Pandemics and Travel

Tourism Security-Safety and Post Conflict

Destinations

Series editors: Maximiliano E. Korstanje and Hugues Seraphin

Since the turn of the century, the international rules surrounding security and safety have
significantly changed, specifically within the tourism industry. In the age of globalization,
terrorism and conflict have moved beyond individual high-profile targets; instead, tourists,
travellers and journalists are at risk. In response to this shift, the series invites authors and
scholars to contribute to the conversation surrounding tourism security and post-conflict
destinations.
The series features monographs and edited collections to create a critical platform which not
only explores the dichotomies of tourism from the theory of mobilities, but also provides an
insightful guide for policy makers, specialists and social scientists interested in the future of
tourism in a society where uncertainness, anxiety and fear prevail.
Tourism Security-Safety and Post Conflict Destinations explores research approaches and
perspectives from a wide range of ideological backgrounds to discuss topics such as:
• Studies related to comparative cross-cultural perceptions of risk and threat
• Natural and human-caused disasters
• Post-disaster recovery strategies in tourism and hospitality
• Terror movies and tourism
• Aviation safety and security
• Crime and security issues in tourism and hospitality
• Political instability, terrorism and tourism
• Thana-tourism
• War on terror and Muslim-tourism
• The effects of global warming on tourism destinations
• Innovative quantitative/qualitative methods for the study of risk and security issues in tourism
and hospitality
• Virus outbreaks and tourism mobility
• Disasters, trauma and tourism
• Apocalyptic theories and tourism as a form of entertainment

Volumes in this series

Tourism, Terrorism and Security
Edited by Maximiliano E. Korstanje and Hugues Seraphin

International Case Studies in the Management of Disasters

Edited by Babu George and Qamaruddin Mahar

Tourism Safety and Security for the Caribbean (Forthcoming)

By Andrew Spencer and Peter E. Tarlow

Overtourism as Destination Risk: Impacts and Solutions (Forthcoming)

Edited by Anukrati Sharma and Azizul Hassan

Tourism Destination Management in a Post-Pandemic Context: Global Issues and Destination

Management Solutions
Edited by Vanessa GB Gowreesunkar, Shem Wambugu Maingi, Hiran Roy and Roberto Micera
Editorial Advisory Board

Ana Caldeira Faculty of Arts & Humanities | Uni-

versity of Coimbra | PORTUGAL
António Jordão School of Agriculture | Polytechnic
Institute of Viseu | PORTUGAL
Bruno Ferreira School of Technology and Manage-
ment | Polytechnic Institute of Viseu |
PORTUGAL
Candida Cadavez Estoril Higher Institute for Tourism
and Hotel Studies | PORTUGAL
Carla Silva School of Technology and Manage-
ment | Polytechnic Institute of Viseu |
PORTUGAL
Carlos Cardoso Ferreira Faculty of Arts & Humanities | Uni-
versity of Coimbra | PORTUGAL
Carlos Pinho Department of Economics, Manage-
ment and Industrial Engineering and
Tourism | University of Aveiro |
PORTUGAL
Catarina Nadais ISAG – European Business School
Porto | PORTUGAL
Cláudia Seabra Faculty of Arts & Humanities | Uni-
versity of Coimbra | PORTUGAL
Fábia Trentin Tourism Department | Federal Flumi-
nense University | BRAZIL
Francisco Dias School of Tourism and Maritime
Technology | Polytechnic Institute of
Leiria | PORTUGAL
Jaime Serra Social Sciences School | University of
Évora | PORTUGAL
João Paulo da Conceição School of Tourism and Maritime
Silva Jorge Technology | Polytechnic Institute of
Leiria | PORTUGAL
José Álvarez-Garcı́a Faculty of Business | Finance and
Tourism, University of Extremadura |
SPAIN
José Soares Neves ISCTE | University Institute of Lisbon |
PORTUGAL
Luı́s Pacheco Economy and Management Depart-
ment | Portucalense University |
PORTUGAL
Luis Silveira Faculty of Arts & Humanities | Uni-
versity of Coimbra | PORTUGAL
Margarida Vicente School of Technology and Manage-
ment | Polytechnic Institute of Viseu |
PORTUGAL
Maria Celeste Eusébio Department of Economics, Manage-
ment and Industrial Engineering and
Tourism | University of Aveiro |
PORTUGAL
Maria Elizabete Neves Coimbra Business School | ISCAC |
Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra |
PORTUGAL
Maria João Carneiro Department of Economics, Manage-
ment and Industrial Engineering and
Tourism | University of Aveiro |
PORTUGAL
Marı́a Mercedes Martos Faculty of Economics and Business |
Partal University of Salamanca | SPAIN
Miguel Moital Faculty of Management | University of
Bournemouth | UNITED KINGDOM
Mónica Brito Social Sciences School | University of
Évora | PORTUGAL
Muzzo Uysal Isenberg School of Management | Uni-
versity of Massachusetts | USA
Norberto Santos Faculty of Arts & Humanities | Uni-
versity of Coimbra | PORTUGAL
Odete Paiva School of Technology and Manage-
ment | Polytechnic Institute of Viseu |
PORTUGAL
Pablo Muñoz Faculty of Economics and Business |
University of Salamanca | SPAIN
Pedro Reis School of Technology and Manage-
ment | Polytechnic Institute of Viseu |
PORTUGAL
Romeu Lopes School of Tourism and Hospitality |
Polytechnic Institute of Guarda |
PORTUGAL
This page intentionally left blank
Pandemics and Travel:
COVID-19 Impacts in the
Tourism Industry

EDITED BY
CLÁUDIA SEABRA
University of Coimbra, Portugal

ODETE PAIVA
Instituto Politécnico de Viseu, Portugal

CARLA SILVA
Instituto Politécnico de Viseu, Portugal

And

JOSÉ LUÍS ABRANTES

Instituto Politécnico de Viseu, Portugal

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Emerald Publishing Limited
Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2021

Copyright © 2021 Emerald Publishing Limited

Reprints and permissions service

Contact: [email protected]

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in

any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without
either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying
issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright
Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst
Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no
representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters’ suitability and application and disclaims
any warranties, express or implied, to their use.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-80071-071-9 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-80071-070-2 (Online)
ISBN: 978-1-80071-072-6 (Epub)
Contents

About the Contributors xi

List of Contributors xxvii

Introduction 1
Cláudia Seabra, Odete Paiva, Carla Silva and José Luı́s Abrantes

Chapter 1 Health Risks, Pandemics and Epidemics Affecting

Tourism: Understanding COVID-19 Pandemic 7
A. M. Abrantes, J. L. Abrantes, C. Silva, P. Reis and C. Seabra

Chapter 2 Impact of Crises on the Tourism Industry: Evidence from

Turkey 29
Kevser Çınar and Gökhan Şener

Chapter 3 COVID-19, Adaptive Capacity and Tourism

Governance: The Case of Pakistan’s Tourism Industry 49
Najma Sadiq

Chapter 4 Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Brazilian Tourism:

Public Policies, Coordination and Government Functions 67
Fábia Trentin, Claudia Corrêa de Almeida Moraes, Isabela de Fátima
Fogaça and Carlos Alberto Lidizia Soares

Chapter 5 Perceptions of Safety and Risk in the Daily Life and

Travel Plans in the COVID-19 Context: One Year and Three Waves
After 83
C. Seabra, C. Silva, O. Paiva, M. Reis and J. L. Abrantes

Chapter 6 The Effects of COVID-19 on the Russian Federation:

Resident’s Perspectives 107
Maria Koroleva
x Contents

Chapter 7 COVID-19 Surprise Effect and Government Response

Measures on the Influence on Asset Pricing Risk among European
Travel and Airline Sectors 121
Pedro Manuel Nogueira Reis and Carlos Pinho

Chapter 8 Pandemic (COVID-19) News Sentiment, Economic

Policy Uncertainty and Volatility Spillover in Global Leisure and
Recreation Stocks 141
Leticia Bollain-Parra, Oscar V. De la Torre-Torres,
Dora Aguilasocho-Montoya and Marı́a de la Cruz del Rı́o-Rama

Chapter 9 Impacts of COVID-19 on Tourism-related Activities:

A Case Study of Ecuador by Scenarios 157
Christian Viñán-Merecı́, Katty Celi-Sánchez,
Ronny Correa-Quezada and Amador Durán-Sánchez

Chapter 10 Covid-19 and Tourism in Mexico: Economic Impacts

and Prospects 173
Luis Quintana-Romero, Miguel Ángel Mendoza-González
and José Álvarez-Garcı́a

Chapter 11 Celebrity Positive WOM and the Impact on Tourist

Perceptions: COVID-19 and the Case of Portugal 193
Inês Almeida

Chapter 12 Destination Social Responsibility Strategy and

DMOs’ Path to Recovery: The Case of Portugal 211
C. Frias, A. Pereira and A. P. Jerónimo

Chapter 13 Falling in Love Again: Brand Love and Promotion

of Tourist Destinations during the COVID-19 Pandemic 227
A. Pereira, C. Frias and A. P. Jerónimo

Chapter 14 Crisis Management and Resilient Destinations

During Covid-19 in the Southern European Countries 243
Dina Amaro

Index 259
About the Contributors

Ana Mafalda Abrantes is an Assistant Lecturer at the Faculty of Medicine –

University of Lisbon. She is an Internal Medicine Resident Physician at Hospital
Santa Maria, Lisbon. She published in the International Journal of Hypertension
and the European Journal of Case Reports in Internal Medicine. Her interest areas
include Cardiology, Rheumatology and Intensive Care Medicine. ORCID ID:
0000-0002-1295-9679.

José Luı́s Abrantes is Professor at the School of Technology and Management of

the Polytechnic Institute of Viseu, Portugal. Some of his work has been published
in the Journal of Business Research, Tourism Management, International
Marketing Review, among other journals. He is affiliated with the Portuguese
Foundation for Science and Technology, and he is the Coordinator of CISeD –
Research Centre in Digital Services. José Luı́s Abrantes develops his research in
marketing and tourism areas. ORCID ID: 0000-0003-0565-7207.
xii About the Contributors

Dora Aguilasocho-Montoya has a PhD in Management and Direction from

Rovira i Vigili University. She is a Researcher and Professor at Universidad
Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo and an active member of the Interna-
tional Competitiveness Researchers Network (RIICO) and the European Acad-
emy of Management and Business Economics. Her research interests are finance
and its impact on competitiveness, innovation, gender equality and touristic
management. She has published more than 40 papers and book chapters in
prestigious journals.

Inês Almeida is a PhD Student in Tourism, Territory and Heritage at the Coimbra
University (Portugal) and a Collaborating Researcher in CEGOT – Centre of
Studies in Geography and Spatial Planning (Portugal). Her current research
interests include local and collaborative planning in tourism, social sustainability
in tourism, creative tourism and campus-based tourism.
 About the Contributors xiii

José Alvarez-Garcı́a is Associate Professor and Researcher at the Department of

Financial Economics and Accounting of the Faculty of Business, Finances and
Tourism at the University of Extremadura (Spain). He has obtained his PhD in
Direction and Planning of Tourism from the University of Vigo. He has Master in
Business Innovation and Entrepreneurship (University of Vigo) and Master MBA
Executive of Business Administration and Management (Business School Caixa
Nova). He also has Bachelor of Veterinary Science from the University of León
(Castilla y León-Spain) and Diploma in Health by the National School of Health
(Spain). He is the author of numerous research articles in national and interna-
tional journals and chapters of books. He has been co-editor of books published
by Springer, Routledge and IGI Global. He is a guest editor in indexed journals:
Sustainability, Mathematics, and Water. His main research topics are business
and tourism, quality management systems, health and wellness, water, agglom-
eration economies, economic growth, bibliometric analysis, entrepreneurship and
higher education, among others. Email: [email protected]

Dina Amaro is a Researcher in Tourism, Marketing Destination and Higher

Education Marketing, and a PhD student in Tourism, Territory and Heritage at
the University of Coimbra (Portugal). She has a Degree in International Rela-
tions, a Post-Graduation Degree in Human Resource Management and a Mas-
ter’s Degree in Relational Marketing. She started her career in development
xiv About the Contributors

cooperation in 1996, working in cooperation projects in emergent countries before

settling in higher education in 2011. Currently, she is working for the Interna-
tional Marketing Office of the Polytechnic of Leiria and is responsible for pro-
moting the higher education Institution in international markets, through the
development of integrated marketing campaigns.

Leticia Bollain-Parra has an MBA from Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás

de Hidalgo and specializes in accounting and management of non-financial issues.
She has been working in travel agencies and in the accounting office of Cinepolis,
one of the biggest movie theatre chains in the world. Her core research interest is
the management of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), corporate social
responsibility and the benefits of sustainability in travel and leisure companies.
She is a Professor at Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo and is
the Operations Head Officer of Fundación Coppel, an NGO of one of the biggest
non-cyclical retail chains in Mexico.

Katty Celi-Sánchez is a Professor and Researcher at the Department of

Economics, Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (UTPL). She is a PhD stu-
dent in Economics and Business at the University of Oviedo, Magister in Urban
and Regional Economics from UNAM. She has a Higher Diploma in Finance
and a Graduate in Economics from the Private Technical University of Loja. She
is a member of the research groups, Urban and Regional Economics (UTPL) and
 About the Contributors xv

RegioLAB (UNIOVI). Her field of interest being studies related to cost of living,
community social development, welfare economics and inequality, among others.

Kevser Çınar holds a PhD in Tourism Management from Necmettin Erbakan Uni-
versity in Turkey. She has been an Assistant Professor in the Department of Tourism
Management since 2018. She is Vice-President of EATSA – Euro-Asia Tourism
Studies Association. She worked at Selçuk University as instructor (2011–2014). She
has also been working as EU project expert for 14 years, and she has taken part in
several different international EU projects so far, and such participation has provided
her with a clear understanding of what is required of a project expert both in Turkey
and Europe. Her research interests are innovation in tourism, consumer behaviour
and tourism marketing. She has already published book chapters and research papers
about restrictions’ acceptance and risk perception among younger generations in a
COVID-19 context, pandemic process and changes in consumption habits, digital
marketing, and virtual tourism to enhance destination accessibility and the role of
mobile technology in tourism development.

Ronny Correa-Quezada is an Economist from the Universidad Técnica Particular

de Loja (UTPL), with a Master’s Degree in Economic Development for Latin
America from the Universidad Internacional de Andalucı́a (UNIA) and a
Doctorate in Economics from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
(UNAM). He is currently the Director of the Department of Economics and a
xvi About the Contributors

Research Professor at the UTPL and Tutor of the Doctoral Program in Legal and
Economic Sciences at the Camilo José Cela University (UCJC). He coordinates the
Urban and Regional Economy Research Group and leads the Regional Observa-
tory. He is also the principal investigator in Ecuador of the Circle of Latin American
Studies (CESLA – Autonomous University of Madrid and Rey Juan Carlos Uni-
versity). He is an evaluator of Quartile 1 and Quartile 2 Journals. Throughout his
career, he has developed book chapters and several indexed scientific publications
on issues of economic development, regional development, regional policies,
migration, labour markets, creative industries and spatial econometrics.

Amador Durán-Sánchez currently, he is a PhD Doctoral Student in the University of

Extremadura and has a Master’s Degree in Social Science Research University of
Extremadura (Spain). Currently, he is a Graduate Teaching Assistant (TA) and
Researcher at the Department of Financial Economics and Accounting of the Faculty
of Business, Finances and Tourism at the University of Extremadura, Caceres
(Spain). He is the author of numerous research articles in national and international
journals indexed and with impact factor, Water, Sustainability, International Journal
of Environmental Research and Public Health, International Journal of Entrepre-
neurial Behaviour and Research. His main research topics are business, tourism and
higher education.

Isabela de Fátima Fogaça is Professor and Vice-Coordinator of the Tourism

Course (Bachelor’s degree) at the Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro
 About the Contributors xvii

(UFRRJ), Brazil, and the Graduate Program in Heritage, Culture and Society
(PPGPACS) at UFRRJ. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Tourism from UEPG,
Master’s Degree in Tourism and Hospitality from UNIVALI and PhD in
Geography from UNESP, and she graduated in Geography from UNB. She is the
Coordinator of the Tourism and Leisure Observatory of the Baixada Verde
tourist region which is part of the Center for Tourism Studies (NEPET). She
develops research in Planning and Management of Spaces for Tourism; Public
Tourism Policies; Tourism and Cities; and Cities and Culture.

Catarina Frias is a PhD Student in Tourism, Heritage and Territory at Coimbra

University. In 2019, she completed her Master’s Degree in Tourism Management
from the School of Technology and Management of Viseu, where she developed a
dissertation focussing on Storytelling in Cultural Tourism – Study of the
UNESCO Historic City Centres in Continental Portugal. She also holds a Degree
in Journalism from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the Coimbra Uni-
versity. Her research interests include storytelling and communication in tourism,
tourism memorable experiences, touristic experiences, cultural tourism, scenic
routes and tourism destinations management.

Ana Peixoto Jerónimo is a PhD Student in Tourism, Heritage and Territory at the
Coimbra University, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, in Portugal. She holds a
Master’s Degree in Heritage Studies and Bachelor’s Degrees in Tourism and
xviii About the Contributors

History. As a tourism officer, she is involved in tourism strategy, tourism pro-

motion and destination management. Her research interests include these fields
and music tourism, astrotourism and heritage tourism.

Maria Koroleva is a third-year Postgraduate Student of the Faculty of Journalism

at Lomonosov Moscow State University, Department of Periodical Press. Her
research interests include journalism, print and online media, UGC (user-
generated content) in online media, media psychology and traumatic events
coverage in online media.

Miguel Ángel Mendoza-González is a tenured Professor, Researcher and Super-

visor of Regional and Urban Economics at the National Autonomous University
of Mexico (UNAM), Faculty of Economics Postgraduate Division. PhD in
Economics, M.Sc. in Economics and Licentiate in Economics from the UNAM.
He has published numerous books and articles on regional economy, from a
theoretical focus as well as empirical analysis and case studies. Main research
fields are spatial economics, spatial econometric, urban economics, human cap-
ital, cities growth, migration, remittances and labour markets. Research profile
ID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7433-5194 and email: [email protected].
 About the Contributors xix

Claudia Corrêa de Almeida Moraes is a Professor at the Department of Tourism

and Coordinator of the MBA in Service Management at Universidade Federal
Fluminense (UFF), Brazil. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in History from the
Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp), Bachelor’s Degree in Tourism
from the Pontifı́cia Universidade Católica de Campinas (PUC Campinas),
Master’s Degree in Social Communication from Universidade de São Paulo
(USP), PhD in Geography from Univeridade Estadual Paulista ‘Júlio de Mes-
quita Filho’ (UNESP) and Post-Doctorate in Tourism from Universidade de
Aveiro (UA). She is the Vice-Leader of the research group Tourism, Management
and Territory. She is developing research in Public Policy of Tourism, Tourism
Workers, and Cultural Heritage and Tourism.

Pedro Manuel Nogueira Reis is an Assistant Professor at the Polytechnic Institute of

Viseu – School of Technology and Management. He holds a Post-Doc in Finance
from Aveiro University and a PhD in Business Management – Specialization in
Finance – from the Coimbra University of Economics. He has worked for more
than 24 years in business management positions, including a position in a multi-
national group, and as advisor for several companies. He is affiliated with and is
currently a board member of the CISeD Research Centre in Digital Services. He
has several articles published in refereed international journals as well as works on
xx About the Contributors

international proceedings. He has been invited on several occasions to be a

Reviewer at Finance and Management high-ranked journals. He is a Registered
Certified Public Accountant (CPA). Pedro Reis develops his research in Finance
and Accounting. ORCID ID: 0000-0003-1301-6645

Odete Paiva obtained her PhD in Tourism, Leisure and Culture, and Masters in
Museology and Cultural Heritage from the University of Coimbra. She is an
invited Professor in Polytechnic Institute of Viseu – School of Technology and
Management, since 2000, in the graduation and Master of Tourism. She is the
Director of the National Museum Grão Vasco. She is affiliated with the CEGOT –
Geography and Spatial Planning Research Centre and CISeD – Research Centre in
Digital Services. Odete Paiva develops her research in cultural tourism and
heritage. ORCID ID: 0000-0003-1440-3030

Andreia Pereira holds a Master’s Degree in Tourism Management from the

Polytechnic Institute of Viseu. Currently, she is a PhD student in Tourism,
Heritage and Territory at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of
Coimbra. She has participated, as a research fellow, in tourism projects, and she
has published book chapters and peer-reviewed papers. She collaborates with
Centre for Studies in Geography and Spatial Planning (CEGOT), University of
 About the Contributors xxi

Coimbra, Faculty of Arts and Humanities and Centre for Studies in Education
and Innovation (CI&DEI). Her main research interests include gender studies in
tourism, travel constraints and tourism risk perceptions.

