Travel desire over intention in pandemic times

Abstract

Research highlights:

• We challenge the construct of Travel Intention that was critically complicated by the context of COVID-19 ;

• We highlight the relevance of cognitive-emotional travel constructs amid Covid-19 ;

• We empirically validate Travel Intention, Desire (Craving) and Vaccine Confidence ;

• Travel Intention, unlike Travel Craving, has no relationship with Vaccine Confidence ;

• We discuss implications for theory and marketing and communication strategies.

Full text

Annals of Tourism Research Empirical Insights 3 (2022) 100051
2666-9579/© 2022 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Travel desire over intention in pandemic times
Giancarlo Fedeli
a
,
*
, Thi Hong Hai Nguyen
b
, Nigel L. Williams
c
, Giacomo Del Chiappa
d
,
Philipp Wassler
e
a
Department of Business; Institute of Tourism, Wine Business and Marketing. IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems, A-3500 Krems an der Donau, Austria
b
Department of Marketing, Events and Tourism, Business School University of Greenwich Old Royal Naval College, Park Row, London SE10 9LS, UK
c
Operations and Systems Management, University of Portsmouth, Richmond Building, Portland Street, PO1 3DE, UK
d
Department of Economics and Business, University of Sassari, Via Muroni, 25 07100 Sassari (SS), Italy
e
Department of Management, University of Bergamo, Italy
ARTICLE INFO
Keywords:
Travel intention
Travel desire
Travel craving
COVID-19 vaccine condence
1. Introduction
Travel intention refers to the likelihood and commitment towards
the idea to travel, and it is inuenced by attitudinal as well as practical
factors (e.g., budget limits, time availability, etc.) (S¨
onmez & Graefe,
1998). Discerning motivation and intention is vital to understanding the
consumer decisions in the context of tourism where emotions lie at the
core of the consumer decision-making process (Walters & Li, 2018).
Research into the motivations of travel decisions dates back several
decades with Crompton (1979) emphasizing socio-psychological needs.
However, in the specic context of the COVID-19 pandemic, structural
constraints in the form of travel restrictions act as non-negotiable bar-
riers to tourism that cannot be adjusted despite interest or commitment.
Due to the nature of tourism, there are many inherent risks and un-
certainties since experiences are intangible co-created outcomes with a
number of tacit elements that can result in concerns about communi-
cation, accessibility and physical risks (Khan, Chelliah, Khan, & Amin,
2019). A subset of the latter, health risks has received signicantly more
attention in the current COVID-19 pandemic (Isaac & Keijzer, 2021).
Following the outbreak of the pandemic, several studies have considered
travel risk perception affecting intentions of travelers (e.g., Neuburger &
Egger, 2021), highlighting not only differences and behavioural patterns
across regions and at different points in time, but also suggesting ways to
mitigate the effects of perceived risk (Matiza, 2020). (See Table 1.)
At the early stage of the pandemic in particular, potential travelers
were not able to dene travel goals due to, in addition to the health risks,
travel disruption caused by the differing responses of countries to their
levels of infections and mortality. As the pandemic continued, its severe
toll at destinations worldwide may have shaped future behavioural in-
tentions, with some tourists indenitely postponing travel (Matiza &
Kruger, 2021). For others, researchers have theorized that lockdown
restrictions and travel constraints may result in compensatory con-
sumption behaviour, including loss of autonomy and health risks that
may encourage the willingness to engage in social and hedonic behav-
iour (Zhang, Lingyi, Peixue, Lu, & Zhang, 2021). This is in line with
previous research suggesting that although epidemics tend to result in
intense periods of privation that hinder many people from travelling,
their impact is rather transitory as a strong, concomitant stimulus to
travel is noted within the rst two years since the end of the event
(McKercher, 2021). However, COVID-19 represents quite a unique
context given the scale of its aftermath.
For researchers seeking to examine travel behaviour in an evolving
crisis scenario, these multiple perspectives pose a dilemma. Due to the
unstable environment with new COVID-19 variants resulting in new
structural constraints and misinformation threats posed by the blurring
of a multitude of sources (Fedeli, 2020), individuals may not be able to
clearly convey a denitive intention to undertake travelling. A study by
Li, Nguyen, and Coca-Stefaniak (2021) revealed the gap between travel
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: giancarlo.fedeli@fh-krems.ac.at (G. Fedeli), t.h.h.nguyen@greenwich.ac.uk (T.H.H. Nguyen), Nigel.Williams@port.ac.uk (N.L. Williams),
gdelchiappa@uniss.it (G. Del Chiappa), philipp.wassler@unibg.it (P. Wassler).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Annals of Tourism Research Empirical Insights
journal homepage: www.sciencedirect.com/journal/annals-of-tourism-research-empirical-insights
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annale.2022.100051
Received 20 October 2021; Received in revised form 8 May 2022; Accepted 10 May 2022

