Tourism under the Early Phase of COVID-19 in Four APEC Economies: An Estimation with Special Focus on SARS Experiences

Abstract

This study examines how experience of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) influences the impact of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on international tourism demand for four Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, and New Zealand, over the 1 January–30 April 2020 period. To proceed, panel regression models are first applied with a time-lag effect to estimate the general effects of COVID-19 on daily tourist arrivals. In turn, the data set is decomposed into two nation groups and fixed effects models are employed for addressing the comparison of the pandemic-tourism relationship between economies with and without experiences of the SARS epidemic. Specifically, Taiwan and Hong Kong are grouped as economies with SARS experiences, while Thailand and New Zealand are grouped as countries without experiences of SARS. The estimation result indicates that the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has a significant negative impact on tourism demand, in which a 1% COVID-19 case increase causes a 0.075% decline in tourist arrivals, which is a decline of approximately 110 arrivals for every additional person infected by the coronavirus. The negative impact of COVID-19 on tourist arrivals for Thailand and New Zealand is found much stronger than for Taiwan and Hong Kong. In particular, the number of tourist arrivals to Taiwan and Hong Kong decreased by 0.034% in response to a 1% increase in COVID-19 confirmed cases, while in Thailand and New Zealand, a 1% national confirmed cases increase caused a 0.103% reduction in tourism demand. Moreover, the effect of the number of domestic cases on international tourism is found lower than the effect caused by global COVID-19 mortality for the economies with SARS experiences. In contrast, tourist arrivals are majorly affected by the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Thailand and New Zealand. Finally, travel restriction in all cases is found to be the most influencing factor for the number of tourist arrivals. Besides contributing to the existing literature focusing on the knowledge regarding the nexus between tourism and COVID-19, the paper’s findings also highlight the importance of risk perception and the need of transmission prevention and control of the epidemic for the tourism sector.

The Impact of a Global Crisis on Areas and Topics of Tourism Research

“…Support domestic and regional tourism Adopt tax reduction measures for domestic tourism; provide digital coupons to support tourism; reduce dependence on long-distance tourists and support regional and VFR (visiting friends and relatives) tourism [18,22,23] Restore market confidence Use big data to investigate the perception of tourists; ensure the safety of destination travel [22,24,25] Carry out intergovernmental cooperation Establish common standards and sanitation agreements between governments, and set up international safe tourism border areas [21,26] Redefine community-based tourism Redefine and reposition the tourism industry according to the rights and interests of local people; ensure the participation of indigenous people and protect their right to know; incorporate indigenous values into national tourism policy planning [18,27]…”

“…These safety measures are designed to protect tourists, tourism industry workers, and local communities. Tran et al [24] proposed that the government should use big data to investigate the perception of tourists and ensure the safety of travel in the destination.…”

COVID-19 and the Pandemic's Spatio-Temporal Impact on Tourism Demand in Bavaria (Germany)

“…It is also noticeable that in addition to case studies and conceptual studies, there are numerous editorials and commentaries (e.g., Aalbers et al, 2020;Chang et al, 2020;Haywood, 2020;Jones & Comfort, 2020) addressing the topic of the COVID-19 pandemic and -in part with a normative orientation -linking it with concepts such as sustainability, resilience, and transformation processes. A series of papers also contain an overview or an overall review of the literature on the subject (e.g., Chen et al, 2020;Falk et al, 2020;Nasir et al, 2020), which, however, can only ever be viewed as a snapshot of the current situation.…”

International Tourism Development in the Context of Increasing Globalization Risks: On the Example of Ukraine’s Integration into the Global Tourism Industry

“…In their research, Lukianenko et al (2019) present their individual view on the impact of globalization, internalization, and transnationalization on developing international tourism industry, substantiating the specificity of institutional transformations, caused by scale, structural, and other changes in the global economy. Such scholars as Tran et al (2020) and Rodríguez-Antón and del Mar Alonso-Almeida (2020) dealt with the issues of developing international tourism under conditions of COVID-19 global pandemic. The crisis due to quarantine restrictions has forced the tourism business to step out of its comfort zone and look for innovative ways to develop and operate.…”