Carlos Pinho has a PhD in Applied Economics from the University of Santiago de
Compostela, an MSc in Finance and a Degree in Management from the Portu-
calense University. He is an Associate Professor at the University of Aveiro at the
Department of Economics, Management and Industrial Engineering. He lectures
undergraduate and graduate courses of Finances and Economics. Presently, he is
Coordinator of the research group on Decision Support Systems integrated in the
Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policy (GOVCOPP) research unit. He
was a member of research teams of the University of Aveiro and participated in
several national sponsored projects in the fields of Economics and Finance,
Regional Development, Decision Support Tools development. He is author and
co-author of more than 100 papers presented in national and international con-
ferences or published in scientific journals and books. Email: [email protected];
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-7422-4555

Luis Quintana-Romero holds a PhD in Social Sciences from the National

Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). He is a tenured Professor at the
Department of Economics, School of Higher Studies Acatlán (FES-Acatlán-
UNAM). He has published numerous books and articles on regional
xxii About the Contributors

economics. His lines of research include regional development, labour markets,

policy impact evaluation and trade agreements. Research profile ID https://orcid.
org/0000-0002-8054-896X and email: [email protected]

Manuel Reis is a Professor in the School of Technology and Management at

Polytechnic Institute of Viseu, Portugal. He has a PhD in Management. His
research interests are retail and consumer behaviour. ORCID ID: 0000-0002-
6081-4917

Marı́a de la Cruz del Rı́o-Rama received her PhD in Business Management by the
University of Vigo. Currently, she is Associate Professor and Researcher at the
Business Organization and Marketing Department of the University of Vigo –
Campus of Ourense, Galicia (Spain). She is the author of numerous research
articles in national and international journals and chapters of books. She has been
co-editor of the book Wine and Tourism: A Strategic Segment for Sustainable
Economics, Sport Management: An Emerging Economy Activity published by
Springer and Tourism Innovation: Technology, Sustainability and Creativity,
Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Inequality Exploring Territorial Dynamics and
Development published by Routledge as well as guest editor in indexed journals:
Sustainability, Mathematics and Water. Her main research topics are business and
 About the Contributors xxiii

tourism, quality management systems, health and wellness, wine tourism, water,
agglomeration economies, economic growth, bibliometric analysis, entrepre-
neurship and higher education, among others.

Dr Najma Sadiq is the Head of the Department of Mass Communication and

Founding Director of the Centre for Creative Economy at the National Uni-
versity of Sciences and Technology (NUST) in Pakistan. With a PhD from the
University of Salzburg, Austria, Dr Sadiq carries professional, teaching and
research experience. In her role as the Director Centre for Creative Economy, she
developed a collaborative platform that works for the creative industries in
Pakistan. The aim of the centre is to involve in research-led interventions to
exploit the economic potential of creative sectors. She is involved in various
funded research projects related to media practices in Pakistan with a specific
focus on conflict and strategic communication. Her research focus is on theo-
retical and practical understanding of Indigenous communication and media
practices. She can be reached at [email protected].

Cláudia Seabra is a Professor at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the

University of Coimbra, Portugal where she coordinates the PhD in Tourism,
Heritage and Territory. She has a PhD in Tourism and a Post-PhD in Economic
and Social Geography. Some of her studies have been published in the Journal of
Business Research, Tourism Management, Annals of Tourism Research,
xxiv About the Contributors

International Journal of Tourism Cities, European Journal of Marketing, Journal

of Marketing Management, Anatolia, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Tech-
nology, among others. She is affiliated with the CEGOT – Geography and Spatial
Planning Research Centre, and collaborates with CISeD – Research Centre in
Digital Services. Her research interests are safety and terrorism, and risk in
tourism. ORCID ID: 0000-0002-8496-0986

Gökhan Şener is currently a PhD Candidate in the field of Tourism Management

at Necmettin Erbakan University in Turkey. He is also the Director and MICE
Manager of Kent Travel Agency. He started working at exclusive hotel brands in
tourism and hotel vocational high schools and maintained these activities until he
started working in his master’s degree. He conducted development and training
leadership behaviours in his research. Besides, his research interests include
technology, digital marketing, tour operations and sustainable tourism in inter-
national brands. His doctoral thesis focuses on the impacts of technological
competence and service innovation implementation through perceived value and
trust in international hotels.

Carla Silva is a Professor at the School of Technology and Management of the

Polytechnic Institute of Viseu, Portugal, where she coordinates the master’s
degree in Tourism Management. She has a PhD in Tourism Studies. She is
affiliated with the GOVCOPP – Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policy,
 About the Contributors xxv

and CISeD – Research Centre in Digital Services. Her research interests include
culture of consumption and tourism with special interest in tourism motivations,
tourism imagery, tourism experiences and tourism impacts. ORCID ID: 0000-
0001-6251-9113.

Carlos Alberto Lidizia Soares is an Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Tourism

and Hospitality at Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil. He is a postdoctoral
fellow at Universidade de Aveiro (2019–2020). He has a PhD in Civil Engineering
(Sustainable Management Line) from Universidade Federal Fluminense (2018), a
Master’s Degree in Production Engineering in Management Systems from UFF
(2004), a specialization in Information Systems Administration from UFF (2002)
and a degree in Business Administration. He is Vice-Coordinator of the Service
Management Postgraduate Programme and Coordinator of the Tourism Grad-
uate Course at Universidade Federal Fluminense.

Oscar V. De la Torre-Torres has a PhD in International Business from Uni-

versidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo and an MSc in Financial
Engineering from La Salle University. He is a Researcher and Professor at
Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo. He has had professional
experience in brokerages and FX banks such as Vector brokerage, FIRA-Bank of
xxvi About the Contributors

Mexico and Scotia FX. Also, he owned a financial advising firm and had a
position as Technical Secretary in Michoacan’s Finance and Administration
Secretary. His main research interests are portfolio management, financial
econometrics, socially responsible investment, computational finance and time
series analysis. He is editor of the Journal of Research in Accounting and Man-
agement Sciences and a guest editor in Mathematics.

Fábia Trentin is a Professor at the Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality at Uni-

versidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil. She PhD in Tourism, Leisure, and Culture
from Universidade de Coimbra, 2015. She is the Coordinator of the Policy,
Governance and Tourism Laboratory (LabPGTUR). Her areas of interest
include tourism, public tourism management, tourism policy and governance, and
sustainability and tourism.

Christian Viñán-Merecı́ is Associate Professor in the Department of Business

Sciences at the Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (Tourism Section). He is
the main member of the Research Group on Tourism Observation GIOT, and his
main area of interest is the management of the territory and sustainability, in
order to promote the development of destinations. He is a Doctor in Integral
Development and Innovation of Tourist Destinations.
List of Contributors

Ana Mafalda Abrantes University of Lisbon, Portugal

José Luı́s Abrantes Polytechnic Institute of Viseu, Portugal
Dora Aguilasocho-Montoya Saint Nicholas and Hidalgo Michoacán
State University (UMSNH), Mexico
Inês Almeida Coimbra University, Portugal
José Álvarez-Garcı́a University of Extremadura, Spain
Dina Amaro University of Coimbra, Portugal
Leticia Bollain-Parra Saint Nicholas and Hidalgo Michoacán
State University (UMSNH), Mexico
Katty Celi-Sánchez Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja
(UTPL), Ecuador
Kevser Çınar Necmettin Erbakan University, Turkey
Ronny Correa-Quezada Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja
(UTPL), Ecuador
Amador Durán-Sánchez University of Extremadura (UEx), Spain
Isabela de Fátima Fogaça Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil
Catarina Frias University of Coimbra, Portugal
Ana Peixoto Jerónimo Faculty of Arts and Humanities,
University of Coimbra, Portugal
Maria Koroleva Lomonosov Moscow State University,
Russian Federation
Miguel Ángel Mendoza- National Autonomous University of
González Mexico (UNAM), Mexico
Claudia Corrêa de Almeida
Moraes Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil
Pedro Manuel Nogueira Reis Polytechnic Institute of Viseu, Portugal
Odete Paiva Polytechnic Institute of Viseu, Portugal
xxviii List of Contributors

Andreia Pereira University of Coimbra, Portugal

Carlos Pinho Aveiro University, Portugal
Luis Quintana-Romero National Autonomous University of
Mexico (UNAM), Mexico
Manuel Reis Polytechnic Institute of Viseu, Portugal
Marı́a de la Cruz del
Rı́o-Rama University of Vigo, Spain
Najma Sadiq National University of Sciences and
Technology (NUST), Pakistan
Cláudia Seabra University of Coimbra, Portugal
Gökhan Şener Necmettin Erbakan University, Turkey
Carla Silva Polytechnic Institute of Viseu, Portugal
Carlos Alberto Lidizia Soares Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil
Oscar V. De la Torre-Torres Saint Nicholas and Hidalgo Michoacán
State University (UMSNH), Mexico
Fábia Trentin Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil
Christian Viñán-Merecı́ Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja
(UTPL), Ecuador
Introduction
Cláudia Seabra, Odete Paiva, Carla Silva and José Luı́s Abrantes

The globalization of the tourism industry has led to an increase in global risks and
crises that are inherent to businesses and that have been growing on a worldwide
scale, making the tourism industry one of the most vulnerable sectors (Dwyer,
2015). This vulnerability comes from the fact that tourism demand is particularly
sensitive to individuals’ concerns about their safety, health and well-being (Blake
& Sinclair, 2003). Hence, perceived risk in travel is one of the most important
determinants of tourists’ behaviour (Seabra, Reis, & Abrantes, 2020).
Since early studies, the risk perception in travel was associated with a large
number of factors (Seabra, Dolnicar, Abrantes, & Kastenholz, 2013): social,
financial, time, satisfaction, functional, psychological and physical. In addition,
the last two factors are usually associated with the uncertainty of consequences
and potential loss of well-being (Rohel & Fesenmaier, 1992). Over the last
decades, the risks associated with factors that may cause physical danger, injury
or sickness (Baker, 2014; Jonas, Mansfeld, Paz, & Potasman, 2011) have been in
the spotlight.
Tourism industry is not only affected by pandemics and epidemics but also
contributes to their spread, affecting not only tourists but also the residents in
tourism destinations (Hall, 2006). In fact, the spread of infectious diseases is
naturally connected to international travel. Since the beginning of the new mil-
lennium, several crises related with epidemics, diseases and virus outbreaks have
hit the travel and tourism industry. Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)
first appeared in February 2002 in China and affected profoundly tourism around
the world, particularly in Southeast Asia (McKercher & Chon, 2004; Pine &
McKercher, 2004; Zeng, Carter, & De Lacy, 2005). The avian and swine flu
impacted tourism negatively for at least half a decade (Kuo, Chen, Tseng, Ju, &
Huang, 2008) and more recently Zika virus dramatically affected the destination
image of Brazil during the 2016 Olympic Games (Walters, Shipway, Miles, &
Aldrigui, 2017).
The new coronavirus pandemic brought about a new crisis, challenging
the travel industry more than ever. As a response to risk, many countries
have cancelled flights, closed boarders and imposed travel bans, self-isolation
and severe civil restrictions, thereby contributing to the spread of global fear.

Pandemics and Travel, 1–6

Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
doi:10.1108/978-1-80071-070-220211001
2 Cláudia Seabra et al.

Most of the events hosted at global, national and local levels have been
cancelled or postponed. The intensive news coverage, the emphasis placed by
media on the topic and the spread of information all over social media have
amplified the severity of the threat and have led to worldwide panic. Even
with the vaccination that started already in several countries, this disease
continues to provoke a global fear and terror. Consequently, national
economies are being severely affected, especially the tourism industry.
Hence, it is crucial to evaluate the impact of the perceived risk related with
health and well-being since it is clearly one of the most influential decision-
making factors in a global industry that is particularly exposed to global
threats, epidemics and diseases.
This edited book aims to provide a broad collection of papers focussing on the
specific topic of tourism mobility and the impacts of health risk on the travel
industry. This book covers key issues regarding health-related crises impacting
tourism industry with a major focus on the current COVID-19 pandemic. Papers
with new perspectives and approaches for traditional paradigms and theories, as
well as new qualitative, quantitative and mix methodologies present a portrait of
how COVID-19 is affecting tourism industry worldwide.
The book ‘Pandemics and Travel: COVID-19 Impacts in the Tourism
Industry’ relies on the extraordinary contributions of 32 authors and the help
of our Editorial Advisory Board composed of 30 reviewers that helped to
enhance the quality of the submitted works giving crucial insights and
suggestions.
The book is organized in four main areas. After an introductory chapter with a
review on the most impacting epidemics, virus outbreaks and pandemics on the
twenty-first century in tourism industry, the following chapters include (1) anal-
ysis of recent crises in tourism, policies and measures that governments from
Turkey, Pakistan and Brazil undertook in the face of COVID-19 pandemic;
(2) tourists’ and residents’ perceptions of risk in tourism activities and daily life in
Portugal and Russia; (3) impacts of COVID-19 pandemic in the financial markets
and economy in Europe, USA, Ecuador and Mexico and (4) the last chapters
focus on promotion, recovery and resilience strategies in several countries to face
the present crisis.

1. Summary of Chapters
1.1 Introductory Chapter
Mafalda Abrantes, José Luı́s Abrantes, Carla Silva, Pedro Reis and Cláudia
Seabra present insights into the several epidemics, pandemics and virus outbreaks
in the twenty-first century and how those occurrences affected tourism industry
and global economy. After a brief literature review of health risks in tourism,
the authors bring a clinical perspective on several concepts such as endemic,
outbreak, epidemic and pandemic concepts. Subsequently, the main pandemics
in recent history of humankind are presented, followed by a deep analysis of the
 Introduction 3

COVID-19 disease. Hereafter, the major pandemics, epidemics and outbreaks

occurred in the twenty-first century are presented, highlighting the impacts in
tourism industry and global economy. The final discussion focusses on the chal-
lenges that health risks bring to tourism industry.

1.2 Tourism Crises and Governments’ Policies and Measures

in the COVID-19 Context
Kevser Çinar and Gökhan Şener examine the impact of crucial crises and spe-
cifically the current COVID-19 pandemic on the tourism industry in terms of their
characteristics, social conflicts, political situation and responses. To achieve this
objective, the development of the tourism sector in Turkey has been analyzed
taking into account the conditions of the world economies. Comparisons were
made between overall figures for incoming tourists, tourism revenues and hotel
occupancy rates in Turkey for the time periods before, during and after these
crises, considering certain other effects.
Najma Sadiq focussed her work on the examination of tourism dimensions in
Pakistan and how it sustained the impact of various crises. Specifically, this
chapter considers the impact of COVID-19-led measures on the tourism industry
and corresponding initiatives of the government concluding that Pakistan should
carefully monitor and assess the current debates on tourism policies and
practices.
Fábia Trentin, Claudia Moraes, Isabela Fogaça and Carlos Lidizia Soares
analyzed the tourism policies introduced in response to the impact of the
COVID-19 pandemic on Brazilian tourism at national, state and local levels,
taking into account governmental functions and intergovernmental coordination.
At the municipal level, there were horizontal coordination arrangements that
positively impacted the actions to contain and resume activities in the context of
the pandemic, such as ordering flexibility, protection, disclosure and promotion
of destinations.

1.3 Tourists and Residents’ Perceptions Regarding COVID-19 Pandemic

Cláudia Seabra, Carla Silva, Odete Paiva, Manuel Reis and José Luı́s Abrantes
conducted an analysis of how the current pandemic is impacting people’s safety
and risk perceptions and also the residents’ levels of acceptance of civilian and
travel restrictions. The results confirmed that the pandemic had a strong impact
on Portuguese residents’ safety perceptions and on their travel and tourism plans.
Also it was possible to conclude that those perceptions have changed over the
course of three pandemic waves.
Maria Koroleva analyzed how Russian residents perceive the impact that the
coronavirus has had on their perceptions of safety, travel and leisure plans and
activities. It was possible to conclude that Russian residents consider that travelling
abroad is riskier than travelling within Russia.
4 Cláudia Seabra et al.

1.4 Impacts of COVID-19 in Economy and Finance

Pedro Reis and Carlos Pinho provide an empirical analysis of investor behav-
iour’s simultaneous influence due to the surprise effect over COVID-19 cases and
government responses on market risk. This analysis compares tourism assets risk
with other sectors and different types of assets and categories of investors in
Europe. Authors concluded that market risk does not arise from COVID-19 cases
but from the surprise effect, as the market accurately predicts future cases. The
Airline and Utility sectors volatility is conditioned by both surprise effect and
government response. Only the Travel sector reveals an interaction effect with
both government response effort and surprise effect.
Leticia Bollain-Parra, Oscar De la Torre-Torres, Dora Aguilasocho-Montoya
and Marı́a del Rı́o-Rama estimated the impact that the US VIX, economic policy
and epidemic uncertainty indexes had on leisure and recreation stocks. By using
logit regressions, the authors found out that only the US economic policy uncer-
tainty index is a detonator of distress and crisis episodes and that the pandemic
(COVID-19) news uncertainty has no significant and direct influence on the
smoothed probabilities.
Christian Viñán-Mereci, Katty Celi-Sánchez, Ronny Correa-Quezada and
Amador Durán-Sánchez estimated the effects that COVID-19 pandemic could
potentially have on tourism activities in Ecuador comparing different internal and
external factors, placing them in a future context for the tourism sector. The results
confirm the significant financial losses and on job loss, namely food and beverage
service, trade and accommodation activities.
Luis Quintana-Romero, Miguel Mendoza-González and José Álvarez-Garcı́a
aimed to determine the national and regional impacts of COVID-19 on Mexican
tourism and analyze potential recovery scenarios. The authors looked at tourism
performance in Mexico in 2020 and compares it to the experience of the H1N1
influenza epidemic of 2009 and concluded that the current pandemic has impacted
more severely on Mexican states that are most dependent on tourism. In some
of these states, product decline has almost doubled the country’s average.

1.5 Destination Strategies for Recovery and Resilience

in the COVID-19 Context
Inês Almeida presents a theoretical reflection on the possible impact of politicians’
positive Word of Mouth (pWOM) on the tourists’ risk perception and destination
image of Portugal in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results show
five recurring themes in the politicians’ pWOM: General Praise, Pandemic Numbers,
Politician Positioning, Health Care and Population Attitude. The discussion
includes a reflection on the outputs of the channels used for the dissemination of
the messages and the importance of the politicians’ countries of origin to a market
strategy that highlights Portugal as a tourism destination.
Catarina Frias, Andreia Pereira and Ana Jerónimo analyze the textual content
of the innovative promotional video campaigns released between mid-March and
 Introduction 5

early April 2020 by Portuguese tourism authorities at national, regional and local
levels to promote tourism destinations during nationwide states of emergency.
The results indicate that the campaigns conveyed inspiring messages of hope
and trust to help restore tourists’ confidence in their safety and emphasized the
planning for future trips while aiming to reduce risk perception by highlighting
that the destination is safe for travel.
Andreia Pereira, Catarina Frias and Ana Jerónimo explored the connections
between love and safety in tourism through a qualitative approach regarding the
feelings towards international marketing strategies during the ongoing pandemic
crisis. The authors concluded that humanization strategies have been the main
tactics used by several of the affected destinations. Also, it was possible to identify
the existence of brand love antecedents – brand trust and a sense of community,
and an overall positive reaction to the images and messages promoted.
Dina Amaro looked at the Southern European countries that took government
policies and alternative measures on different scales that can build up resilient
destinations in the context of COVID-19. Most of these measures involved
public and private stakeholders in a coordinated and innovative way and
using sustainable resources. The efforts made should be reinforced in the
medium- and long term, considering the high probability of substantial changes
occurring.

References
Baker, D. (2014). The effects of terrorism on the travel and tourism industry. International
Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage, 2(1), 58–67.
Blake, A., & Sinclair, M. (2003). Tourism crisis management: US response to
September 11. Annals of Tourism Research, 30(4), 813–832.
Dwyer, L. (2015). Globalization of tourism: Drivers and outcomes. Tourism Recreation
Research, 40(3), 326–339.
Hall, C. (2006). Tourism, disease and global environmental change: The fourth tran-
sition? In S. Em & H. Gössling (Eds.), Tourism and global: Environmental change
(pp. 159–179). London: Routledge.
Jonas, A., Mansfeld, Y., Paz, S., & Potasman, I. (2011). Determinants of health risk
perception among low-risk-taking tourists traveling to developing countries. Journal
of Travel Research, 50(1), 87–99.
Kuo, H., Chen, C., Tseng, W., Ju, L., & Huang, B. (2008). Assessing impacts of SARS
and Avian Flu on international tourism demand to Asia. Tourism Management,
29(5), 917–928.
McKercher, B., & Chon, K. (2004). The over-reaction to SARS and the collapse of
Asian tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 31(3), 716–719.
Pine, R., & McKercher, B. (2004). The impact of SARS on Hong Kong’s tourism
industry. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 16(2),
139–143.
Rohel, W., & Fesenmaier, D. (1992). Risk perceptions and pleasure travel: An
exploratory analysis. Journal of Travel Research, 30(4), 17–26.
6 Cláudia Seabra et al.

