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Tourist Behaviour in the COVID-19 Pandemic Context

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Advances in Tourism, Technology and Systems

Abstract

The tourism industry is being severely affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. This paper aims to analyse how the COVID-19 pandemic affects the behaviour of Portuguese tourists towards travels and how the likelihood of their intention to deeply change behaviour is different according to their sociodemographic characteristics, the pattern of past trips, and the level that it has affected their life and work. With the results of a survey, factor analysis was made and with the scores of the extracted factors, logistic models were estimated. The results suggest that the Portuguese tourists are mainly concerned about health and safety in travel and the likelihood of having a major concern is greater for women and for those most affected by the pandemic, varying also with age. The chance of reducing more their travel plans is also higher for individuals who have been deeply affected by the pandemic. This research highlights the potential changes in tourists behaviour due to the pandemic and recommends some policies and practices for the sector.

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Acknowledgements

This work is financed by Portuguese national funds through FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, under the project UIDB/05422/2020.

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Correspondence to Conceição Castro .

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Castro, C., Dieguez, T. (2022). Tourist Behaviour in the COVID-19 Pandemic Context. In: Abreu, A., Liberato, D., Garcia Ojeda, J.C. (eds) Advances in Tourism, Technology and Systems. Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, vol 293. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-1040-1_7

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