TY - JOUR
T1 - Can post-vaccine ‘vaxication’ rejuvenate global tourism? Nexus between COVID-19 branded destination safety, travel shaming, incentives and the rise of vaxication travel
AU - Zaman, Umer
AU - Aktan, Murat
AU - Anjam, Mahwish
AU - Agrusa, Jerome
AU - Khwaja, Muddasar Ghani
AU - Farías, Pablo
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2021/12/1
Y1 - 2021/12/1
N2 - Vaxication (i.e., post-vaccination travel) and branding destinations for COVID-19 safety have emerged as the cornerstones to fully rebound global tourism. Numerous destination brands are now stimulating tourism demand through realigned travel incentives specifically for fully vaccinated travelers. However, there is growing fear and incidents of travel shaming across destinations, especially due to the recent outbreaks of the highly contagious COVID-19 ‘delta and omicron’ variants. Addressing this critical research gap, the present study makes pioneering efforts to empirically examine the effects of COVID-19 branded destination safety (CBDS) on vaxication intentions, under the moderating influence of travel shaming and travel incentives. Drawing on study data from 560 fully-vaccinated residents from Hawaii, United States and structural equation modeling (SEM) with Mplus, the evidence suggests that the positive impact of CBDS on vaxication intention can be further strengthened by travel incentives, or weakened when travel shaming picks up more momentum. Besides the validation of newly developed scales, the study offers strategic insights based on dominant theories (e.g., theory of planned behavior and protection motivation theory) to interpret the changing tourism demand, and to transform the emerging challenges into opportunities through and beyond the pandemic.
AB - Vaxication (i.e., post-vaccination travel) and branding destinations for COVID-19 safety have emerged as the cornerstones to fully rebound global tourism. Numerous destination brands are now stimulating tourism demand through realigned travel incentives specifically for fully vaccinated travelers. However, there is growing fear and incidents of travel shaming across destinations, especially due to the recent outbreaks of the highly contagious COVID-19 ‘delta and omicron’ variants. Addressing this critical research gap, the present study makes pioneering efforts to empirically examine the effects of COVID-19 branded destination safety (CBDS) on vaxication intentions, under the moderating influence of travel shaming and travel incentives. Drawing on study data from 560 fully-vaccinated residents from Hawaii, United States and structural equation modeling (SEM) with Mplus, the evidence suggests that the positive impact of CBDS on vaxication intention can be further strengthened by travel incentives, or weakened when travel shaming picks up more momentum. Besides the validation of newly developed scales, the study offers strategic insights based on dominant theories (e.g., theory of planned behavior and protection motivation theory) to interpret the changing tourism demand, and to transform the emerging challenges into opportunities through and beyond the pandemic.
KW - COVID-19 branded destination safety
KW - Global sustainable tourism
KW - Protection motivation theory
KW - Theory of planned behavior
KW - Travel incentives
KW - Travel shaming
KW - Vaxication
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85121598926&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/su132414043
DO - 10.3390/su132414043
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85121598926
SN - 2071-1050
VL - 13
JO - Sustainability (Switzerland)
JF - Sustainability (Switzerland)
IS - 24
M1 - 14043
ER -