Seabra, C., Dolnicar, S., Abrantes, J., & Kastenholz, E. (2013). Heterogeneity in risk
and safety perceptions of international tourists. Tourism Management, 36, 502–510.
Seabra, C., Reis, P., & Abrantes, J. (2020). The influence of terrorism in tourism
arrivals: A longitudinal approach in a mediterranean country. Annals of Tourism
Research, 80, 102811.
Walters, G., Shipway, R., Miles, L., & Aldrigui, M. (2017). Fandom and risk
perceptions of Olympic tourists. Annals of Tourism Research, 66(September),
210–212.
Zeng, B., Carter, R., & De Lacy, T. (2005). Short-term perturbations and tourism
effects: The case of SARS in China. Current Issues in Tourism, 8(4), 306–322.
Chapter 1

Health Risks, Pandemics and Epidemics

Affecting Tourism: Understanding
COVID-19 Pandemic
A. M. Abrantes, J. L. Abrantes, C. Silva, P. Reis and C. Seabra

Abstract
Tourism activity is a global industry and, as such, it is subject to global
risks. International travel has developed exponentially over the last few
decades. At the same time, diseases have increased their geographical
spread influenced by ecologic, genetic and human factors. Currently, the
increasing virus, epidemic and pandemic outbreaks represent some of the
most negative consequences of globalization, causing deaths and signifi-
cant economic losses due to the negative impacts they have on the tourism
industry, one of the sectors that have been the most affected by health
crises.
This work presents insights on the epidemics, pandemics and virus
outbreaks that have occurred throughout the twenty-first century and how
those occurrences have affected the tourism industry and the global econ-
omy. A brief literature review on health risks in tourism is presented, fol-
lowed by a clinical perspective to help people understand the differences
between endemics, outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics. Then, the study
offers a presentation of the most significant pandemics in recent human
history and a deep analysis of the COVID-19 disease. Finally, the effects
that the different pandemics, epidemics and outbreaks that occurred in the
present century had on tourism are explained, and the challenges tourism
has to face are presented and discussed.

Keywords: Health risks; epidemics and pandemics; impacts on tourism;

COVID-19; virus outbreaks; challenges for tourism industry

Pandemics and Travel, 7–28

Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
doi:10.1108/978-1-80071-070-220211002
8 A. M. Abrantes et al.

1. Introduction
The spread of infectious diseases via human travel has become a huge risk to
tourism. When a pandemic occurs, the tourism industry is profoundly affected
because tourists tend to avoid travelling (Qiu, Park, Li, & Song, 2020).
Given the growing insecurity driven by health epidemic, the attractiveness of a
tourism destination is mostly influenced by the safety it provides (Poku & Boakye,
2019). On the other hand, tourists are becoming increasingly aware of health risks
and safety conditions. Consequently, they adjust their travel behaviour and desti-
nation choice accordingly (Mertzanis & Papastathopoulos, 2021). Therefore, health
safety and security are now the central concerns of tourism and leisure settings.
Health risk is one of the factors that could endanger the safety and security of
both tourists and host communities, and despite significant progress in medicine,
tourists and residents are still susceptible to health risks (Jonas, Mansfeld, Paz, &
Potasman, 2011). One of the main factors that can contribute to the spread of
infectious diseases is travelling, especially by plane, because a given infection can
reach a new area of the globe within few hours (Morens, Folkers, & Fauci, 2009).
In fact, the current pandemic showed how travel industry can not only be affected
by diseases but also contribute to its spread.
The ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic has disrupted our world. Worldwide,
countries have enacted lockdowns and quarantines, imposed social distancing, the
closure of schools/universities, public services and non-essential businesses, cancelled
flights, closed borders, imposed travel bans and cancelled or postponed global,
national, regional and local events. Travel restrictions have affected 90% of the world’s
population and have had a huge impact on national economies and particularly on the
tourism industry as they managed to disrupt the tourism systems at the international
and domestic level. At the same time, consequences were felt in various areas of the
economy and society. The impacts that this pandemic will have on tourism varied due
to the complexity of the situation (Zenker & Kock, 2020). There are changes in tourism
behaviour, modification in resident behaviour and alterations in the tourism industry
that will have long-term and indirect effects (Zenker & Kock, 2020).
The main goal of this work is to bring insights into the epidemics, pandemics
and virus outbreaks that occurred in the course of the twenty-first century and how
those occurrences have affected the tourism industry and the global economy.
Starting with a brief literature review on health risks in tourism, the chapter con-
tinues with a more clinical perspective focussing on concepts that, for a less
informed mind, could seem similar, such as endemic, outbreak, epidemic and
pandemic. Then, the article presents the main pandemics that the world has had to
face in recent years. A deep analysis of the COVID-19 disease and of its impacts on
the tourism industry and the global economy is also provided. The final discussion
focussed on the challenges that health risks bring to the tourism industry.

2. Health Risks in Tourism

Risks are the sum of negative outcomes (Le & Arcodia, 2018) and the existence of
danger, harm or loss (Reisinger & Mavondo, 2006). In this context, risks are
 Health Risks, Pandemics and Epidemics Affecting Tourism 9

related with uncertainty and the undesirable and with the adverse consequences of
behaviours, decisions or situations (Dowling & Staelin, 1994). Risk in tourism is a
shock, a threat and a crisis that can negatively affect the tourism industry (Law,
2006). Risks are international tourists’ major concerns (Schroeder, Pennington-
Gary, Kaplanidou, & Zhan, 2013), whether they are absolute or real, subjective
or perceived (Haddock, 1993).
There are several types of risk associated with travel and particularly to
international tourism: physical, financial, functional, mechanical, organizational,
political instability, psychological, satisfaction, terrorism, natural disasters and
social and health risks (Adam, 2015). However, physical risks are those that affect
tourists’ physical and psychological well-being and are related to health issues,
natural disasters, crime, political instability, violence and terrorism. Evidence
shows that they all have a major impact on tourists’ decisions (Seabra, Reis, &
Abrantes, 2020).
Health risks refer to the development of diseases as a result of travel and
tourism experiences (Huang, Dai, & Xu, 2020). It is the possibility of becoming
sick or contracting certain kinds of diseases while travelling (Michalko, 2004).
Health risks are inherent to travel activities. Tourists are more likely to catch
diseases because of their high-risk exposure to pathogens, bacteria, parasites and
viruses when they travel to another unfamiliar region (Aliperti, Nagai, & Cruz,
2020; Jonas et al., 2011). Some of the most common diseases affecting tourists are
traveller’s diarrhoea, typhoid, amoebic dysentery, hepatitis A and C, HIV/AIDS,
cholera, flu viruses or tuberculosis, among others (Uğur & Akbıyık, 2020). The
risk of getting one of these diseases depends on the disease itself, on the desti-
nation and on the kind of behaviour adopted by tourists, i.e., the prophylactic
measures previously taken, the handling of food and beverage, the type of sexual
activities they choose to undertake, the way they participate inlocal habits and
traditions, etc., that will have a great effect on the likelihood of being infected
with one of those contagious diseases (Uğur & Akbıyık, 2020; Mertzanis &
Papastathopoulos, 2021).
Among all the health risks faced by tourists, infectious diseases are those
potential travellers are more concerned with (Reisinger & Mavondo, 2006).
However, epidemics and pandemics are the most frightening health-related
concerns in tourism because pathogens are highly infectious, mutate quickly
and spread rapidly beyond frontiers (Uğur & Akbıyık, 2020). Although tourists
are hesitant to travel to countries facing different infectious diseases, travel
arrivals to less developed countries with a strong incidence of such diseases are
still growing (Page, 2009). Health problems and infectious diseases are
frequently the most commonly perceived health risk for potential tourists when
they choose a destination (Steffen, Debernardis, &, Baños, 2003).

3. What Is a Pandemic?
A pandemic is an epidemic occurring worldwide or over a very wide area and
affecting a large amount of people. The concept itself does not refer to some
10 A. M. Abrantes et al.

essential parameters such as population immunity, virology or disease severity.

Furthermore, and despite the theoretical definition, this term cannot be applied to
seasonal pandemics (Morens et al., 2009). The phenomenon causes a significant
number of deaths worldwide and represents a profound economic and social
burden (Akin & Gözel, 2020).
Commonly, epidemiological concepts such as endemic, outbreak, epidemic or
pandemic are considered as similar. In fact, they all measure the number of cases
of a certain disease over a given moment, comparing the result with the expected
number over time and how fast it spreads.
An endemic disease grows at a stable rate. Thus, the number of cases and the
case expected are identical. Malaria in Africa, dengue in tropical and subtropical
areas, hepatitis B around the world and coccidioidomycosis in the southwestern
Unites States and northern Mexico can be included in this category (Morens
et al., 2009).
A disease outbreak refers to an unexpected surge in case numbers way above
the expected mean. This expression can be applied to an endemic situation with
more cases than expected or to a disease that spreads across an area that had
never been affected before. This is valid even if a single case is reported in this new
region. The phenomenon is usually mentioned when small areas are considered.
Some examples are the cholera outbreak after the Haiti earthquake in 2010,
Ebola outbreaks in many African countries since 1976 and measles in unvacci-
nated children that visited a US theme park in 2015 (Brady, Smith, Scott, & Hay,
2015).
An epidemic phenomenon is an outbreak occurred in a larger area. It can be
associated with Zika virus initially detected in Brazil in 2014 and that later spread
across Latin America and the Caribbean and the Ebola outbreak in West Africa
in 2014–2016, later considered as an epidemic given its extension and the US
opioid crisis (Morens et al., 2009).
A pandemic is an epidemic situation with a global spread. It is essential to
notice that the classification of a certain disease using the aforementioned terms
can change over time, as it happened with HIV, for instance, which emerged in
West Africa and remained an epidemic disease during decades. Since the late
twentieth century, it became a pandemic and has nowadays become an endemic
situation (Morens et al., 2009).

4. The Main Pandemics in History

The H1N2 flu pandemic, commonly referred as Spanish flu, was one of the most
severe pandemics in history. Approximately one-third of the world’s population
was infected and 50 million people perished. The disease is caused by an H1N1
virus with genes of avian origin. There is not universal consensus regarding where
the virus originated geographically, but it spread worldwide between 1918 and
1919 (CDC, 2018).
The name associated to this disease results from a misunderstanding and there
is no clear evidence that proves that it originated from Spain. In fact, Spain
 Health Risks, Pandemics and Epidemics Affecting Tourism 11

assumed a neutral position during World War I, and for that reason, news of the
flu was not suppressed by censors, contrasting with what happened in other
countries. The first news reporting the flu happened in Spain and King Alfonso
XIII got sick one week later. The main vehicles for the spread of pandemics are
trade and communication lines, but this flu was disseminated through military
mobilization, a fragile healthcare system and poor sanitation. Mortality was high
among children under 5 years old, adults between 20 and 40 years old and
65 years and older. Mortality in young groups is a singular fact of this disease.
The virus affects mainly the respiratory system because of its ability to produce
extensive and rapid damage to the respiratory epithelial cells. About one-third of
the population presented clinical symptoms; however, a substantial part of the
individuals was asymptomatic or experienced subclinical infection. Three waves
of the pandemic were identified: the first one occurred during the spring of 1918
with a moderate and quick spread, the second wave happened in the autumn of
1918 and was more aggressive and deathlier and, finally, the third wave was more
severe than the first one and far more lethal than the second one (Johnson &
Mueller, 2002). Treatment was restricted to non-pharmacological interventions
such as isolation, quarantine, masks, disinfectants, good personal hygiene and
limitation of public gatherings. There were no vaccines, anti-viral drugs or anti-
biotics to treat secondary bacterial infections and no mechanical ventilators
(CDC, 2018).
The H2N2 virus was reported for the first time in China in February 1957
and reached a pandemic level in 1957. Its characteristics were quite similar to
those of the previous influenza and had a massive impact on children and young
adults, although mortality was not higher in these groups. It seems that the virus
was born from a combination between avian H2N2 and human H1N1 (Cox &
Subbarao, 2000).
The H3N2 virus appeared in 1968 in Hong Kong and apparently its spreading
was slower compared to other influenza virus. It included genes from the H3
viruses and from the human H2N2 virus. This pandemic caused fewer deaths
probably due to a partial immunity to the N2 component of the previous
pandemic. The H2N2 virus disappeared when the new virus emerged (Cox &
Subbarao, 2000).
The H1N1 virus was first reported in Mexico in 2009. This strain bore certain
similarities with domestic swine influenza (CDC, 2009). Clinically, the influenza
viruses commonly cause acute respiratory infections. Symptoms include fever,
coryza, cough, headache, fatigue and malaise and last 7–10 days, usually with full
recovery (CDC, 2000). Complications include haemorrhagic bronchitis, diffuse
alveolar damage, pneumonia, pulmonary vascular thrombus, secondary bacterial
pneumonia and ultimately death (Taubenberger & Layne, 2001).

5. COVID-19 Pandemic – Understanding the Disease

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19, the disease caused
by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-COV2 virus), a
12 A. M. Abrantes et al.

pandemic in March 2020. The first cases were reported in China in December
2019. This virus is similar to the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus
(SARS-COV), an epidemic that occurred in 2002. Comparing those virus, SARS-
COV2 seems to be more contagious but less lethal (WHO, 2020).
However, the reproductive rate (R0), i.e., the number of people an infected
person will pass on the virus to on average (Table 1.1), is far more severe in
COVID-19 than in cases of influenza. The disease affects individuals from all
ages, but older people (.60 years) and people suffering from multiple comor-
bidities are the groups hit the hardest. The incubation period for COVID-19 is
thought to extend to 14 days, with a median time of 4–5 days after exposure
(Guan et al., 2020; Lauer et al., 2020; Li et al., 2020). The clinical expression
ranges from asymptomatic infection, pneumonia and acute respiratory distress
syndrome to death (Wu & McGoogan, 2020). Symptoms include dyspnoea, fever,
cough, myalgias, headaches, diarrhoea, dizziness, rhinorrhoea, anosmia, dys-
geusia, sore throat, abdominal pain, anorexia and vomiting (NIH, 2020).
Although the disease predominantly targets the pulmonary system, this virus is
capable of causing several complications in multiple organs (Agarwal, Chen,
Ravindran, To, & Thuluvath, 2020; Henry, de Oliveira, Benoit, Plebani, & Lippi,
2020; Liu, Blet, Smyth, & Li, 2020; Madjid, Safavi-Naeini, Solomon, & Vardeny,
2020; Whittaker, Anson, & Harky, 2020).
The transmission of the virus occurs through direct contact with respiratory
secretions through respiratory droplets and contaminated surfaces. Non-
pharmacological measures are identical to those used for the influenza
pandemic previously mentioned. Non-hospitalized COVID patients only require
symptomatic treatment. Hospitalized patients who require supplemental oxygen
should be treated with remdesivir alone or in addition to dexamethasone.
Dexamethasone can be used alone in certain cases. Other therapeutics are being
evaluated. In more severe cases, high flow oxygen therapy, non-invasive venti-
lation, mechanical ventilation or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation could be
necessary. Today, there are several vaccines for SARS-COV2; however, their
production is still limited, and they are not available to the entire population.
Long-term sequelae are still unknown (NIH, 2020).

6. Pandemics, Epidemics and Outbreaks Impacting Tourism in the

Twenty-first Century
Due to the appearance of the new virus subtypes, pandemic seems to repeat with
an interval of 10–50 years (Donthu & Gustafsson, 2020). Nevertheless, the recent
COVID-19 pandemic, which spread worldwide (Karabulut, Bilgin, Demir, & Doker,
2020), has become one of the most highly contagious outbreaks in recent human
history (Sharma, Thomas, & Paul, 2021) with more than 100 million cases and
2.2 million deaths (February 2021 from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/).
This increasing number of cases and deaths has led to an unprecedented level of
anxiety, fear and panic among residents and tourists alike (Zheng, Luo, & Ritchie,
2021). However, this century was marked by other several epidemics, pandemics
and virus outbreaks that have severely affected the tourism industry.
Table 1.1. Main Epidemics, Pandemics and Pathogen Outbreaks Occurred in the Twenty-first Century and Their Impacts on
the Tourism Industry.
Year, Disease and Virus Cases and Deaths Description and Most Affected Impacts on Economy and
Regions Tourism
2002–2003 8,098 cases and 916 deaths. It is considered the first big A global economic loss of
Severe acute respiratory Average death rate of 60%. epidemic of the twentieth US$100 billion, US$48

Health Risks, Pandemics and Epidemics Affecting Tourism

syndrome coronavirus century. SARS virus billion in China alone, was
(SARS-CoV or SARS-CoV-1) originated in China and estimated. SARS is
Epidemic spread to 37 countries due to estimated to have caused a
international travel (Zeng, reduction in these Asian
Carter, & De Lacy, 2005). countries’ GDP of more
The most affected regions than 70%, even in countries
were China, Hong Kong, that were totally disease free
Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, (McAleer, Huang, Kuo,
Philippines, Thailand and Chen, & Chang, 2010). The
Canada. SARS proved the World Travel and Tourism
clear link between travel and Council (WTTC, 2003)
the global spread of an estimated that about 3
illness. A hotel was identified million people lost their jobs
as ‘ground zero’ and this fact in the tourism industry
was publicized worldwide especially in China, Hong
(McKercher & Chon, 2004). Kong, Singapore and
Vietnam due to revenue
losses of about USD 20
billion. The same entity
indicated that tourism
arrivals also fell by 70% or

13
more across the rest of Asia
(McKercher & Chon, 2004).
Table 1.1. (Continued)
Year, Disease and Virus Cases and Deaths Description and Most Affected Impacts on Economy and

14
Regions Tourism

A. M. Abrantes et al.
Canada had losses around
$4.3 billion in the
accommodation and food
service sector (Joo et al.,
2019).
2003–2007 319 cases and 192 deaths. Vietnam was the first country The World Bank estimated
Avian influenza (flu) (H5N1) Mortality rate of 59%. to report information on that this epidemic had a
Epidemic both human infections and global economic impact of
human deaths to the World $800 billion, or 2% of world
Health Organization economic output (McAleer
(WHO). Then the disease et al., 2010). In Vietnam, it
spread to Cambodia, Laos, led to a 1.8% decline in
Thailand, Indonesia China, GDP, while a 5% decline in
Iraq, Azerbaijan and Turkey. international tourist arrivals
The avian flu epidemic could lead to a 0.4% decline
started in East and Southeast in GDP. It was estimated
Asia and spread worldwide. that around 500 tourism
Avian flu had a potential companies, employing more
global reach once again than 3,000 people,
because it can spread collapsed. The outbreak
through international travel provoked a drop of 12
(Kuo, Chen, Tseng, Ju, & million arrivals in Asian and
Huang, 2008). Pacific countries (Kuo et al.,
2008; Wilder-Smith, 2006).
2003–present day (detected in ‘Dengue is the most The total annual global cost
the beginning of twentieth important vector-borne viral of dengue illness in 2013 was
century. Exponential growth Over 230 million infections, disease of humans and likely estimated at an average of a
over the last years) over 2 million cases of severe more important than malaria US$8.9 billion (interval of
Dengue (DENV-1, 2, 3 and 4) disease and 21,000 deaths. globally in terms of $7–19.7 billion) (Shepard,
Endemic morbidity and economic Undurraga, Halasa, &
impact’ (Gubler, 2012, p. Stanaway, 2016). From

Health Risks, Pandemics and Epidemics Affecting Tourism

743). The disease is endemic 2000 to 2007, dengue illness
in Southeast Asia, Southern in the Americas was
Asia, the Pacific, Caribbean estimated to cost $2.1 billion
and Central and Southern per year on average with a
America and shows the range of $1–4 billion
complex interactions of (Shepard, Coudeville,
travel with disease spreading Halasa, Zambrano, &
(Gubler, 2002). Dayan, 2011). This is a
disease that affects mostly
tropical areas, highly sought
after by international
tourists. A 4% decline in
tourist arrivals from
non-endemic countries
would result in a substantial
loss of tourism revenues – at
least US$ 65 million for
Malaysia and US$ 363
million for Thailand
between 2005 and 2006, for
example (Mavalankar,
Tapasvi, Murtola, & Vasan,

15
2009).
 16
Table 1.1. (Continued)

Year, Disease and Virus Cases and Deaths Description and Most Affected Impacts on Economy and

