous and unwise (Litvin and Guttentag, 2023). Further, it would seem for many that nontravel was a pandemic coping strategy, giving up something enjoyable in exchange for the peace-of-mind that would come from staying safe, and doing what they felt to be the right thing.…”

“…Relating the above findings to the literature, it is evident that individuals acted as the Protection Motivation Theory and the Planned–Protection–Motivation model would predict. Those fearful of the pandemic generally chose not to travel, likely believing – as they were told to believe – that travel was dangerous and unwise (Litvin and Guttentag, 2023). Further, it would seem for many that nontravel was a pandemic coping strategy, giving up something enjoyable in exchange for the peace-of-mind that would come from staying safe, and doing what they felt to be the right thing.…”

Risk, Trust, and the Roles of Human Versus Virtual Influencers

“…Furthermore, although research has highlighted the significance of life satisfaction (Chen, Petrick, & Shahvali, 2016; Yu et al, 2021) and optimism (Garcês et al, 2018) in tourism, in general, it has ignored how these two traits may affect tourists’ decision making and their perceptions of trust and risk. The existing research recognizes that psychographic traits play a significant role in tourists’ decision making (e.g., Litvin & Guttentag, 2023; Tasci et al, 2022). For example, belief in fate risk taking, sensation seeking, convenience seeking, and customer innovativeness have been used to study tourists’ decision making (Litvin & Guttentag, 2023; Mahrous & Hassan, 2017).…”