EXPLORING THE INFLUENCING FACTORS OF TOURISTS’ TRAVEL ANXIETY AND THE RELATIONSHIP WITH TRAVEL RESILIENCE

Abstract

There is widespread concern that the outbreak of the infectious diseases has brought great changes to people's lives, and various industries have been affected to varying degrees. Tourism industry has suffered a huge impact because the development of the global tourism industry has stagnated. Evidence tells us that the development of tourism industry is often encountered a threat of infectious diseases. In that case, this paper aims to investigate the influencing factors of tourists’ travel anxiety and the relationship with travel resilience under the real-time infectious diseases and elaborate what lessons from infectious diseases are an opportunity to better developing a city or region’s tourism industry. Given the enormous scale of travel mobility for tourism, this case study was conducted in Greater Bay Area which represents the most dynamic place in China. The formal questionnaires were distributed in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Zhuhai which are the main cities in Greater Bay Area in China. A total of 650 questionnaires were distributed and convenient sampling was applied in this research. The results show that tourists’ cognitive and affective risks related to the infectious diseases and travel anxiety is indirectly related to travel resilience, while personal non-pharmaceutical intervention completely mediates the relationship between travel anxiety and travel resilience. The lessons provide key insights to local government and tourism stakeholders regarding how to maintain sustainable tourism development under crisis of infectious diseases.