A. M. Abrantes et al.
Regions Tourism
2009 1.4 to 1.6 million cases and Swine flu epidemic is a good The economic impact in
Swine influenza (flu) (H1N1) a number of deaths that example of how international Mexico where the swine flu
Epidemic ranges from 151,700 to tourism is responsible for the started was estimated at
575,400. rapid spread of a disease. more than $3.2 billion (Kuo
Starting in Mexico, an et al., 2008). In Mexico, a
important receiving tourism country severely dependent
market, the disease spread to on tourism industry, it was
other countries in South estimated that tourism losses
America, Asia and Europe amounted to US$2.8 billion.
such as Brunei, Mexico, Brunei registered drops of
Bolivia, Chile and the United 15% in tourist arrivals in the
Kingdom. 12 months that followed the
outbreak (Haque & Haque,
2018). In the United
Kingdom, the epidemic had
also a negative impact on
tourism demand with an
estimated loss of 1.6 million
visitors and £3.7 billion in
receipts in 2009,
representing a cumulative
loss in inbound UK tourism
 revenue of about 19.6%
compared with 2007 (Page,
Song, & Wu, 2012). Hong
Kong also suffered a severe
drop in hotel occupancy
rates due to this epidemic,

Health Risks, Pandemics and Epidemics Affecting Tourism

affecting tourism receipts
(Wu, Law, & Jiang, 2010).
2012–2015 More than 16,000 people This epidemic, which started Only in Korea, MERS
Middle East respiratory quarantined. 2,260 cases and with an infected Korean resulted in an estimated
syndrome (MERS-CoV) 803 deaths. traveller returning from the $2.6 billion in tourism loss
Epidemic Infection rate of 35%. Middle East, is an example and caused a loss of
of an infectious disease 2.1 million international
outbreak initiated by tourist arrivals in 2015.
international travellers to a Estimated losses in the
high-income country (Joo accommodation, food and
et al., 2019). MERS has been beverage service and
identified in over 27 transportation sectors
countries including in the associated with the decrease
Middle East, Europe, Asia of non-citizen visitors were
and the United States. US$542 million, US$359
Northeast Asia was the most million and US$106 million,
affected region. respectively (Joo et al.,
2019).
2014–present day 28,600 cases and 11,325 The Ebola outbreak had its Estimates of the economic
Ebola virus disease deaths. Case fatality rate origin in rural Guinea and burden of the West African
(haemorrhagic fever) up to 90% (50% average). affected neighbouring states outbreak range from $2.8 to

17
Endemic like Liberia and Sierra $32.6 billion in lost GDP
Table 1.1. (Continued)

18
Year, Disease and Virus Cases and Deaths Description and Most Affected Impacts on Economy and

A. M. Abrantes et al.
Regions Tourism
Leone. Once more, the (Huber, Finelli, & Stevens,
outbreak started in Guinea 2018). According to the
and rapidly spread not only World Bank, the Ebola virus
to West Africa but also to epidemic resulted in an
Europe and the United economic loss of at least
States. The main affected 1.6 billion USD in Guinea,
areas were not only West Liberia and Sierra Leone
Africa particularly Sierra (Baker, 2015). Furthermore,
Leone, Nigeria, Guinea and the same entity estimated a
Liberia but also Spain, Italy, potential two-year
the United Kingdom and the (2014–2015) regional
United States. financial impact up to
$32 billion if the virus
continued to spread across
Guinea, Liberia and Sierra
Leone and to other
neighbouring countries
(World Bank, 2014). In
Africa, 50% of tour
operators experienced
cancellations due to the fear
caused by the virus in 2014;
69% of declines are expected
to prevail in the future
 bookings (Maphanga &
Henama, 2019). It was
estimated that, as a result of
Ebola, West Africa could
lose US$3.6 billion per year
between 2014 and 2017 due

Health Risks, Pandemics and Epidemics Affecting Tourism

to decreased trade, closed
borders, cancelled flights,
reduced foreign direct
investment and tourism.
This outbreak damaged an
already fragile tourism
sector across the African
continent (Novelli et al.,
2018, p. 78).
2015–present day More than 1 million cases. Zika outbreak affected Zika’s short-term economic
Zika virus (transmitted by Few if any deaths but the mainly Latin America and impact on Latin America
Aedes aegypti and Aedes disease can cause the Caribbean; however, and the Caribbean could
albopictus mosquitoes) microcephaly in newborn several sport events occurred range between $7 and $18
Endemic children through infected in countries affected by the billion between 2015 and
mothers or Guillain–Barré disease. This fact had a 2018, with significant costs
syndrome. strong impact on the driven by declines in tourism
spreading of the disease in (Gallivan, Oppenheim, &
2015 and 2016. Madhav, 2019). The World
Bank estimated that the
ZIKA outbreak impact for
2016 in Latin America and

19
the Caribbean was about
Table 1.1. (Continued)

20
Year, Disease and Virus Cases and Deaths Description and Most Affected Impacts on Economy and

A. M. Abrantes et al.
Regions Tourism
US$3.5 billion, primarily in
countries where tourism is
highly significant, especially
given the hosting of major
sporting events (Hall, Scott,
& Gössling, 2020). In fact,
the impacts on countries
that have tourist-based
economies would be
particularly strong. More
than 80% of the anticipated
total losses, which could
reach $9 billion in the
Caribbean, were a direct
result of reduced revenues
from international tourism
(Duman-Scheel, Eggleson,
Achee, Grieco, & Hapairai,
2018).
2019–present day 106 million cases and .2.3 COVID-19 first cases were COVID-19 has led to the
COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) million deaths (8 February detected in the region of deepest global recession
Pandemic 2021) Wuhan in China by the end since the Second World
of 2019; within few days the War. The high cost of health
disease had spread services, the lockdowns and
worldwide, and by the end of goods and people movement
January several cases were restrictions had a strong
detected in other regions of impact on global economy.
Asia, Europe and the Middle The slowdown caused by the
East, especially among pandemic has impacted
tourists from Asia or people profoundly businesses and

Health Risks, Pandemics and Epidemics Affecting Tourism

returning from that area. jobs, especially micro, small
International tourism had a and medium enterprises
strong impact on the swift across the developing world.
spreading of the disease According to the World
worldwide. Bank, COVID-19 has
pushed an additional 88
million people into extreme
poverty in 2020 and, in a
worst-case scenario, this
appalling situation could
come to affect 115 million
people. The largest share of
the ‘new poor’ will be found
in South Asia, with
sub-Saharan Africa close
behind (Blake & Wadhwa,
2020). The tourism industry
was one of the most affected
economic sectors.
Preliminary data indicate
that international tourism

21
declined over 70% in 2020 to
levels reported 30 years ago.
Table 1.1. (Continued)
Year, Disease and Virus Cases and Deaths Description and Most Affected Impacts on Economy and

22
Regions Tourism

A. M. Abrantes et al.
The decline in the first 10
months of 2020 indicates a
drop of 900 million
international tourist arrivals
and a loss of US$ 935
billion, more than 10 times
the loss in 2009 under the
impact of the global
economic crisis. The most
affected areas were Asia and
the Pacific (82% decrease in
arrivals), the Middle East
(73% decline), Africa
(69% drop), Europe and the
Americas (68%) (UNWTO,
2020). Moreover, the
pandemic created a global
sentiment of fear, pessimism
and panic, which was
negatively associated with
tourism stock returns,
boosting market volatility
and increasing irrationality
among investors (Reis &
Pinho, 2020).
Source: Own production.
 Health Risks, Pandemics and Epidemics Affecting Tourism 23

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and during the twenty-first century, the
world has had to face global diseases outbreaks. An expected effect of global-
ization is the rise of infectious diseases triggered by the increase in international
travel. Numerous epidemic and pandemic diseases were spread swiftly through
international travel causing global concern. SARS, avian flu, malaria, cholera,
anthrax, tuberculosis and hepatitis are some examples (Richter, 2003). Table 1.1
presents the main pandemic conditions occurred in the twenty-first century and
how they have affected the global economy and the tourism industry.

7. Challenges for the Future in Tourism

International travel has grown exponentially since the middle of the twentieth
century. Travelling grew in speed, distance and volume. Along with the travel,
diseases also spread geographically influenced by ecologic, genetic and human
factors.

The increased number of travellers and their spatial mobility have

reduced geographic barriers for microbes and heightened the
potential for the spread of infectious diseases that can negatively
affect the tourism industry. (Baker, 2015, p. 2)

The surge of epidemics and pandemics is one the most serious outcomes of
living in a globalized world, resulting in deaths, limitation in individual activities
and mobility, losses in the tourism industry and drops in the economies of
countries (Jung & Sung, 2017). Health-related crises are very susceptible to
negative media coverage, making them particularly challenging for the tourism
sector to manage (Schroeder & Pennington-Gray, 2014).
The effects of epidemics, pandemics and virus outbreaks are significantly high in
modern societies where exchanges between countries are frequent (Jamal & Budke,
2020), since unknown preventions and cures tend to scare people (Choe, Wang, &
Song, 2020). In fact, diseases, epidemics and pandemics are examples of external
events that are capable of causing serious crises, especially in international tourism.
The impact of epidemics, pandemics and virus outbreaks can play a significant
destructive role in the tourism industry. The duration of epidemics and pandemics
is often longer (Rodway-Dyer & Shaw, 2005). Crisis triggered by health issues can
last for months or years as tourists’ risk perceptions can live for an exceptionally
long time (Choe et al., 2020). Those events are important and serious since they
can affect not only the areas where they occur but also the surrounding and even
global areas. In fact, health-related crises affect entire regions, not only the des-
tinations directly affected by the disease but also the nearby destinations due to
the spillover effect and will have damaging consequences (Ritchie, Crotts, Zehrer,
& Volsky, 2014).
The current pandemic is challenging the global tourism industry more than
ever, due to significant losses in tourism revenues highly dependent on interna-
tional arrivals that have dropped more than 70% worldwide. Those drops have a
24 A. M. Abrantes et al.

direct impact on tourism-related job. This translates into a job loss more than
seven times the loss recorded following September 11 and represents the largest
tourism decline in history (UNWTO, 2020).
Health crises need proper management and recovery strategies ‘so that the
destination and tourism businesses can respond, recover, learn lessons, improve
future planning and implement effective strategies’ (Novelli, Burgess, Jones, &
Ritchie, 2018, p. 78). Worldwide, the tourism industry stopped due to the current
pandemic. This is a time to reset this important economic sector, the key driver
for economies around the world. This is a transformative opportunity to recover,
reimagine and reform tourism industry to be more sustainable and resilient in the
future (Sigala, 2020).

Acknowledgements
This work was funded by national funds through FCT – the Portuguese Foundation
for Science and Technology (UID/ECO/00124/2013 and Social Sciences DataLab,
Project 22209), POR Lisboa (LISBOA-01-0145-FEDER-007722 and Social Sciences
DataLab, Project 22209), POR Norte (Social Sciences DataLab, Project 22209) and
under the projects UIDB/05583/2020 and UIDB/04084/2020. Furthermore, we would
like to thank CEGOT – Geography and Spatial Planning Research Centre, and
Research Centre in Digital Services (CISeD), the Polytechnic of Viseu and the Faculty
of Arts & Humanities of the University of Coimbra for their support.

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Chapter 2

Impact of Crises on the Tourism Industry:

Evidence from Turkey
Kevser Çınar and Gökhan Şener

Abstract
Tourism, as a leading source of income for many countries, is one of the
world’s fastest-growing industries. Tourism demand is strongly influenced by
the economic situation of the consumer, as well as by the political, envi-
ronmental, security and health conditions provided by the host country. As
tourism is not one of the first steps in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, it is not
part of the mandatory spending group. Holiday plans are among the first to
be altered or cancelled if there is a threat to the tourist’s ‘biological and
physiological needs’ or ‘security needs’. Thus, the tourism sector is highly
susceptible to crises. Turkey tourism movement has faced several major
national and global shocks of different origins recently. This study aims to
examine the impact of crucial crises and of the current COVID-19 pandemic
on the tourism industry in terms of their characteristics, social conflicts,
political situation and responses. To achieve this objective, the development
of the tourism sector in Turkey has been analyzed taking into account the
conditions of the world economies. Comparisons were made between overall
figures for incoming tourists, tourism revenues and hotel occupancy rates in
Turkey for the time periods before, during and after these crises, considering
certain other effects. The figures are related to significant incidents, eco-
nomic, political, health, social or environmental crises that have occurred at
the national or global level.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; crises; tourism industry; Turkey; national

crises; global crises

1. Introduction
A crisis is described as an unpredictable and destructive situation that threatens
current business premises (Avci, Madanoglu, & Okumus, 2011). The tourism

Pandemics and Travel, 29–47

Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
doi:10.1108/978-1-80071-070-220211003
30 Kevser Çınar and Gökhan Şener

sector is one of the world’s fastest-growing industry, but it is still relatively

vulnerable to crises and fluctuations. Terrorism, environmental disasters, eco-
nomic recession, pandemics and political conflicts are the main types of crises that
can affect the tourism industry (UNWTO, 2011). The impact of crises on the
tourism industry has long been a concern of tourism researchers and has resulted
in an extensive academic literature (Asgary & Ozdemir, 2019; Aydın & Gencür,
2014; Carlsen & Liburd, 2007; Glaesser, 2006; Laws & Prideaux, 2006; Laws,
Prideaux, & Chon, 2007; Lean & Smyth, 2009).
For developing countries, the tourism industry is a pillar of the development of
economic and international relations (Alipour & Kilic, 2005). The tourism
industry in Turkey has experienced several environmental, political and economic
crises and terrorist attacks over the last decades but has nevertheless managed to
become one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations. In the 1990s,
international tourist arrivals amounted to 5.3 million, and in the 2000s, the
country welcomed 10 million tourists. Since 2015, several terrorist acts, refugee
crises, international political conflicts with Russia, European Union (EU) and
Syria (Cankurtaran & Cetin, 2016) and, most importantly, the coup attempt
occurred in July 2016 have caused severe drops in international tourist arrivals.
For example, international tourism demand and arrivals in Turkey have dropped
by up to 31% (TürkiyeİstatistikKurumu [TÜRKSAT], 2016). Consequently, a
significant part of the hospitality and accommodation sector in Turkey was
affected so badly that many of these businesses were unable to cope with these
constant crises and went bankrupt over the last few years. Between 2000 and
2016, the total number of tourist arrivals increased at an average annual rate of
8.33%, and economic activities related to the travel and tourism industry repre-
sented for 3.8% of the country’s GDP (TURKSAT, 2019).
Turkey has been increasing its hospitality revenues despite all the global crisis
periods (Cakar, 2018). Since 2016, which witnessed the slowest global tourism
growth rate, Turkey hit a new record and welcomed over 51.7 million tourists,
including 45 million foreigners in 2019 (Ministry of Culture and Tourism, 2020).
Turkey ranks 6th among the most visited country in the world in terms of
international arrivals, 14th in terms of tourism income (United Nations World
Tourism Organizations [UNWTO], 2019) and 4th in the list of top European
tourist hosting countries (Ministry of Culture and Tourism, 2020). Tourism cre-
ates considerable income for Turkey. For example, the tourism sector provided
$34.5 in 2019, a 17% growth compared to the 29.5 billion it provided in 2018,
according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TURKSAT, 2020), and aims to
reach 50 million tourists and $50 billion in revenue by 2023 (REUTERS, 2018).
These positive numbers have once again demonstrated the crucial role of crisis
management practices in the tourism sector.
The aim of this study is to examine the impact of this crucial crisis and the
current COVID-19 pandemic on the tourism industry in Turkey in terms of their
characteristics, social conflicts and political situation. The development of the
tourism sector in Turkey has been analyzed, and comparisons have been made
between the overall figures for incoming tourists, tourism revenues and hotel
occupancy rates between the time periods taking place before, during and after
 Impact of Crises on the Tourism Industry: Evidence from Turkey 31

these crises, taking into account other specific effects. The figures are related to
any significant incident, any economic, political, health, social or security crisis
that has occurred at the national or global level.

2. Literature Review
2.1 Crises and Tourism Sector in Turkey
A rapid increase in the world population, human settlements, uncontrolled
growth in urbanization and high dependence on technology bring along factors
that have prepared the ground for a crisis. Boosted by globalization movements,
the tourism sector has grown at an international level always looking for
increased profitability and productivity. However, it’s because of this growth that
businesses have to face global risks. The concept of crisis in the tourism sector can
be defined as the sum of events that cause a decrease in tourism demand and
regional economic recovery (Hacioglu, Avcikurt, & Koroglu, 2004) and may
occur due to primary causes, i.e., reasons arising from the industry own dynamics,
or to secondary causes, i.e., events occurring outside the sector. The high prob-
ability of recurrence of crises previously experienced is yet another factor that
results from the structural differences in the tourism sector. Terror, war, global
and political crises, environmental disasters or pandemics can happen again and
again at different times in different parts of the world. Tourism high multiplier
effect reflects more negativity on sub-sectors that are already experiencing some
sort of crisis. For example, the economic difficulties experienced by an interna-
tional tourist operator may affect the travel agency that provides local services in
the destination country, hotel businesses and the airline companies chosen for
transportation.
More than ever, tourism business managers have to be aware of how they can
cope with a crisis in countries that have undergone significant political, economic,
social and technological changes. Countries are becoming increasingly interde-
pendent, and even small-scale crisis striking at one corner of this world can
rapidly affect other distant places. However, countries whose economies are
highly dependent on tourism income are forced to protect both the tourism sector
and their citizens’ lives from possible crisis scenarios. Today, the probability that
a crisis may occur is no longer a worst-case scenario. Actually, it is an undeniable
fact that crises will increasingly happen in the future of humanity. Countries need
to be prepared to accept them as part of life and to learn to live with them.
However, the biggest challenge is to guess when, how and to what extent crises
will occur, especially in the tourism sector (Ritchie, 2004).
It is possible to enumerate the most significant factors that may contribute to
the formation of crises in the tourism sector: natural disasters, especially earth-
quakes, terrorism – war, economic-financial crises and the pandemics the whole
world has had to face before, such as ‘Spanish’ flu (1918–19), ‘Asian’ flu (H2N2)
(1957), ‘Hong Kong’ flu (1968), severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)
outbreak (2003), avian flu (2009), MERS-CoV (2012), Ebola and now COVID-19.
32 Kevser Çınar and Gökhan Şener

As crises are inevitable, the implementation of crisis management in the tourism

sector becomes essential.
UNWTO (2011) lists five types of the crises that have affected the tourism
sector at the national, regional or local level:

(1) environmental crises,

(2) social and political events,
(3) health-related crises,
(4) technological incidents or failures and
(5) economic events.

Technological incidents or failures are the only type of crises that will not be
addressed in the following sections since it does not seem to have a strong impact
on Turkey’s tourism sector. However, one should keep in mind that these
different types of crises are frequently closely connected, and it is often hard to
sort them out and keep them under distinct categories. For example, economic
problems such as devaluation and unemployment can trigger social turbulence
and political challenges. This form of classification developed by UNWTO was
applied in this chapter.

3. Purpose and Method of the Study

The primary purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of crises on the Turkish
tourism industry. This is an exploratory study that focusses on showing evidence
from the tourism sector in Turkey. It follows a literature review methodology that
focusses on recently published and peer-reviewed open-source research. The
research was conducted between 5 May and 12 September 2020. The study is
based on secondary data extracted from published journals, articles and emerging
media publications and collected using desk research. This study deals with the
specific field of tourism; however, the facts that emerged from this work provide a
meaningful addition to the state of the art for future and ongoing researches in the
tourism field.
This study is also crucial for executives as it will provide them with a deeper
insight to better determine the background, categories and impacts of recent
crises, allow their comparison with previous crises or analyze possible solutions
and how long these crises can last. When tourism executives become more aware
of and are capable of recognizing the signs of impending crises, their extent and
impacts, they will be better prepared for the outcomes and will be able to develop
recovery plans with minimum damage. This study will therefore offer valuable
findings to support detection and reduction of the impacts caused by crises and
their management in the tourism sector. These various components extracted
from the literature review were reduced to four basic categories based on the
indicators collected from documentary sources. These categories include (1)
economic crises, (2) geopolitical events, (3) environmental incidents and (4)
health-related crises.
 Impact of Crises on the Tourism Industry: Evidence from Turkey 33

4. Findings
The findings of the study are structured based on the tourism crises classifi-
cation defined by the UNWTO (2011). Possible crisis events showed in
Table 2.1 are mainly drawn from the studies related to crises affecting Turkish
tourism so far.

Table 2.1. Crisis in Turkey Tourism.