Annals of Tourism Research Empirical Insights 3 (2022) 100051
2
intention and actual travel behaviour in the context of China, indicating
intention may not lead to actual travel, especially in the uncertainty of
the pandemic. Motivated by extant research introducing the concept of
travel craving (Mitev & Irimi´
as, 2020) dened as “… a cognitive-
emotional event with aversive or incentive properties” to engage in
travelling activities in a context of suppressed desire for reasons beyond
one's control, we argue that the traveler's craving may represent a valid
theoretical construct as a critical component of the behavioural inten-
tion process in light of the current health crisis. Further, given the latent
relevance of COVID-19 vaccination towards the intention to travel as
highlighted in a number of studies (Ekinci, Gursoy, Can, & Williams,
2022; Williams, Nguyen, Del Chiappa, Fedeli, & Wassler, 2021) and the
argument that travelers may have distinct attitudes towards vaccination
from ordinary people (Adongo, Amenumey, Kumi-Kyereme, & Dub´
e,
2021), this research seeks to contribute to the rapidly growing body of
knowledge on health and tourism by comparing the associations; travel
intention and travel craving, with perceptions of COVID-19 vaccination.
2. Method and study results
In order to test the predictive power of Travel Intention and Travel
Craving, the two constructs were included in a structural model to
predict their degree of inuence on individuals' condence in the ef-
cacy of the COVID-19 vaccine. We adopted this approach since vacci-
nation adoption by potential travelers is an important tool to support the
restarting of the tourism industry (Gursoy, Selcuk Can, Williams, &
Ekinci, 2021). For tourists and travelers in general, the adoption of
voluntary health behaviour (vaccination) can reduce COVID-19 health
risks and enable travel. It has been advanced that individuals interested
in travel have a positive perception of COVID-19 vaccination (Gursoy,
Ekinci, Can, & Murray, 2022). We, therefore, theorized that there would
be signicant associations between Travel Intention and Vaccine Con-
dence, and Travel Craving and Vaccine Condence. Travel Intention
was measured by both intention to travel domestically and abroad.
Accordingly, Travel Intention was considered as a formative higher-
order construct, comprising of two reective components of ‘Travel
Intention – Abroad’ and ‘Travel Intention – Domestic’, each measured by
3 items. The scale of Travel Craving proposed by Mitev and Irimi´
as
(2020) was adapted, including 5 measurement items. The measurement
of COVID-19 Vaccine Condence was adapted from Shapiro et al.'s
(2018), comprising of 8 items. A survey containing these measurement
scales was carried out in January and February 2021 in Italy, with
convenience and snowball sampling techniques employed. A total of
3893 usable responses were obtained. The structural model suggests the
associations between Travel Intention, Travel Craving and Vaccine
Condence were analysed using SmartPLS 3.0.
The measurements of all reective constructs were rst validated.
One item of Vaccine Condence was eliminated due to factor loading of
less than 0.5. The results of the remained reective measurement model,
as presented in Appendices A and B, showed the satisfactory values of
factor loadings, Cronbach's alpha, Composite Reliability, Average Vari-
ance Extracted, the Fornell-Larcker criterion, indicating the
achievement of validity and reliability (Hair, Hult, Ringle, & Sarstedt,
2017). The formative higher-order measurement model (see Appendix
C) was also found to be valid with the signicant weights of the two
lower-order components, and VIF values of less than 3 (Hair et al.,
2017). The structural model, presenting the associations between Travel
Intention, Travel Craving and Vaccine Condence, was then estimated.
The results revealed a non-signicant relationship between Travel
Intention and Vaccine Condence (β =0.002, t =0.096). Meanwhile,
the relationship between Travel Craving and Vaccine Condence was
statistically signicant (β =0.269, t =17.186). The construct cross-
validated redundancy Q
2
value of 0.039 indicated the predictive rele-
vance of this model (Hair et al., 2017). However, R
2
coefcient of
determination value of 0.073 demonstrated that only 7.3% of the vari-
ability of Vaccine Condence was explained by Travel Craving. Also, the
effect size f
2
of 0.076 indicated a rather small effect of Travel Craving on
Vaccine Condence. This seems plausible as Vaccine Condence is
believed to be inuenced by a variety of factors such as trust in a vac-
cine, vaccine concerns, vaccine history, etc.
3. Discussion
This research identies an important theoretical contribution
applicable in the context of the current health crisis, i.e., the limitations
presented by the traditional theoretical construct of Travel Intention to
explain attitude towards a health intervention (COVID-19 vaccination)
that can enable future travel. The risk factors and structural constraints
posed by the pandemic are assumed to lessen the inuence of Travel
Intention on Vaccine Condence, while the cognitive-emotional
construct of Travel Craving is likely to have stronger predictive power.
The empirical results of our investigation support the argument that
Travel Intention does not represent a valuable predictor of Vaccination
Condence in the COVID-19 health crisis. Our contribution is important
as it extends the emerging academic discussion on travel and vaccina-
tion intentions and supports the introduction of the Travel Craving
construct proposed by Mitev and Irimi´
as (2021). Previous factors
deemed relevant for the understanding of travel decision making may
therefore ascertain their limitations of predictability amidst the COVID-
19 and future analogous scenarios. In particular, elements of the
emotional sphere as well as safety perception may prove particularly
relevant. The latter element, for instance, may be altered by further
extrinsic forces like the promotion of specic destinations (eg. safe
bubbles and covid-free islands), therefore presenting signicant impli-
cations for travel and tourism organizations and their marketing
activities.
Given the higher relevance of Travel Craving vs. Intention found in
this study, further practical considerations are identied. For instance,
impulsive buying type of behaviour may prove particularly relevant
under certain circumstances (e.g., travelers with higher safety percep-
tion), while more practical constraints acting as barriers of intention
may, on the other hand, also play a signicant role. Conversely, some
real life cases have also shown that not everyone who craves for travel or
even needs to travel is willing to uptake vaccinations. Cases in which
travel craving is not enough to stimulate vaccine uptake should thus be
further investigated. Furthermore, other relationships could be tested,
such as vaccine condence inducing the desire or craving for travel
through an inverse relationship and the relationship between Travel
Craving and Intention.
This is deemed critical to better understand travel decision dynamics
in challenging times such as those associated with the COVID-19 health
crisis. Finally, our ndings offer relevant implications for health regu-
lators, policymakers and destination marketers that may consider mar-
keting and communication strategies by embedding high-emotional
elements that aim at shaping the desire/craving to travel, as a way to
increase vaccine condence.
Table 1
The associations between Travel Intention, Travel Craving and Vaccine
Condence.
Weights T
Statistics
95% BCa
condence
intervals
VIF f
2
Travel Intention-
>Vaccine
Condence
0.002 0.096 −0.032–0.036 1.028 0.000
Travel Craving -
>Vaccine
Condence
0.269 17.186 0.239–0.300 1.028 0.076
R
2
=0.073 Q
2
=0.039.
G. Fedeli et al.