Domain Crisis
Economic • Global economic crisis (Ayaz, 2016; Claveria &
Polluzie, 2016; UNWTO, 2013; Gocen, Yirik,
& Yilmaz, 2011; Kesimli & Gunay, 2011; Yildiz &
Durgun, 2008; Okumus & Karamustafa, 2005)
• Recession (Apak & Aytac, 2009; Yildiz & Durgun,
2008)
• Shocks in the financial sector (Egilmez, 2009)
• Fiscal and financial fluctuations, devaluation (Kamin,
2018; Ozcan et al., 2012)
• Inflation or deflation (Dwyer, Forsyth, & Rao, 2002;
Sariisik, Sari, Sari, & Halis, 2011)
Geopolitical • Arab Spring (Groizard, Ismael, & Santana, 2016)
• Terrorism (Seabra, Reis, & Abrantes, 2020; Onur, 2018;
TUROFED, 2017; Aras, 2017; COMCEC, 2017; BMI,
2015; Yaya, 2009; Okumus, Altinay, & Arasli, 2005)
• Failed coup attempt (Türkcan & Erkuş-Öztürk, 2019;
Tuna & Özyurt, 2017; TURKSTAT, 2016)
• Syrian civil war (Uslu & Akay, 2019; Onur, 2018; GOV.
UK, 2015; Smarttraveller, 2015; Yarcan, 2007)
• Conflicts between Russia and Turkey (ETC, 2014;
TURSTAT, 2019)
• Migration (Çizel, 2019)
Environmental • Natural disasters such as earthquakes (Çetinsoz & Ege,
2012; Eryigv, Kotil, & Eryigv, 2010; Ural, 2015)
• Loss of flora and fauna, ecosystem collapse (terrestrial
or marine), city planning deficiencies, unplanned
tourism development, air pollution (TURSAB &
TUADER, 2017)
Health-related • SARS (Gocen et al. 2011)
crises • Avian flu (TUROFED, 2017)
• COVID-19 (Acar, 2020; Cooke, 2020; STR, 2020;
TURSAB Report, 2020)
Source: Prepared by the authors.
34 Kevser Çınar and Gökhan Şener

4.1 Global Economic Crisis

The relationship between tourism and the economic crisis is related to uncertainty
about the duration, depth and impact of the global economic crisis (Papatheodorou,
Rossell, & Xiao, 2010) and how the tourism industry may be affected by this insta-
bility in the form of economic fluctuations. The total contribution of the tourism
sector to world GDP amounted to $8.8 trillion in 2018 (WTTC, 2019). Tourism made
up 10.4% of global GDP and 10% of total employment in 2018. Tourism accounted
for about 10.4% of global GDP and 319 million jobs or 10% of total employment in
2018 (WTTC, 2019). However, global risks are always threatening to impair such
growth.
Turkey has experienced several economic crises that deeply have affected the
tourism industry, such as the November 2000 Economic Crisis, February 2001
Economic Crisis and the 2008 Global Economic Crisis (Ayaz, 2016). In 2000, a
crisis started in Asia and reached Western countries such as Germany and the
United States by the end of the year. This severe economic situation affected the
international travel industry negatively (UNWTO, 2002). Turkey had long-term
internal debt dynamics, an unhealthy financial system and several structural issues
it has been struggling to overcome, and its economic strength was dramatically
weakened due to global external factors. The current account deficit was much
higher than expected in 2000. This deficit caused uncertainty on both domestic
and external markets and a decline in inflows from external sources was inevi-
table. By the end of the year, foreign investors started to leave the country (Apak
& Aytac, 2009). These shocks that started in the financial sector during the
2000–2001 crises affected the real sector (Egilmez, 2009). However, with a
considerable recovery both in tourist arrivals (10.428.153) and receipts ($7.6
billion) over 1999 with almost 40% and 47% increase, respectively, in 2000,
Turkey was able to receive a massive number of German tourists, with a 21.8%
share, and of British (8.8%), Russians (6.5%), Americans (4.9%), French (4.3%)
and Dutch (4.2%) visitors (Gulbahar, 2011).
The crisis in the sub-prime mortgage market that started in the United States
by the end of 2007 and spread across Europe, Asia, the Pacific and other regions
had an initial impact on travel tourism demand in 2008 (UNWTO, 2008). The
growth of international tourist arrivals declined sharply worldwide (only 2%). It
even came to a halt in Europe due to economic factors such as credit shortage, the
ever-worsening financial crisis and the rising oil prices that affected business and
consumer confidence and led to a global recession (UNWTO, 2009). Leisure and
business-based tourism activities were severely affected by the global economic
crises of 2008, since people had to face a significant decline in their financial
situation for an extended period of time (Yildiz & Durgun, 2008).
Turkish GDP dropped by almost 5% between 2008 and 2009 as a result of the
global financial crisis of 2008–2009 (UNWTO, 2013). Despite the general slow-
down, many destinations around the world managed to achieve very positive
results. Turkey, for example, continued to strengthen its international position.
Arrivals rose by 13%, thanks to the attractive exchange rate for the Eurozone
countries and easy visas for Russian tourists, other CIS countries and Middle East
 Impact of Crises on the Tourism Industry: Evidence from Turkey 35

visitors (UNWTO, 2008), and in 2008, tourist arrivals in Turkey rose by 13% and
revenues by 19% (UNWTO, 2009). The level and persistence of the impacts of the
global economic crisis on the tourism market vary from region to region. Turkey
was not greatly affected and was able to recover from the adverse effects at a
faster pace (UNWTO, 2013).
Several dynamics played crucial roles in the 2008 crisis. A year before, in 2007,
mortgage interests were insistently becoming higher than usual ratios and this
resulted in tremendous financial disasters. Briefly, if an industry experiences a
recession, the investment in that field will drop and total production volumes in
the sector will be lower. Since America’s mortgages involved real estate and banks
together, the overall recession effects became a national concern and then a
worldwide issue. Turkey was also affected for a while, and its international
production volume decreased (Yildiz & Durgun, 2008). Tangible costs got higher
than usual, especially in the hospitality industry, since prices of goods and services
are mainly determined by economic conditions, as stressed by Uysal and
Crompton (1984).
Turkey has numerous original and derived types of tourism or activities, along
with a myriad of potential attractions. Tourism revenues should have been
cumulative; however, negative political and economic factors are still affecting
Turkey’s revenues generated by tourism expenditures. Akkemik (2012) main-
tained that ‘macroeconomic consequences of changes in tourism demand may be
significant for policymakers in a developing country like Turkey due to growth
and development objectives of tourism policies’. Domestic and international
tourism activities are mandatory for the macroeconomic dimension to be finan-
cially sustainable, especially for worldwide destinations.
The 2008 crisis was much more severe than those which had occurred in 1997
and 2001. Turkey had managed to preserve its economy during hard times but
2008 was much harder (Gocen, Yirik, & Yilmaz, 2011) since the impact of the
recession lasted a year. Therefore, Kesimli and Gunay (2011) clarified the fact
that the global economic crisis was not as challenging as the ones based in other
countries, since inflation rates and interest rates decreased notably. As a result,
ratios related to working capital of real sector were not affected to a great extent.
According to Sariisik, Sari, Sari, and Halis (2011), the 2008 crisis had a deep
negative impact on the tourism sector, but tourism industry should continue
enjoying general support, and greater importance should be given to crisis
management as a way to solve the problems that affect the sector.

4.2 Geopolitical Instabilities

Turkey ranked among the most popular tourist destinations due to the many
opportunities it provides: from historical, cultural and natural attractions to sea-
sun-sand tourism with seaside resorts, festivals, leisure options and medical
tourism (BMI, 2015). Despite this strong positioning, these developments heavily
depend on maintaining a stable and secure political environment in the country
(BMI, 2015). Potential hazards to stability in the country include political
36 Kevser Çınar and Gökhan Şener

inconsistencies, such as anti-government protests, PKK conflict and the Syrian

and Iraq war and their ongoing effects. However, none of these threats has a
direct impact on tourism, especially outside Istanbul city.
Between 2000 and 2009, the number of incoming tourists to Istanbul increased
by 219.6%, while between 2009 and 2010, a decrease around 7% was observed.
The reason for the decreasing number of tourists in Istanbul at that time can
be explained with the travel preferences of tourists coming from the Middle East
and Saudi Arabia due to ‘Arab Spring’ (Groizard, Ismael, & Santana, 2016). On
6 January 2015, a police building in Sultanahmet, one of Istanbul’s main tourist
attractions, was attacked by a suicide bomber. After the attack, several govern-
ment agencies issued travel notices reporting risks of terrorist attacks, and they
announced that any trips to the Syrian border and the southern-eastern cities were
not recommended (GOV. UK, 2015; Smarttraveller, 2015). Furthermore,
terrorism and political instabilities on the borders of Syria and Iraq have posed a
serious threat to tourism in Turkey. Even though territorial political unsteadiness
may intimidate Turkish tourism, there are also some opportunities for progress.
For example, political turmoil in the closest competing tourism countries like
Egypt could lead to an increase in the number of tourists arriving in Turkey,
which could boost the hotel industry.
Russian tourists have become an essential source of tourism for both the EU
and Turkey. Thirty-two million Russian travellers have visited Europe, making
it the third largest source of tourists in Europe in 2013 (ETC, 2014). With over
6 million tourists in 2018 and 2019, Russians were topping the list of foreign
tourists coming to Turkey (Turkish Statistical Institute [TURSTAT], 2019).
In 2014, the arrival of Russian tourists to Turkey dropped sharply due to a
decline in consumption expenditures in Russia caused by lower world oil prices. In
2016, when the aircraft crisis occurred between Turkey and Russia, a tourist loss
ratio of around 76% was experienced in Turkey’s tourism (Uslu & Akay, 2019).
The Russian Federation market experienced the largest decrease among all
visiting countries in 2016, with a decrease rate of -76.26%. At the same time, the
2016 coup attempt had a negative impact on hotel occupancy rates. When one
analyzes the statistics on hotel occupancy rates, evidence clearly shows that
Turkey experienced a significant decline that year (TURKSTAT, 2016).
International migration is another consequence of the geopolitical crisis caused
by political, social, economic and demographic changes in the country of origin
and has an impact on the host country as well. Tourist behaviour is highly
vulnerable to psychological and social influences, personal sensitivities and short-
term reactions. If a mere link of the chain that composes the image of a desti-
nation is bad, then the entire perception suffers. The Centre for Middle Eastern
Strategic Studies (2015) studied the impact of the Syrian refugees in Turkey and
found out that tourism suffered a hard hit after the crisis. It was reported that
tourism stopped in the cities where the refugee camps were located. For the other
cities, opening new businesses was a risk due to unfair competition of workplaces
owned by migrants. The presence of migrants in the tourism sector can pose a
threat to the image of the destination, causing a negative perception that taxes
and rents will increase (Çizel, 2019).
 Impact of Crises on the Tourism Industry: Evidence from Turkey 37

The decline in tourist arrivals and revenues caused by terrorism has been
evident in several countries and has affected Turkey as well (Feridun, 2011; Ozsoy
& Sahin, 2006; as cited in Seabraet al., 2020). The number of foreign tourists
decreased by 26% in 2016 compared to 2015, which was estimated at 9,203,987. It
was reported that the reasons for the sharp decline occurred in 2016 were the
cancellation of planned trips and meetings due to security problems related to
terrorist attacks in Turkey and especially in Istanbul. For example, the occupancy
rate was 55.3% in 2015 in Istanbul. It dropped to 45.7% by the end of 2017. The
largest decline Istanbul experienced in hotel occupancy happened in 2016–2017
due to the coup attempt (HARMONI, 2017).
It could be said that the economy, in particular, the tourism sector, suffered
severe losses due to permanent terrorist attacks in 2015 and to the coup attempt in
2016 (Türkcan & Erkuş-Öztürk, 2019).
Turkey developed crucial crisis management strategies after terror attacks
(Okumus, Altinay, & Arasli, 2005) that were quite similar to those implemented
by the United States after the 9/11 terror attacks. Thanks to this, the Ministry of
Defence was able to prevent terror attempts several times. Moreover, one of the
most efficient reasons how Turkey has managed to overcome crises is due to
government investment in tourism infrastructure (Gormus & Gocer, 2010).
Turkey is still one of the safest destinations amongst developed countries.
According to Tekin (2015), even though Turkey has to deal with economic and
political uncertainties occasionally, the tourism market seems to be immune to
such circumstances.

4.3 Environmental Crises

The World Economic Forum (2019) addresses five main global environmental
risks such as extreme weather conditions; failure to mitigate and adapt to climate
change; severe loss of biodiversity and the destruction of ecosystems; large-scale
natural disasters and human-made environmental catastrophes. All these risks
can affect tourist destination interest, as weather and climate conditions are
among the most crucial criteria for tourist motivation and because temperature is
another influential antecedent of tourist demand (Bigano, Goria, Hamilton, &
Tol, 2005). Climate change is a serious challenge and will certainly have more
profound implications for tourism in the coming years (Scott, Hall, & Gössling,
2012; Tuna & Özyurt, 2017). These impacts manifest in many different forms,
including the visitors’ choice of destination, spatial patterns of tourist demand or
the sustainability and competitiveness of tourism assets (Asgary & Ozdemir,
2019). However, climate change in Turkey is not yet an issue that could cause a
severe crisis.
While unplanned tourism contributes to a loss in biodiversity, ecotourism is an
important and growing part of tourism that is highly dependent on biodiversity
and ecosystem services. Major biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse (terrestrial
or marine) constitute a significant risk to this type of tourism. For example,
studies show that damage to coral reefs has had irreversible consequences for
38 Kevser Çınar and Gökhan Şener

ecotourism (Simpson, 2003). Massive local and global extinction of animal and
plant species are expected to have a deep impact on ecotourism (Simpson, 2003).
Reducing this risk mainly depends on protecting biodiversity. Earthquakes, tsu-
namis, volcanic eruptions and geomagnetic storms are among the natural disas-
ters that affect more deeply the tourism sector (Ritchie, Molinar, & Frechtling,
2010). They cause severe damage to tourism infrastructure such as hotels and
resources such as tourist attractions and destroy tourist destinations (Park &
Reisinger, 2010). Another crucial environmental risk is air pollution, especially in
large cities such as Istanbul (TURSAB & TUADER, 2017). This situation has a
crucial impact on tourists, on the elderly and on people who are more vulnerable
to pollution.
Natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes and droughts can harm the
tourism industry in Turkey. The main tourist destinations in Turkey are subject to
high levels of seismic risk and hazard. Strong earthquakes are the main threats to
tourist visitations, tourism infrastructure and services or cultural heritage, which
are of extreme importance to the development and growth of tourism in Turkey
(Çetinsoz & Ege, 2012; Ural, 2015). The 1999 Marmara (İzmit) earthquake, for
instance, had significant adverse effects on the flow of tourism to Turkey (Eryigv,
Kotil, & Eryigv, 2010).

The Katherine Flood in Australia in 1998 and earthquakes in

Montserrat, San Francisco, Italy and Turkey, and the tsunami
that occurred in late 2004 are examples of recent large natural
disasters that triggered serious tourism crises. (Okumus &
Karamustafa, 2005)

The number of tourists travelling to the impacted places declines dramati-

cally after these natural catastrophes. It is easier for domestic tourists to act in
accordance with these events, at least to a certain extent, but the negative
impact on international tourism activities is much more serious since it will be
much harder for foreign travellers to cancel their plans in case of any threat to
their safety. Also, if travellers are not accurately informed about the destina-
tion they plan to visit or if there is any evidence of risk to their safety, they will
cancel their visit at once. Luckily, apart from the 1999 earthquake that
occurred in Adapazarı, Turkey has not had to face any other significant nat-
ural disaster.

4.4 Health-related Crises

Success in tourism is described as making travellers feel safe, and the concept of
safety comes together with health, especially during any epidemic process. In
2003, when the SARS epidemic started, the number of tourists increased by 5%,
and tourism revenues rose by 10% compared to the previous period (Gocen et al.,
2011). SARS was one of the most destructive pandemics witnessed over the last
few decades, along with the spread of EBOLA, across far eastern countries. Both
 Impact of Crises on the Tourism Industry: Evidence from Turkey 39

pandemic diseases did not cause a significant decrease in tourism values but still
had an impact on the country’s tourism growth rate.
The end of 2015 brought the first serious health-related crisis that deeply
affected Turkish international tourism. The outbreak of avian influenza raised
concerns about the disease and the associated risks, even though there was no
evidence that the virus could spread from person to person. Companies, countries
and international organizations initiated urgent plans (UNWTO, 2006) that
included the cancellation of reservations that affected all types of travel to
Turkey.
The current COVID-19 pandemic is certainly one of the worst crises the world
has ever encountered in the last century. After the first COVID-19 cases were
reported, many countries restrained any sort of international movement of people
as a precautionary measure. Many countries shut down their borders completely,
while others limited cross-border access or movement. At the same time, countries
advised their citizens to avoid non-essential travel. As a result of these swift
preventive measures and of the state of alertness put into motion to deter the
spread of the virus, global international movement almost stopped and the
tourism business slowed down.
The first official COVID-19 case was reported in Turkey on 11 March 2020
and the number of cases has increased rapidly since then. Domestic and inter-
national travel restrictions started on March 21 to contain the escalation of the
virus (Demirbilek, Pehlivantürk, Özgüler, & Alp Meşe, 2020). Foreigners were
not allowed to enter Turkey to limit the risk of spreading the infection until June
12, while many countries continued to impose international travel restrictions.
Coronavirus outbreak unfolded when the tourism industry was starting to grow in
Turkey. Restrictions imposed due to the coronavirus epidemic have also nega-
tively affected domestic tourism. Turkey’s annual tourism revenues fell 11.4%
compared to the previous year to USD 4.10 billion in the first quarter of 2020
(Trading Economics, 2020).
The tourism sector in Turkey has been facing the most oppressive period ever
in its history. Many visitors have cancelled their bookings for June, July and
August and even reservations they had made for the following months. The
number of foreign tourists visiting Turkey tumbled 85.9% year-on-year to 932,927
in July 2020, as the tourism sector has been hit hard by the travel restrictions and
cancellations caused by the pandemic. Tourist arrivals dropped sharply by 78% to
5.44 million in the first seven months of the year (Trading Economics, 2020).
According to a research study conducted by the Association of Turkish Travel
Agencies (TURSAB) in May 2020 about employees’ turnover rate in travel
agencies, 80% of 1,433 travel agencies stated that their losses in terms of turnover
exceeded 75%. About 40% of the agencies predicted that a 75% employment loss
would occur if the pandemic were to continue (TURSAB REPORT, 2020).
According to the STR Global report conducted in cooperation with the Hotel
Association of Turkey (TUROB), there has been a significant drop in hotel
occupancy rates in Turkey in June 2020. During that month, hotel occupancy rate
dropped to 21.2%, which represents a decrease of 68.4% compared to the same
month of 2019 (STR Report, 2020).
40 Kevser Çınar and Gökhan Şener

The aviation sector in Turkey has also gone through the most challenging stage
of its history due to the coronavirus outbreak. In March 2020, when the impact of
the pandemic was high, there was a 53% drop in the number of passengers
travelling with Turkish Airlines with 2.8 million passengers carried. In 2019, 5.9
million passengers were transported by the same air company. Furthermore, there
was a 44% decline in the number of Pegasus Airlines’ passengers compared to the
same month of the previous year (STR Report, 2020).
In today’s environment, tourism is still a sustainable sector. As soon as the
pandemic is over, tourism and all of its sub-sectors will face unlimited path-
shaping opportunities (Niewiadomski, 2020). Considering any possible worst-case
scenarios throughout its history, Turkey has learned how to successfully conduct
crisis management. Nevertheless, coronavirus is making every possible outcome
even worse than expected and it is getting more and more difficult for the tourism
sector to overcome this crisis without government support. Turkey is among the
safest travel destinations due to the implementation of absolute safety procedures
(Tekin, 2015; Hurriyet Daily News, 2020; Telegraph, 2020); however, the sector
still needs time to recover.
Turkey’s successful endeavour in managing the COVID-19 pandemic has been
recognized and appreciated worldwide, when many developed countries failed to
cope with the virus. Turkey has accepted foreign patients from 31 countries since
May 20th after the launch of ‘healthy tourism certification’ project to ensure the
implementation of high hygiene and health protocols (Daily Sabah, 2020).
Leisure-oriented tourism activities are the first to be delayed during crisis times,
but health is mandatory even during global pandemics; Turkey still welcomes a
large number of foreign guests specifically for medical tourism. Turkey’s notable
management of the COVID-19 pandemic will likely boost its already vibrant
medical tourism industry, and revenues from the sector could reach $10 billion
(67.9 billion TL) in a short period of time (Daily Sabah, 2020).
The tourism sector recovered faster than other sectors after SARS in 2002,
avian flu in 2005, MERS in 2015 and Zika virus in 2016. However, the situation
caused by COVID-19 seems more challenging. The process of tourism normali-
zation is taking longer than expected as the period of the outbreak extends and the
uncertainties resulting from the pandemic grow.

5. Conclusion
Despite the importance of tourism in its economy, Turkey has been experiencing
crises such as terrorist attacks, currency fluctuations, internal social conflicts and
political problems with Russia, Syria, Iran and the EU throughout the years
(Yarcan, 2007). Furthermore, high and unmanageable inflation rates play an
essential factor in the loss of competitive advantage in the tourism sector, and
although tourism businesses may have control over prices, they have little control
over inflation rates (Dwyer, Forsyth, & Rao, 2002). The Turkish Lira has suffered
a 35% devaluation mainly due to new tariffs and sanctions from the US gov-
ernment and to high interest and inflation rates. The tourism sector has also been
 Impact of Crises on the Tourism Industry: Evidence from Turkey 41

affected (Kamin, 2018). Furthermore, COVID-19 has been accepted as one of the
worst crises that the world has ever encountered in the last century, making every
possible outcome even worse than one could have expected. In short, it could be
argued that over the last decade, Turkish tourism has gone through a difficult
period as a result of some national and global crises that caused deep economic
recessions (Okumus & Karamustafa, 2005). Finally, all these ongoing events have
considerably deteriorated the tourism sector (Kizilirmak, Cetin, & Kucukali,
2017).
Countries’ income growth and favourable economic conditions are related to
their tourism activities (Kaplan & Aktas, 2016). Global repetitive fluctuations in
fiscal and financial movements undeniably give rise to shrinkage in tourism
activities; however, tourism activities have always been able to cope with these
setbacks and turn the situations in their favour (Ozcan, Erbiyik, & Karaboga,
2012). Turkey is a country where significant progress in tourism has been made
in recent decades. Claveria and Polluzie (2016) pointed out that Turkey’s
tourism revenues sharply increased between 2000 and 2010. All these results
show that even though the tourism industry has experienced and endured the
most severe external crises, each time it has survived and has managed to emerge
as one of the fastest-growing industries, since every challenge has represented an
opportunity for improvement. Each crisis led to a rebirth of the Turkey tourism
industry that was always capable of embracing the new opportunities provided.
For example, the recent health-related crisis reinforced the country’s position in
terms of medical tourism and provided an opportunity for the country to
recover its influence in that particular field. Since Turkey managed to control the
spread of the virus keeping the number of the death toll to a minimum compared
to the world average, its health system has proven to have the capacity to handle
the pandemic at a time when many developed countries faced severe challenges.
The capacity to maintain this performance is likely to increase the reputation of
the country’s health system.
The competitiveness of the cheaper Turkish Lira against the Euro and some
other currencies is one of the pillars of Turkish tourism. On the other hand, this
also represents a general problem. Necessary measures need to be taken as soon as
possible in order to be more resilient. Global technological trends and improve-
ments need to be closely monitored and adapted. Solutions such as low-cost
airlines, diversification of tourism products, destinations or opening up to
different source markets need to be swiftly implemented. Even though the tourism
sector was somewhat vulnerable to previous crises, anticipating tourism demand
for near-future scenarios can be done using specific objective methods. Since
tourism is vital for the success of global and national economies, global risks must
be analyzed and monitored at a national and regional level. Therefore, this study
aims to provide the policymakers with the necessary information to manage
possible risks and to develop the tourism industry according to the impact of
national and global risks. They will also become aware of the global environ-
mental and health-related risks that will affect tourism opportunities for present
and future generations. Besides, these findings will turn the tourism industry into
a solution to eradicate risk by reducing conflict.
42 Kevser Çınar and Gökhan Şener

6. Limitations and Future Research

The final corpus of the study is quite limited, so it restricts the analysis and the
conclusions. The study provides a structure and a set of fundamental concepts
related to the impacts of the crisis on Turkish tourism, but the review carried out
cannot present a complete picture of the current state as it is still unclear when
tourism will return to normal and what will be the full impact of COVID-19 in the
long term. However, the analysis contributes significantly to the existing litera-
ture, setting the ground for future research and practices in this area. Still, further
studies of this type are needed for other sectors and in other countries with more
representative samples in order to draw additional conclusions about the impacts
of the crisis on the tourism sector.

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Chapter 3

COVID-19, Adaptive Capacity and

Tourism Governance: The Case of
Pakistan’s Tourism Industry
Najma Sadiq

Abstract
The restrictive measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic put a halt to
everything across the world. The global crisis hit every sphere of life. The
mobility restrictive nature of the pandemic was a major blow to the travel,
tourism and hospitality industry. For a country like Pakistan, with an
unstable economy and struggling tourism, the pandemic served as ground
zero. This chapter critically examines tourism dimensions in Pakistan and
how it sustained the impact of various crises. It pays attention to the con-
cepts of vulnerability, social and community resilience, and adaptive
capacity to provide a theoretical understanding of the revival of tourism in
Pakistan. It also considers the impact of COVID-led measures on the
tourism industry and corresponding initiatives of the government. The
chapter concludes by arguing that Pakistan should carefully monitor and
assess the current debates on tourism policies and practices. The chapter
suggests that the national tourism strategy should incorporate a mechanism
that can address tourism in crises in addition to addressing the environ-
mental, socio-cultural and economic impact of tourism.

Keywords: Tourism vulnerability; social resilience; community resilience;

tourism adaptive capacity; COVID and tourism; Pakistan’s tourism

1. Introduction
The issues concerning security and safety always show how vulnerable tourism is
(Baker, 2014; Liu & Pratt, 2017; Raza & Jawaid, 2013). With its global orien-
tation, and related safety and/or health risks associated with a given touristic
attraction, the concept of vulnerability and resilience has established itself as an

Pandemics and Travel, 49–66

Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
doi:10.1108/978-1-80071-070-220211004
50 Najma Sadiq

indispensable part of tourism research (Bec, McLennan, & Moyle, 2016; Eakin,
Benessaiah, Barrera, Cruz-Bello, & Morales, 2012). Similarly, security issues
related to terrorism, ethno-religious or identity-based conflicts have significant
impact on the potential of tourism in various contexts (Butler & Suntikul, 2013;
Pizam & Smith, 2000). Scholars have even observed the post-conflict or transi-
tionary settings struggling with the tainted place images (Alvarez & Campo, 2014;
Makki & Ali, 2019), owing to the protracted nature of conflicts and the conse-
quent media coverage (Calgaro, Lloyd, & Dominey-Howes, 2014; Kapuściński &
Richards, 2016; Perpiña, Camprubı́, & Prats, 2019).
With various challenges affecting tourism vulnerability, it is important to
provide a conceptual analysis that will help understand vulnerability and resil-
ience amid different crises. The case of Pakistan, due to its unique geographical,
geopolitical, socio-economic and cultural situation, can provide distinctive insight
and perspective on said scenario. There is a critical need to understand how
tourism here has survived terrorism, disasters and the current pandemic. The
chapter adds to the ongoing debate on tourism vulnerability, resilience and
adaptive capacity by providing a detailed analysis of the struggle waged by
Pakistan’s tourism industry over the last 20 years.
Pakistan is one of the countries that has suffered the most from conflict and
terrorism. The armed conflict, that started in 2003, in the north-western border
has had ripple effects on the other part of the country (Sadiq & Hassan, 2017;
Sadiq & Naeem, 2016). Nevertheless, in the last three years (2017–2019), the
security situation has improved across the country which left room to the gov-
ernment to implement initiatives meant to improve the tourism industry. The
country strives to draw international attention to its most exquisite landscapes
and heritage, and to the warmth of the hosting community. The tourists took
home stories of historically and culturally rich geographies, while praising the
hospitality of the local communities. That said, the country has observed a sig-
nificant rise in its international and regional tourism (World Tourism Council,
2020). The thriving industry was recognized as a ‘tool’ to re-construct the blem-
ished image caused by terrorism. In recent years, various reforms and
government-led interventions have played a vital role in facilitating the industry’s
growth. However, before these developments start to bear fruit, the world was hit
by a severe calamity, the COVID-19 pandemic.
The restrictive measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic put a halt to
everything across the world. The global crisis hit every sphere of life. The
mobility restrictive nature of the pandemic was a major blow to the travel,
tourism and hospitality industry. For a country like Pakistan, with an unstable
economy and struggling tourism, the pandemic served as ground zero. This
chapter critically examines tourism dimensions in Pakistan and how they have
sustained the impact of various crises. In particular, it pays attention to concepts
like vulnerability, social and community resilience, and adaptive capacity to
provide a theoretical understanding of the tourism revival in Pakistan. It also
considers the impact of COVID-19-led measures on the tourism industry and
corresponding initiatives of the government. The chapter concludes by arguing
that Pakistan should carefully monitor and assess the current debates on tourism
 COVID-19, Adaptive Capacity and Tourism Governance 51

policies and practices. The chapter also suggests that the national tourism
strategy should incorporate a mechanism that can address tourism during times
of crisis in addition to addressing the environmental, socio-cultural and eco-
nomic impact of tourism.

2. Categories and Forms of Tourism in Pakistan

From the second highest mountain in the world (K-2) to the Arabian Sea, the
highs and lows of the country are known for their diversity in terms of landscapes,
weather, history, culture, languages and cuisine, to highlight a few. Conceptually,
Pakistan’s tourism can be categorized roughly into four categories: Cultural and
heritage tourism, religious tourism, ecotourism and adventure tourism.
Cultural and heritage tourism is known for its tangible and intangible elements
(Ruhanen & Whitford, 2019). The tangible heritage includes material traces, for
instance, archaeological sites, historical monuments, artifacts and objects which
hold importance for a particular community, a nation and/or to humanity. The
intangible heritage is about the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge
skills, instruments, objects, artifacts and cultural spaces associated with living
communities (Hassan, 2014). Heritage tourists are particularly interested in pla-
ces, monuments, food and meeting people from a particular place.
Pakistan is a rich country in terms of its tangible and intangible heritage.
Different old civilizations like the Indus Valley Civilization, Harappan Civiliza-
tion, Gandhara Civilization and the Mughal Empire left their footprints here.
There are six properties listed as world heritage sites, whereas 26 sites are in the
tentative list of UNESCO’s world heritage sites (UNESCO World Heritage
Centre, 2020). The country provides the tourists with a rich experience through its
festivals as well. These festivals showcase the history, culture and traditions of the
local community. Consequently, these festivals create an association between
tourists and the respective area and its community.
The second important category of tourism is religious tourism. The under-
standing of religious tourism has evolved since earlier research studies (Cohen,
1984; Graburn, 1983; Pfaffenberger, 1983). The focus has shifted from pilgrimage
to the meaningfulness of a destination. The motivation for religious tourism has
extended beyond the religion-based identity and religiosity (Kim, Kim, & King,
2020). Non-believers take interest in religious sites as places of religion, culture
and society irrespective of their orientation (Choe, Blazey, & Mitas, 2015). For
believers, these sites are sacred and faith-based places within their cultural
parameters. Non-believers also feel a closeness to the religious site if it originates
from a familiar culture and historical tradition (Nyaupane, Timothy, & Poudel,
2015). Due to their historical, cultural and societal aspects, religious sites attract
tourists irrespective of their belief system.
Pakistan’s religious sites are diverse in terms of their religious affiliations. The
numerous historically significant mosques and Sufi shrines are cherished for
their captivating architecture. Similarly, the religious sites of Sikhs and Hindus
are sources of interest for tourists. The Gurdwaras at Nankana Sahib and
52 Najma Sadiq

Hasanabdal hold significance for the Sikh community due to their affiliation
with Baba Guru Nanak. Furthermore, around 400 Hindu temples exhibit their
architectural uniqueness enriched with history. Additionally, the country also
has more than 2,000 Buddhist archaeological sites with religious and historical
connotations.
The third category of tourism is ecotourism. Ecotourism is a subset of sus-
tainable tourism (Cater & Cater, 2015; Hunt, Durham, Driscoll, & Honey, 2015;
Weaver, 2001). To ensure sustainable natural resource consumptions, approaches
like ecotourism, alternative tourism and soft tourism were introduced (de Haas,
2002; Wearing & Neil, 1999). The long-term development of ecotourism was
facilitated by raising awareness of the perceived value of ecological conservation
and protected places (Castellanos-Verdugo, Vega-Vázquez, Oviedo-Garcı́a, &
Orgaz-Agüera, 2016). With proper planning and management, ecotourism is
beneficial to the tourist destination as it supports the development of the econ-
omy, environment and socio-cultural aspects (Wondirad, 2019).
In Pakistan, protected areas are the main attraction for ecotourism (Naeem
Abbas, 2015; Nigar, 2018). The country has 14 national parks, 70 wildlife sanc-
tuaries and 66 game reserves (UNEP-WCMC, 2020). There are high mountains
(Hindu Kush, Karakorum, Himalaya ranges), rugged cliffs, alpine meadows,
glaciers, coniferous forests, sub-mountain scrub forest, diverse flora and fauna
(endemic and migratory), deserts, wetlands, beaches and coastlines (Arshad,
Iqbal, & Shahbaz, 2018). The Karakoram 2 or K-2 is the second highest
mountain in the world. Moreover, the trout fishing in Gilgit-Baltistan’s glaciers
and Swat River is a fascinating experience. The diversity of landscapes and
weather of each province and administered areas provide a unique ecotourism
experience.
The fourth category includes adventure tourism. In tourism research, adven-
ture tourism is more of a category of tourism than an analytical concept (Gross &
Sand, 2019; Rantala, Rokenes, & Valkonen, 2018). The term refers to challenging
tourism activity that differs from nature-based tourism or ecotourism. As a
category, this term represents all kinds of adventurous tourism activity that take
place in a natural environment (Rantala et al., 2018). The wide geographical
landscape of Pakistan offers numerous outdoor adventures and sports activities
like motorbiking, hiking, trekking, paragliding, rock climbing in the north, and
camel and yak safari, and desert jeep rallies in the south (Ahmed & Mahmood,
2017). The intersection of the world’s highest and most difficult mountain ranges
like the Hindu Kush, Himalayas, Karakoram and Pamir is an attractive feature
for adventure tourists (Azhar, Malek, & Masood, 2018).

3. The Struggling Tourism Industry of Pakistan (2001–2010)

Despite the mixture of different tourism attractions, Pakistan was not able to
make the best of its tourism potential. One of the most prominent factors was the
security conditions of the country. The unstable global settings after 9/11, and the
consequent ‘war on terror’, has affected many countries, particularly Pakistan.
 COVID-19, Adaptive Capacity and Tourism Governance 53

The country, due to its geographical position, was at the epicentre in terms of the
impact of the war in Afghanistan. The war created insurgency, militancy and
armed conflict in Pakistan’s north-western frontier. The resultant ripple effects of
the war reached across the country in the form of terrorism incidents. Since the
tourism demand is particularly sensitive to safety concerns, the tourism sector was
hard hit.
The adverse effects of terrorism on tourism are well documented in the liter-
ature. The symbiotic relationship between terrorism and tourism became part of
research since the late 1990s (Richter & Waugh, 1986). The construction of media
text (Korstanje & Tarlow, 2012) and the influence of news frames on the perceived
risk associated with tourism destinations (Kapuściński & Richards, 2016) have
also been explored. The earlier studies (e.g. Enders & Sandler, 1991; Sönmez &
Graefe, 1998) identified the effect that terrorism and perceived risk have on the
international tourists’ decision-making process.
It is already recognized in the literature (Paraskevas & Arendell, 2007; Pizam
& Smith, 2000) that tourist destinations are terrorists’ major targets. By targeting
tourist destinations and foreigners, terrorists show all their strength. In Pakistan,
the terrorists targeted tourism destinations and foreigners to get media attention.
In 2003, for instance, adventure tourism saw a sharp decline when 10 foreign
climbers were killed at Nanga Parbat Base Camp (Shahid, 2020). The valley of
Swat, a hub of international and domestic tourism, was also occupied by the TTP
(Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan) between 2007 and 2011 (Makki & Ali, 2019).
Moreover, the attack on the Sri Lankan Cricket team, in 2009, was key in proving
the defective security measures in operation. With worsening security conditions,
international tourism almost stopped in the country.
Different time series studies identified the negative impact of terrorism on
Pakistan’s tourism (Khan et al., 2020; Nadeem et al., 2020; Raza & Jawaid,
2013). The time-series data from 1980 to 2016 (Khan et al., 2020) suggested that
tourism positively contributed to terrorism by making tourism destination a
target of terrorism activities. Another analysis with the subset of the same time-
frame (Nadeem et al., 2020) reinforced the short- and long-run effect of terrorism
on Pakistan’s tourism. However, terrorism was not the only challenge tourism has
had to face in Pakistan. Natural disasters like earthquakes and floods have also
contributed to its demise.
Since most of the tourism in Pakistan is concentrated in the northern areas of
the country, the earthquake of 2005 severely affected tourism by stopping tourist
flows for five years (Haseeb, Xinhailu, Khan, Ahmad, & Malik, 2011). The
impact of this disaster on tourism-led income growth lasted between 2006 and
2008 (Hye & Khan, 2013). Thanks to the implementation of rehabilitation and
restoration processes, domestic tourism returned after 2009. However, various
areas became inaccessible due to the floods that occurred in 2010 and 2018. Flash
floods and land sliding are common in the northern areas, a phenomenon that has
significantly affected tourist mobility in these regions.
The focus of the chapter is mainly placed on the issues that Pakistan’s tourism
has to face due to terrorism, natural disasters and the current ongoing COVID-19
pandemic. Yet, before moving on to the impact of the COVID pandemic, it seems
54 Najma Sadiq

pertinent to highlight some governance-related challenges that Pakistan’s tourism

has been facing. Moreover, it is critical to highlight the government’s initiatives
addressing these challenges.
Firstly, it is important to underline the lack of consistent and comprehensive
tourism policy at the national level (Ahmed & Mahmood, 2017; Arshad et al.,
2018; Baig, Khan, & Khan, 2020). With the constitution 18th Amendment,
budget allocation and policymaking fall under the responsibility of the provincial
government. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan provinces did contribute to
tourism policymaking, but other provinces and administered areas lagged behind.
In the absence of a proper policy, tourism interventions remained unorganized and
scattered. Recently, the government has shifted its focus to this particular aspect
and started designing a ten-year plan for tourism growth through the National
Tourism Strategy. The work on the tourism strategy got delayed due to the
COVID-19 lockdown. However, the strategy is reported to be ready to roll out as
soon as the prime minister gives his approval (Associated Press of Pakistan, 2020).
Secondly, the tourism infrastructure, in terms of accessibility and lodging,
posed another challenge (Ullah, Rasli, Shah, & Orakzai, 2019). The small number
of hotels, poor road conditions, traffic jams, insufficient public transport,
unavailability or/and cancellation of flights, and lack of proper rest areas for
tourists negatively impacted the tourism experience (Ahmed & Mahmood, 2017).
Different governments tried to address the infrastructure issues but focus
remained placed more on road construction than on the development of tourism
destinations. The infrastructure projects under the China–Pakistan Economic
Corridor (CPEC) are said to represent a massive contribution to the much-needed
support for the tourism industry across Pakistan (Baig et al., 2020).
Thirdly, there is an unaccounted cost of tourism in terms of its environmental
impact. This impact is not just limited to the vulnerability of local communities to
climate change (Kamran & Omran, 2018) but also includes the compromised safety
of architectural sites. To address the climate change issue, Pakistan has initiated a
massive reforestation project in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (Rosamond Hutt, 2018)
which has stretched across Pakistan. This ‘green stimulus’ project was described as
‘a true conservation success story’ by the head of the International Union for
Conservation of Nature (IUCN) (2017). However, other environmental impacts
still need attention. The tourism resources are deteriorating because of pollution,
solid wastes and garbage, lack of planning and unorganized tourist activities (Arif,
Shikirullah, & Samad, 2019). Some of the community-led initiatives are directed to
address these issues; however, a large-scale and coordinated effort is still lacking.
Lastly, there is a lack of accountability regarding the implementation of the
tourism industry’s standards. Pakistan has tourism laws under different acts, such
as The Pakistan Hotels and Restaurants Act 1976, The Travel Agencies Act 1976
and The Pakistan Tourist Guides Act 1976. Nonetheless, the weak implementa-
tion of these laws has led to unpredictable hotel rates, inconsistent standards and
poor quality of services (Arshad et al., 2018). The lack of skilled tourism pro-
fessionals is an additional problem. It is worth mentioning that the first institution
to provide a degree programme in tourism was established only in 2008. To
address this issue, the standardized national level curriculum on tourism and
 COVID-19, Adaptive Capacity and Tourism Governance 55

hospitality was developed by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) (2017).

Presently, there are 18 institutions which are offering degree programmes in
tourism and hospitality. It is hoped that the existence of more trained pro-
fessionals will improve service quality in the tourism sector.