Annals of Tourism Research Empirical Insights 3 (2022) 100051
3
Appendix A. The reective measurement model analysis
Mean Factor loading Cronbach's alpha CR AVE
Vaccine Condence 0.858 0.892 0.551
CovVac1 4.531 0.880
CovVac2 4.677 0.870
CovVac3 3.584 0.640
CovVac4_rev* 3.978 0.524
CovVac5 3.354 0.669
CovVac6 4.426 0.892
CovVac8_rev* 3.719 0.632
Travel craving 0.941 0.955 0.809
TraCrav1 3.086 0.839
TraCrav2 3.174 0.917
TraCrav3 3.116 0.929
TraCrav4 3.084 0.893
TraCrav5 3.216 0.918
Travel Intention - Abroad 0.906 0.941 0.842
TraInt_ab1 3.386 0.922
TraInt_ab2 3.307 0.943
TraInt_ab3 2.884 0.887
Travel Intention - Domestic 0.852 0.911 0.774
TraInt_it1 4.157 0.896
TraInt_it2 4.108 0.916
TraInt_it3 3.508 0.824
*
Reverse coded.
Appendix B. Discriminant validity - the Fornell-Larcker criterion
Travel Intention - Domestic Travel Intention - Abroad Travel craving Vaccine condence
Travel Intention - Domestic 0.880
Travel Intention - Abroad 0.456 0.918
Travel Craving 0.175 0.111 0.9
Vaccine Condence 0.083 0.002 0.27 0.742
Appendix C. The formative higher-order measurement model analysis.
Weights T Statistics 95% BCa condence intervals VIF
Travel Intention - Domestic 0.547 130.799 0.539–0.556 1.262
Travel Intention - Abroad 0.624 114.596 0.613–0.635 1.262
Appendix D. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annale.2022.100051.
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Giancarlo Fedeli (PhD) is a Professor (FH) of Tourism Management at IMC University of
Applied Sciences Krems. His research lies in the areas of digital marketing, mis-
information in tourism, and visitor attractions and technology adoption. He has led over
60 research and consultancy assignments internationally, including several major EU-
funded projects.
Thi Hong Hai Nguyen is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Greenwich. Her current
research focuses on heritage tourism, special events and festivals, and destination
management.
Nigel L Williams, PMP is the Reader in Project Management and Research Lead in the
Organizations and Systems Management Subject Group at the University of Portsmouth.
He is also the co founder of Responsible Project Management (www.responsiblepm.com)
His current research examines stakeholder interactions in networked environments.
Giacomo Del Chiappa (PhD) is Associate Professor of Marketing at the Department of
Economics and Business, University of Sassari (Italy). Further, he is Senior Research
Fellow, School of Tourism & Hospitality, University of Johannesburg (South Africa). His
research is related to destination governance and branding, consumer behaviour, services
marketing and digital marketing.
Philipp Wassler (PhD) is Assistant Professor at the Department of Management at the
University of Bergamo. He works in both, the Management and Foreign Languages, Lit-
eratures and Cultures departments. His primary research interest is in the area of tourism
management with a particular focus on sociological perspectives. He has also worked on
other tourism-related subjects, among which tourism marketing, human geography, and
sustainable development.
G. Fedeli et al.