4. The Rise of Tourism in Pakistan (2010–2019)

The sustainability of tourism is affected by the risks and hazards that affect live-
lihoods (Calgaro et al., 2014), local communities and tourists. The resilience in
tourism is the level to which the system responds to the shocks (Bec et al., 2016).
The concepts of vulnerability, resilience and adaptive capacity are closely related.
The adaptive capacity comes from an overlap of vulnerability and resilience (Cutter
et al., 2008). It is the process by which one is able to adjust to crises of various sorts.
There is a strong relationship between the community’s perception of the positive
economic impact of tourism and its capacity to undertake the adoptive responses
(Tsai, Wu, Wall, & Linliu, 2016). Tourism-dependent communities, which are
vulnerable to different crises, adapt to their reality and make the most of whatever
resources are available to them. The vulnerability of tourism is sustained through
the adoptive capacity that comes from social and community resilience.
Social and community resilience are interconnected concepts that are defined
by their scope. In social resilience, the social groups and communities show their
capacity to recover from crises (Koliou et al., 2020; Linkov & Trump, 2018;
Maguire & Hagan, 2007). In the same vein, community resilience is demonstrated
by the success a community is capable of achieving in a changing, uncertain and
unpredictable environment by developing and engaging community resources
(Magis, 2010). As discussed in the previous section, despite all the challenges,
Pakistan’s tourism showed a swift recovery. The resilience of the local community
and domestic tourists were the reasons for tourism sustenance. The studies
(Aleemi, Aleemi, & Qureshi, 2015; Manzoor, Wei, Asif, Ul Haq, & Ur Rehman,
2019) showing the data from 1981 to 2015 also attest that, despite these chal-
lenges, there was a positive and significant impact of tourism on economic growth
and on the employment sector in Pakistan.
The growth of domestic tourism in Pakistan started slowly after 2010. The
reasons that explain the increasing tourism numbers include, but are not limited
to, (1) the developing infrastructure of the country’s tourism destinations, (2)
travel-based social media groups and pages and (3) the challenging visa appli-
cation process that most Pakistanis faced when they intend to travel abroad. The
2009 data issued by the Ministry of Tourism (Mughal & Khalid Mehmood, 2011),
which are now dissolved under the 18th amendment, identified travel intents of
the domestic tourists to identify their types. These intents to travel were social
calls (51.7%), recreation (14.2%), business (9.8%), health (9.0%), religion (5.1%),
shopping (4.3%) and others (5.9%). Social calls or meeting with friends and family
were the main reasons for domestic tourism. During the summertime, trips to
northern areas became a habit for meeting up and tourism. This is one of the
reasons why tourist activities concentrate in the northern areas.
56 Najma Sadiq

A link between tourist satisfaction, electronic word of mouth (eWoM) and

destination image could be observed in Pakistan. These variables directly influ-
ence tourist loyalty and intention to visit (Kanwel et al., 2019). In the case of
domestic and international tourism, the eWoM spread on social media platforms
kept people interested in Pakistan. The most active social media group on
Facebook is The Karakoram Club or TKC. The group has more than 341.7k
members who engage in all sorts of activities like sharing pictures, guiding
potential tourists in their travel plans and organizing events in different cities for
members to meet up or arranging excursions. On Instagram, Travel Beautiful
Pakistan or TBP and Incredible Hunza are reaching existing and potential tourists
with the help of their 213k and 187.1k members, respectively. Some of the
tourism-based pages and groups on social media are being run voluntarily by
travel enthusiasts, whereas others are run by formal and informal tour operators.
In addition, the improvement of the country security encouraged foreign
tourists to visit Pakistan. In 2017, the Pakistan Tourism Development Corpora-
tion (PTDC) reported the arrival of 1.75 million tourists. The tourists in Pakistan
can be categorized into four general categories (Aman, Abbas, Mahmood,
Nurunnabi, & Bano, 2019): (1) tourist groups using international travel services,
(2) individual tourists using temporary tourism services, (3) high-altitude climbers
and expeditions and (4) domestic tourists.
The Tourism Coordination Board is focused on addressing the issues of the
tourism industry in Pakistan. Different projects are being launched in collabo-
ration with the World Bank (The World Bank, 2019). In addition, the government
relaxed visa policy by introducing an e-visa facility covering 175 countries and a
visa on arrival facility that can issue a visa to tourists coming from 50 different
countries (Ministry of Interior, 2020). The mobility within the country was also
improved when the government dropped the No-Objection Certificates (NOCs)
requirement for moving freely in open cantonments, Azad Jammu and Kashmir,
and Gilgit Baltistan.
Over the past few years, Pakistan’s global rank in the Travel and Tourism
Competitiveness (T&TC) Index also improved from 125 (World Economic
Forum, 2015) to 121 (World Economic Forum, 2019) (Table 3.1).
The improved security situation of the country is undeniably one of the major
contributing factors. Other factors that led to tourism development include Health
and Hygiene, Human Resources and Labour Market, Prioritization of Travel and
Tourism, Environmental Sustainability, Air Transport Infrastructure, Ground and
Port Infrastructure, Natural Resources, and Cultural Resources and Business Travel.
Similarly, there is an increase in inbound tourism arrivals. The number of
international tourists increased from 798,000 in 2005 to 20,869,000 in 2018
(Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, 2018). The 2019 data provided by World Tourism
Council showed that the international visitors’ impact represented 3.1%
(USD852.2MN) of total exports in Pakistan. The overall contribution of travel
and tourism to Pakistan’s GDP represented 5.9% (USD16,756.5MN) of the total
economy. The travel and tourism growth in 2019 was 14.7% with 13.3% real
economy GDP growth. 6.2% of the total employment was provided by this
industry (World Tourism Council, 2020).
 COVID-19, Adaptive Capacity and Tourism Governance 57

Table 3.1. Pakistan’s Travel and Tourism Competitiveness (T&TC).

T&TC Pillars 2015 2019

Business Environment 87 93
Safety and Security 138 134
Health and Hygiene 102 101
Human Resources and Labour Market 138 135
ICT Readiness 121 123
Prioritization of Travel and Tourism 120 119
International Openness 114 122
Price Competitiveness 9 37
Environmental Sustainability 141 129
Air Transport Infrastructure 105 96
Ground and Port Infrastructure 78 37
Tourist Service Infrastructure 125 112
Natural Resources 112 110
Cultural Resources and Business Travel 60 56
Source: Data from Travel and tourism Competitiveness (T&TC) Report by World Economic
Forum World Economic Forum (2015, 2019).

The trips of different international travel bloggers, vloggers and the visit of the
royal couple, Prince William and Kate, showed a positive image of Pakistan at the
international level. The country started to pop up in tourism maps as ‘the best
tourist destination for 2020’ (Pook & Joyce, 2020). The travel advisories for
Pakistan were supported (Shahid, 2020) by the USA, UK, Canada, Norway and
Portugal. The situation was very promising for the future of Pakistan’s tourism.
The government was also focused on tourism and a considerable budget was
allocated to this sector. However, before anything started to materialize, the
tourism industry in Pakistan was hit by another calamity, the COVID-19
pandemic. This time the scope of the calamity was not local or national but
global. The economies across the globe faced a severe blow due to COVID-19-led
lockdown measures. The tourism sector was one of the most affected areas. The
struggling tourism industry of Pakistan that was still trying to land on its feet was
brought down again.

5. COVID-19 and Tourism Industry Management (2020-

Ongoing)
The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) (2020) reported a
loss of US$ 320 billion in international tourism receipts, which counts for more
than three times the loss under the impact of the global economic crisis. 100 to 120
58 Najma Sadiq

million jobs directly related to tourism were at imminent risk. Asia and the pacific
were the areas of the globe where the tourism industry suffered the most from the
impact of the pandemic. Pakistan had still not been able to create a strong
international footing in the tourism sector, and, because of the pandemic, the
domestic tourism, local tourism industry, and the initiatives of the government to
increase tourism were severely thwarted. Due to financial losses, even the PTDC
had to close the operations of its motels in the northern areas and to lay off its
employees.
A new World Bank regional brief on tourism sector (Twining Ward &
McComb, 2020) estimates that the potential loss of tourism to Pakistan’s GDP
would amount to US$3.64 billion, putting 880,000 jobs at risk. With a reduction
in climbing and trekking expeditions, the people employed in the tourism sector in
the mountain areas were among the most affected (Shahid, 2020). Due to heavy
snowfall last year, the tourism industry could not make profits and hope to make
up for the losses vanished with the onset of COVID-19-related travel restrictions.
Due to its tourism dependence, the impact of tourism losses on Khyber Pak-
htunkhwa Province was severe. Estimated loss amount to US$10-20 million
(Twining Ward & McComb, 2020). The province that suffered so much due to
terrorism was once again hit hard by the pandemic.
The closure of local tourism businesses created a fear among the communities
that were afraid of not being able to have access to basic commodities. Small
businesses faced a severe impact. For example, trout farming in Swat and Gilgit-
Baltistan, which was one of the major sources of income in these areas, was
particularly affected. Trout fish farmers were in such a fragile financial situation
that they could not feed the fish. One of the trout farmers, from Swat, stated that
his stock of 20,000 fish requires around 200–250kg of food/day. Due to financial
problems and to food transportation issues, he was forced to reduce the feed to
100kg which resulted in the death of 250–300 fish per day. The government
provided feed free of cost, worth PKRs. 4.2 million (approx. USD 25,270) to
these farmers. However, with growing demand and the absence of cold storage
facilities, it became harder for the farmers to sustain the situation. Overall, 300
tons of fish are at risk of going to waste in Swat and the estimated worth of these
300 tonnes of trout is around PKRs 300 million (approx. USD 1.81MN) (Saeed,
2020).
Without a social support system, it became difficult for the tourism industry,
local businesses and the local community to survive. The government did intro-
duce financial support for the less privileged through its Ehsas programme. There
were also initiatives led by the community and non-profit organizations. How-
ever, the scale of the pandemic impact and the economic status of the general
public forced the federal government to relax lockdown measures. Easing down
mobility and business restrictions, and particularly reopening the tourism sector,
was considered the only viable solution.
The decision of the federal government on reopening tourism, in May, was not
well received. It created a contention at various levels, and the federal govern-
ment’s decision was considered ‘crazy’, ‘insane’ and untimely (Ebrahim, 2020).
The COVID SOPs violation in the big cities and the peak phase of COVID-19 in
 COVID-19, Adaptive Capacity and Tourism Governance 59

Pakistan were the central arguments of this criticism. The government maintained
its stance by strengthening the implementation of SOPs and necessary protective
measures through PTDC. In this regard, PTDC shared a detailed booklet
(National Tourism Coordination Board, 2020) highlighting the SOPs for
accommodation, restaurants/food outlets/eateries, transport, tour operator com-
panies, rent a car service and airlines. With everything in place, the tourism sector
seemed capable of bouncing back thanks to the resilience of the provincial gov-
ernment and local administration.
The chief minister of Gilgit-Baltistan, Hafeez ur Rehman, criticized the gov-
ernment’s decision because, in his opinion, health infrastructure was not suffi-
ciently prepared, and these tourism areas were too remote. He claimed that these
areas survived a decade of terrorism and would manage to endure one more year
without the presence of tourists without creating a big risk for the local com-
munity (Ebrahim, 2020). The concerns about the health infrastructure in the
northern areas were not unfounded. It was already documented that the doctor to
population ratio in Gilgit-Baltistan was alarmingly disproportionate, i.e. 1:4100,
whereas at the national level, this ratio was 1:1206 (Asif, 2017). The opening of
the tourism sector with deficient health infrastructure could lead to an uncon-
tainable health emergency. Therefore, despite the federal government’s decision,
tourists were barred from entering the northern areas even in July and early
August.
To some extent, the local community and some local businesses agreed that
entering tourist places should be forbidden due to health and safety concerns for
the community and the tourists (Ebrahim, 2020). However, most of the people
associated with the tourism industry did not accept the measures taken by the
local administration and protests started. They contested the closure of the
tourism business which ended up inflicting further damage to the weak economy
of these areas. In this respect, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government announced a
relief of PKRs 77 million as a waiver on licence and registration fees for the
tourism industry that would last a whole year. The fee was also waived for the
restaurants and hotels which were not yet registered (Buneri, 2020). Different
community-led initiatives also contributed to support daily wagers and tourism
workers in Gilgit-Baltistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, and in the southern
part of the country.
To ensure a safe reopening of the tourism sector, the government set up
tourism facilitation centres at different locations. These centres aimed to monitor
and facilitate tourism operations and to implement COVID-related SOPs. The
disagreement started to subside, and various tourism areas opened in the mid of
August. This led to the resurgence of COVID-19 with 47 reported cases in the
Mansehra district. The hotels where these cases were detected were sealed by the
administration (Sirajuddin & Bacha, 2020). There was a fear that infection cases
would keep on soaring. To manage the situation, the local administration was
told to implement a micro-lockdown approach by cordoning off the affected areas
only, which could just be a single house or a hotel.
Since the number of COVID-19 cases started to decrease from July 2020,
Pakistan got international recognition for its successful handling of the
60 Najma Sadiq

coronavirus pandemic. The Director General of the World Health Organization

(WHO) also praised Pakistan for a significant drop in COVID-19 cases, iden-
tifying Pakistan as one of the countries the world could learn from (Ikram
Junaidi, 2020). However, the fragility of this success was witnessed with the
second wave of COVID-19 in Pakistan. The government gave directive to close
all the educational institutions by 26 November. The number of workers who
were allowed to come to offices was also reduced by 50%. However, since
general public is not following precautionary measures properly the second
wave is likely to be more lethal in Pakistan. Moreover, the government is also
unable to control large gatherings of people who were taking part in anti-
government rallies across the country (Khan, 2020).

6. Concluding Remarks
The collapse of the tourism industry demonstrated its fragility vis-a-vis the global
scale pandemic. The economic impact of this collapse was estimated in billions of
dollars. Similarly, as discussed in this chapter, the indigenous tourism industry in
Pakistan faced significant challenges owing to the COVID-led situation. The
industry, which was already faltering due to terrorism, disasters, lack of policies,
ill-governance, institution and infrastructure support, became profoundly
vulnerable due to the crisis.
As discussed in the chapter, for the last 20 years Pakistan’s tourism industry
has survived mainly thanks to domestic tourism. The challenges related to
governance at both policy and infrastructure level have severely impacted the
growth of tourism in Pakistan. Moreover, natural disasters, security situation and
visa policies affected the country’s international tourism. However, in recent years
(2017–2019), with the growing interest of the government in tourism, issues
related to tourism were starting to get addressed. This resulted in the growth of
Pakistan’s tourism at the national and international level. However, before the
tourism industry could get on its feet, the global pandemic hit full force.
The tourism downfall under the COVID-19 crisis has proven the frailty of an
economic growth that relies heavily on tourism. Even in a country like Pakistan,
where tourism is still at an early growth stage, local community and tourism-
related businesses were crippled. The pandemic stressed that the economy and
development of tourism destinations should not rely merely on tourism earnings.
The alternative economic activities should be promoted in tourism destinations to
allow their sustainable economic growth and development.
The academic discourse around the world is already stressing the need for a
reassessment of tourism policies and practices before resetting the scenario caused
by the COVID-19 interruption (Chang, McAleer, & Ramos, 2020; Nepal, 2020;
Sigala, 2020). Since Pakistan is focusing more on using tourism as an economic
development force, this is the time to learn from the global tourism crisis and take
steps and initiatives that can mitigate the impact of natural and man-made crises.
The National Tourism Strategy is not yet fully implemented. It can incorporate
the mechanisms that address tourism during times of crisis. Furthermore, the
 COVID-19, Adaptive Capacity and Tourism Governance 61

focus of the tourism contribution should be scaled on the social, cultural, economic
and environmental aspects. With the reopening of the tourism sector in Pakistan,
the emphasis should also be placed on minimizing the impact of a foreseeable
COVID-19 resurgence.

Acknowledgement
I express my gratitude to Dr Muhammad Makki (Assistant Professor at the Centre for
International Peace and Stability at NUST) for his critical feedback on the current
chapter.

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Chapter 4

Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on

Brazilian Tourism: Public Policies,
Coordination and Government Functions
Fábia Trentin, Claudia Corrêa de Almeida Moraes,
Isabela de Fátima Fogaça and Carlos Alberto Lidizia Soares

Abstract
Objectives: To analyze the tourism policies introduced in response to the impact
of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism at the national, state and local levels,
considering governmental functions and intergovernmental coordination.
Methodology: The methodology consisted of a review of the scientific litera-
ture on public policies, intergovernmental coordination and government
functions, in addition to an empirical observation and analysis of norms and
legal acts related to the combat against COVID-19 pandemic in four
municipalities in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The municipalities of
Armação dos Búzios, Paraty, Petrópolis and Rio de Janeiro were selected
because of their economic dependence on tourism.
Main Results and Contributions: The most important contributions were the
theoretical and methodological model of the analysis of government func-
tions combined with the review of intergovernmental coordination.
Originality/Value: To study tourism policies in a time of pandemic, since
government functions, when analyzed in a tourism-related context, were
conducted in non-pandemic contexts.
Conclusions: Municipal horizontal coordination is highlighted since it has
positively impacted the actions of control and flexibility of pandemic
measures. It was further noted that the role of the guarantor government
was different throughout the whole process.
Limitations: As the study is ongoing and is part of an international project on
tourism and pandemic, other data collection techniques will be included.

Pandemics and Travel, 67–82

Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
doi:10.1108/978-1-80071-070-220211005
68 Fábia Trentin et al.

Keywords: Tourism public policies; intergovernmental coordination;

government functions; impact of COVID-19; pandemic; Brazil

1. Introduction
At the beginning of 2020, the pandemic caused by the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus
(COVID-19) became a real threat to health and to the global economy. According
to the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO, 2020), the tourism sector was one
of the most affected and, in addition to all the measures defined to contain or
mitigate the disease, alternatives had to be drawn up to ensure the survival of the
sector. Tourist destination management and its entire production chain had to
find new ways to cope with an unusual situation. Many challenges and lessons
have arisen and will continue to arise as the world seeks to overcome the negative
effects of tourism and its long-lasting consequences.
Gössling, Scott, and Hall (2020) affirm that tourism has been one of the sectors
most affected by the need for social isolation and travel restrictions. Nader (2020)
clarifies information shared by the National Confederation of Commerce, Services,
Goods and Tourism (CNC), based on data published by the Monthly Survey of
Services (PMS) Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatı́stica (IBGE, 2020), and
claims that 446,000 formal jobs were lost in Brazil, between March and September
2020, which represents a 37.2% drop in real income. Unfortunately, employment is
expected to reach pre-pandemic level no sooner than 2023.
Considering the conditions suggested by all its different bodies – federal, state
and municipal – the Brazilian government put together a series of measures to
contain the spread of the disease and mitigate the effects of the COVID-19
pandemic that have a direct impact on tourism. Thus, this research aims to
understand the public policy process and government functions, particularly the
actions that are under the responsibility of promoters, stimulators, planners,
guarantors and coordinators of actions and that will be essential for local
development in the process of repositioning and rebuilding tourism.
To study the functions of the government and the intergovernmental
coordination of national, state and local public policies vis-a-vis the response
to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the tourism sector, and consid-
ering as inclusion criterion the area’s level of dependence on tourism, four
cities of the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, were selected: Armação dos Búzios,
Paraty, Petrópolis and Rio de Janeiro.
The time period analyzed ranged from March to September 2020. According to
the Brazilian Tourism Map, these municipalities are referred as category A, and the
tourist performance of each one of them is measured using the following indicators:
national and international demand, resources and accommodation, formal
employment created in the accommodation sector and tax contribution of the service
sector.1 The four cities offer a wide range of cultural and natural attractions, and the
main tourist segments are sun and beach, culture, mountaineering and nature.
Armação dos Búzios is located on the northern coast of the state of Rio de Janeiro,
in the Costa do Sol tourist region. 27,500 people are currently living in the city (IBGE,
 Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Brazilian Tourism 69

2020). Armação dos Búzios offers one of the largest choices in hotel facilities in the
state and good tourist facilities and is widely considered a sophisticated vacation
destination. Paraty is one of the municipalities of the Costa Verde tourist region.
Located in the extreme south of the state, it has a significant natural and cultural
diversity and was declared a Cultural and Natural Heritage site by the United Nations
(United Nations [UN], 2019). In Paraty, there are 30 traditional communities that
contribute to the local cultural diversity. Its population is estimated at 43,000
inhabitants (IBGE, 2020). Petrópolis, located in a mountainous area, belongs to the
Serra Verde Imperial tourist region and is only 64 km away from the capital. It was
founded by the Emperor of Brazil, Pedro II, as a summer resort and has become one of
Brazil’s most important winter destinations. Its population amounts to 306,000
inhabitants (IBGE, 2020) and receives 1.6 million national and international tourists
every year (Ministério do Turismo [MTur]), 2019). Rio de Janeiro is the most
important tourist destination in Brazil and the best known worldwide with a popu-
lation of 6,719,000 inhabitants (IBGE, 2020). Rio de Janeiro is the capital of the state
with the same name that receives 7,200 million domestic tourists, and 1,700,000
international tourists. As an international destination, it has an extensive tourism
production chain. All selected cities are located in tourist regions that are considered
strategic for the state’s tourism sector.
This research analyzes the three federal, state and local government entities
responsible for public tourism management: the Ministério do Turismo (MTur)
and National Tourism Council (Ministério do Turismo [MTur], 2020); the Rio de
Janeiro State Secretary of Tourism, the Rio de Janeiro State Tourism Company
(Prefeitura Municipal do Rio de Janeiro, 2020) and the State Tourism Council; in
Armação dos Búzios, the Secretary for Tourism, Culture and Historical Heritage
(Prefeitura Municipal de Armação dos Búzios [PMAB], 2020); in Paraty, the
Secretary of Tourism (Prefeitura Municipal de Paraty, 2020); in Petrópolis, the
TurisPetro (Prefeitura Municipal de Petrópolis, 2020), and in the municipality of
Rio de Janeiro, the Rio de Janeiro Tourism Company (Riotur) and the Secretary
of Tourism and Olympic Legacy (Rio de Janeiro, 2020). They all have structures
for cooperation in tourism – Municipal Tourism Councils – that involve public
and private stakeholders.
The chapter includes a section on Public Policies in Tourism and on the
COVID-19 Pandemic and provides information on the research methodology, its
results, analysis and final considerations.

2. Public Policies in Tourism, Intergovernmental Coordination

and Government Functions: Theoretical and
Methodological Approach
With the pandemic, during the implementation of the state of calamity, agility in
decision-making does not always include the participation of society, a course of
action that is supported by Article 136 of the Brazilian Federal Constitution
(1988) that increases coordination between federal units, both vertically and
horizontally.
70 Fábia Trentin et al.

In order to study intergovernmental coordination, government functions and

public policies, it is necessary to understand the term federal, which is derived
from the Latin Fœdus and means pact (Abrucio, 2005). Federalism is the orga-
nized political power with dual territorial autonomy due to the existence of
autonomous territorial levels of government, one central and the other subna-
tional. The federated entities are granted unique and competing powers to govern
their territory and their citizens. The difference is that the Union controls the
national territory and citizens, and the subnational levels control each domain of
the union, as well as the people living in it, according to constitutional arrange-
ments (Soares, 2013).
The existence of a federation results from a federalist context in which one can
find conditions of heterogeneity, such as a large territorial extension, with phys-
ical, ethnic, linguistic, socio-economic, cultural and political diversity, which is
likely to divide the nation. The Federation is then established as a means to
maintain unity in diversity, protect local autonomy, territorial integrity, with the
aim of achieving social stability and national unity (Abrucio, 2005).
Brazil exercises the prerogatives of a federation with a vast territory filled with
heterogeneity, diversity and physical, cultural and socio-political plurality. Its
federated entities are the Union, the states, the municipalities and the Federal
District (Constituição, 1988) that strive to develop ‘forms of integration, sharing
and joint decision-making that are present in the federations’ (Abrucio, 2005, p. 41).
Coordination, in federalism, faces problems related to the autonomy and
power held by subnational entities, which often leads to what Abrucio (2005) calls
interdependence that becomes essential to understand the public policies pro-
duced in a modern federative structure, since intergovernmental relations have a
certain complexity that often increases the fragmentation reflected in the imple-
mentation of public policies (Souza, 2018).
According to Trentin (2016), coordination includes the activities of two or
more partners who wish to develop something and, to this end, mobilize
resources, cooperate with each other or harmonize their policies, programmes,
procedures and practices to maximize the effectiveness of the available resources.
Complementing this statement, Laakso, Kivimäki, & Seppänen (2007) stress that
the lack of coordination can lead to a scenario driven by the interests of the
different actors that will ultimately reduce management capacity and increase
inconsistencies. This sort of scenario will be aggravated by the proliferation of
relational and structural weaknesses.
Souza (2018, p. 16) understands that the coordination of public policy ‘is
necessary between organizations and political and bureaucratic actors that form
the same level of government (horizontal coordination) or that represent different
levels of government (vertical coordination)’. Different actors, institutions and
authorities are involved in different phases of the same public policy, from
conception to implementation, which somehow defines federalism and intergov-
ernmental relations (Abrucio, 2005; Soares & Machado, 2018; Souza, 2018).
Public policy is far-reaching and is not limited to legislation, although it can
initiate action, or inaction, that will be implemented and supported by executive
orders, rules and regulations (Souza, 2018; Theodoulou & Cahn, 2013).
 Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Brazilian Tourism 71

Therefore, this investigation is enshrined in the laws, decrees and other regula-
tions issued by national, state and municipal governments, initially to contain the
COVID-19 pandemic, and then to mitigate its harmful effects on the economy
and, consequently, on the tourism sector. This condition raises questions about
the role of government in the face of the pandemic and about its rightful duty to
defend its citizen lives, the economy and collective interests.
In Brazil, since the 1990s, government decisions related to tourism have been
influenced by neoliberalism, a period in which the Brazilian Federal Constitution
(1988) provided mechanisms for social participation in the formulation of public
policies (Trentin, 2016) to allow a more pluralistic approach in which the repre-
sentative of public power, trade and civil society act in cooperation and collab-
oration. Thus, over the years, the government has assumed certain functions as a
promoter, stimulator of the private sector, planner, guarantor, coordinator and
harmonizer of the resources used to manage and develop tourism.
In a ‘normal’ situation, decisions related to tourism are the responsibility of the
government, as the development of tourism is sought in different areas and through
different mechanisms. In this case, the role of promoter, according to Trentin and
Fonseca Filho (2020) and Velasco González (2013), refers to actions developed and
implemented to boost tourist arrivals and attract foreign income. To this end, they
make use of agreements that protect the right to freedom of travel.
By using the mechanisms of public administration, and the credit availability it
provides, to encourage the private sector to invest in tourism to develop and/or
strengthen the sector in a given location, the government acts as a stimulator of
the private sector (Trentin & Fonseca Filho, 2020). When it provides infra-
structure in the areas where it wants tourism to establish and consolidate, it is
exercising the function of planner (Velasco González, 2013). By facilitating the
allocation of essential infrastructure, combined with mechanisms to stimulate the
private sector performance, the services offered are expected to attract tourists.
The guarantor function refers to the consumer protection, which is achieved by
regulating the subsectors involved in tourism. The coordinator and harmonizer
functions are expressed by the measures taken to support the modernization of
tourist companies, the coordination of tourism subsectors, the support granted to
the design of new products and to the creation of an area of cooperation for non-
public stakeholders in joint actions to promote tourism development.
Finally, intergovernmental coordination must act in such a way that the govern-
ment tourism-related functions are the responsibility of each one of its federal levels.

3. Methodological Procedures
To analyze the coordination of tourism in the management process, its incon-
sistencies and weaknesses, both relational and structural, in the face of the
COVID-19 pandemic, the method of choice was the qualitative approach based
on the concept of coordination of the three government levels that exist in Brazil –
national, state and municipal – and on the government functions (promoter,
private sector stimulator, planner, guarantor, coordinator and harmonizer).
72 Fábia Trentin et al.

Therefore, the theoretical focus highlighted was also methodological since such
categories allow us to analyze the government functions.
The legal normative acts serving the involved entities, published by the gov-
ernment agencies, and selected scientific papers were the main sources of our
research. The systematization of the data started with the creation of a list that
catalogued the different legal acts that suit our interest that subsequently resulted
in different tables that included the place, type of act, date, subject and the source.
Subsequently, the material was classified according to five categories of thematic
analysis (1) mobility of people (the right to come and go), based on the idea that
the main characteristic of tourism is its mobility and that without it there is no
tourism; (2) access restrictions to tourist attractions, which negatively impact
visitation; (3) economic and financial measures offered by governments to com-
panies and workers; (4) support campaigns to minimize losses in the sector and (5)
health protocols. The data were analyzed according to the theories and trans-
formed into the outcomes that are presented below.

4. Normative Acts Constituting the Tourism Policy at National,

State and Municipal Levels
On 6 February 2020, the federal government, by Decree 13979, declared the state
of emergency and applied measures to defend public health in the face of the
disease caused by the coronavirus Sars-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic. Subse-
quently, the National Council of Justice (Conselho Nacional de Secretar-
iasMunicipais de Saúde, 2020), to help fight the disease, suggested that the
representatives of the Executive Power, in all its instances, should create specific
crisis offices to provide data and guidance to the current COVID-19 crisis.
Committees were created by the federal, state and municipal governments
(Table 4.1).
In Brazil, both in the state of Rio de Janeiro and in the other investigated
municipalities, the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic followed different paths.
The first cases in the country occurred in February 2020. In the city of Rio de
Janeiro and in Petrópolis, however, the first cases were reported in March,
whereas in the other municipalities they happened only in April.
In October 2020, Brazil ranked third among the counties with the highest
number of deaths per capita and with the highest numbers of infections by
COVID-19. However, when we look at the absolute number of confirmed
COVID-19-related deaths, Brazil ranks second, only behind the United States of
America (United Nations [UN], 2020; BBC News, 2020). The state of Rio de
Janeiro reports the third highest number of confirmed cases and the second
highest number of deaths in the whole country.
In Brazil, by 20 October 2020, there were 5,353,656 infected people (0.16% of
the population) and 15,471 deaths caused by COVID-19-related diseases; in the
state of Rio de Janeiro, 298,821 people had been infected (0.017% of the popu-
lation) and 20,171 deaths had been reported; in the city of Rio de Janeiro, there
were 115,635 infected people (0.029% of the population) and 11,834 deaths; in
Table 4.1. State of Emergency and Crisis Committees due to Sars-CoV-2 in the Studied Destinations.

Destination Date of Crisis Committees Coordination Integration

Confirmation
of Cases
Brazil 02/06/2020 Crisis Committee for Civil Office Ministries

Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Brazilian Tourism

Supervision
and Monitoring of
COVID-19 Impacts
Rio de Janeiro – 03/16/2020 Expanded Crisis Office Fiocruz Information and Research Center and a
RJ Estado to Assist council of experts. Researchers from Fiocruz,
in Combat with as well as from other institutions.
COVID-19
New Pandemic Stages
Rio de Janeiro 03/18/2020 Crisis Office of Rio de Municipal Municipal pPublic Administration Entities.
Municı́pio Janeiro Secretary
of the Civil
Office
Petrópolis 03/13/2020 Petrópolis in the fight Health Municipal secretaries (including Turispetro),
against Coronavirus Secretary attorney general’s office
Armação dos 03/16/2020 Crisis Committee Mayor Municipal secretaries (including Tourism),
Búzios city hall, attorney general’s office
Paraty 03/18/2020 Emergency Committee Mayor Municipal secretaries (including Tourism),
COVID-19 attorney general’s office
Source: Own elaboration, based on data from Ministério da Saúde (2020).

73
74 Fábia Trentin et al.

Petrópolis, 7,440 people had been infected (2.41% of the population) and 262
people had been reported dead; Paraty reported 1,224 cases of infection (0.32% of
the population) and 38 deaths and Armação dos Búzios reported 582 infected
people (0.16% of the population) and 16 deaths (Ministério da Saúde [MS], 2020).
To contain the spread, access to tourist attractions in the four municipalities
under study was forbidden and caused a nearly complete shutdown of tourism
activity. The rebuilding of tourism started to be prepared by the state government
of Rio de Janeiro with the creation of the State Social Pact for Health and
Economy, a classification system with flags whose colours were meant to repre-
sent the different situations related to the development of the COVID-19
pandemic, that was useful to implement a partial lifting of the measures
applied, of the suspension of activities, commercial activities or movement of
people. By October, the municipalities, although at different rates, had already
loosened suspension and prohibition measures and were working to resume post-
pandemic tourism, as they were now seen as municipalities with low risk of
contagion (yellow flag), an advance in relation to pandemic control, but selective
social distancing and the need to avoid agglomerations were still required.
The pandemic situation generated numerous normative acts that supported the
analysis of the themes and the creation of the following categories:

4.1 Mobility of People

The first measure adopted at the federal, state and municipal levels was to limit
the access of the different tourist and non-tourist transport and the installation of
health barriers to prevent non-resident people from enteringArmação de Búzios
(March), Paraty (April) and Petrópolis (March and April). After this period, there
was some flexibility in the municipal decrees, and beach access (May) and access
to the municipality (June) were allowed once again. In July and August, the
implementation of different health protocols allowed some sectors to reopen. In
this regard, we have to highlight the regulations focusing on the introduction of
procedures and limits to grant access to employees and customers of the hotel
industry, in Armação dos Búzios, following the progressive resumption of tourism
activities (August), and the survey administered by the municipal government of
Paraty to the population to understand whether they agreed with the reopening of
tourist activities. 58.8% of the respondents showed their agreement (August).

4.2 Access, Services and Tourist Attractions Restrictions

At the federal level, the restriction of access to services and tourist attractions
occurred in March. Following this decision, all tourist trains were suspended, and
museums, cultural centres and national parks were shut down. In June, tourist
trains resumed their activity and so did national parks and museums in August,
always in accordance with the sanitary measures in force.
At the state level, cultural and natural attractions were closed, including
beaches, lakes as were any other activity involving the tourism sector. Holding
 Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Brazilian Tourism 75

events in convention centres was now forbidden and orders defining the restau-
rants and bars’ occupancy rate and opening hours were also issued. These services
were posteriorly closed and were only allowed to provide takeaway or delivery
services (March).
The gradual reopening started in June. Some restrictions were partially lifted,
and people were once again allowed to return to beaches, lakes, rivers and public
pools. Bars, restaurants, coffeehouses and similar establishments could open
again, limiting their occupancy rate to 30%. However, establishments based inside
hotels were only allowed to serve guests and employees.
Sports activities such as cycling, hiking, mountaineering and outdoor trekking
were authorized, and cultural activities of any nature were allowed operating in
drive-in mode, as long as there was no evidence of large gatherings outside the
participants’ vehicles and in outdoor sports activities spaces.
The restrictions regulated by the Rio de Janeiro state government guided the
municipalities that followed the provision of the State Social Pact for Health and
Economy when time came to draw up their own internal regulations. The per-
formance of Paraty should be emphasized: the local government established a
system of flags to define the rules that should be followed to resume the economic
activities in the municipality. It also set up the Blue Passport and the Safe
Environment Seal that were granted to the establishments that strictly complied
with the COVID-19 prevention procedures.
The actions taken by the municipality of Rio de Janeiro also deserve to be
highlighted due to the implementation of its own control system based on a
palette of colours that represent different levels of risk of contamination by Sars-
Cov-2.
Considering the mobility of people and access to attractions, Fig. 4.1 shows the
results of the impact on tourism activity at the three levels of government.

4.3 Economic and Financial Measures to Support Companies and Workers

As for the economic and financial measures taken to support companies and
workers, the federal government allocated a R $51 billion resource that would be
essential to maintain approximately 8.5 million jobs, of which one million in the
tourism sector. This contribution will allow companies to execute flexible pay-
ment for three months. It issued an order specifying that the service providers or
corporate companies didn’t have to refund their customers immediately. Instead,
they were granted a period of up to 12 months, after the end of the pandemic, to
provide the consumer with a full refund. Emergency measures were taken for
commercial aviation, in an attempt to mitigate the impacts caused by the
pandemic on the sector. In the events industry, companies were allowed to change
the dates of the cancelled events without incurring cancellation penalties included
in the contracts. Tourism companies were included in the list of entities that
would be considered for credit lines made available by Banco do Brasil, National
Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES) and CaixaEconômica
Federal. Provisional Measure (MP) No. 944 created the Emergency Employment
76 Fábia Trentin et al.

Situation
Restrictive Measures
BR ERJ AB PA PE RJ

Foreign arrivals

Return of Brazilians

Boarding of asymptomatic crew or passengers

Movement of people from other states and municipalities
(road closures)

Creation of health barriers between municipalities

Closing of ports and nautical structures

Movement of bus or similar excursion transportation

Movement of people only for essential activities

Cultural events and spaces

Touristic trains

Museums, cultural centres, parks and beaches

Bars and restaurants. After only delivery service

Hotel industry

Travel agencies (in-person stores)

Seasonal rental properties

Subtitles: BR (Brasil), ERJ (Rio de Janeiro State), AB (Armação dos Búzios), PA (Paraty), PE (Petrópolis) e RJ (Rio
de Janeiro). free, March, April, May, June, after July, not apply, not free yet.

Fig. 4.1. Restrictive Measures of (i) Mobility of People and (ii) Access
to Tourist Attractions – Situation and Indication of Resumption According
to the Month. Source: Own elaboration, based on Lei nº 13.979/20, Governo
do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (2020), and each municipal legal data, 2020.

Support Programme that establishes a credit line for the payment of salaries
during the pandemic. MP No. 963 defines that Individual Microentrepreneurs,
enrolled in the Register of Tourist Service Providers (Cadastur), may apply for a
loan through the operationalization of resources implemented by the General
Tourism Fund (Fungetur).
At the state level, tourist guides from Rio de Janeiro received the permission to
drive their own cars to keep their professional activities and to combine this
possibility with other tourist transport services.
There were few actions at the municipal level. In the municipality of Arma-
çãodos Búzios, the only measure adopted was the suspension of the collection of
the Territorial and Urban Property Tax (IPTU), of fees (such as advertising) and
fines during the emergency period. In the municipality of Petrópolis, no economic
and financial measures to support companies and workers were identified. In the
municipality of Rio de Janeiro, a procedure for the accreditation of hotel
establishments that would be used to accommodate asymptomatic elderly resi-
dents coming from poor communities was carried out. In addition, social aid was
 Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Brazilian Tourism 77

provided to the community and to the hotel sector. In June, financial measures
were introduced to facilitate the payments of municipal taxes by suspending default
interests, fines and by extending the grace periods. The exception was Paraty, which
created the ‘Restart’ project, with the release of emergency credit funds for
microentrepreneurs and microenterprises made possible by the Emergency Fund
created by the Municipality of Paraty and that amounted to R $10.2 million. This
credit line was divided into two ranges (up to R $4,000 and up to R $20,000) with
zero interest, an eight-month grace period to be paid in 40 instalments. Also, Paraty
had the ‘Cultura Viva’ public notice for master artists and cultural agents, in all
sectors of the creative economy, which provided for an aid of R $300.00, through
the territorialization of the Aldir Blanc Law in association with the Cultural Policy
Municipal Council. Also, in the other cities, there was a cultural movement in
October triggered by the Aldir Blanc Law.

4.4 Campaign Support to Minimize Sector Losses

In order to minimize losses in the sector, the federal government released resources
from the Brazilian Tourism Institute (Embratur) to revive the sector, applied as
follows: implementation of measures to support the tourism sector at national
level, of advertising campaigns and of incentives to re-establish and reschedule
trips instead of opting for their cancellation. At the state level, advertising cam-
paigns were designed to boost tourism, emphasizing the need for maintaining
social distancing but stressing that in the post-pandemic time the 92 municipalities
of Rio de Janeiro are all looking forward to receiving tourists. The state also
created the ‘Conscious Tourism Seal’ (June), in which managers in the sector have
access to an online portal where they can declare that they are capable of providing
services, allowing the state to control of what is working and what is not in the
state of Rio de Janeiro. This action was updated by each city hall. In October, the
campaign ‘More Rio for Less’ was planned to offer two-week discounts to visitors.
At the municipal level, a Tourist Assistance Centre was created in Paraty to
answer questions and help tourists leave the city during the quarantine period
(March). In May, a guideline was created to provide the agents that work with
tourism, culture and the environment in Paraty with promotional materials
focusing on the tourist and cultural attractions of a city where the main economic
activity tourism was deeply affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. This action is
part of the Economic and Social Recovery Plan for the COVID-19 post-pandemic
scenario in the field of communication and marketing. Its main goal is to encourage
the return of activities involving the local economy and was a suggestion made by
the Municipal Tourism Council. In early July, the programme ‘Paraty waits for
you’ was launched. It included actions meant to boost the gradual return of tourist
activities and seek to involve all the different tourism sectors in complying with
health protocols, ensuring a safe stay and at the same time promoting the city.
During the launching of the programme, the Handbook of Guiding Principles for
New Tourism in Paraty was presented, a document that aims to create paths and
establish a sustainable model of economic recovery.
78 Fábia Trentin et al.

Also in June, MTur created the Responsible Tourism Seal – Clean and Safe –
and recommended health protocol for 15 activities that are part of Cadastur, in
line with the World Tourist Identification and Wanderlust World to streamline
procedures and increase the security of the visitor identification process, hence
helping the recovery of global tourism.

5. Analysis
One of the key ideas of the concept of public policy is anchored, but not restricted,
in the legislation in force, that includes executive orders, rules and regulations,
administrative decrees, among other legal resources provided by the executive and
legislative branches. The actions that support this analysis were found in the legal
acts and are related to the categories created based on the thematic analysis:
mobility of people, access restriction, services and tourist attractions, economic
and financial measures to support companies and workers and campaigns to
minimize sector losses.
When analyzing the functions of the federal, state and municipal governments,
based on the legislation in force, it is possible to conclude that in March and
April, the first moment of the pandemic in Brazil, governments all agreed that
establishments and attractions should be shut down. These actions contradict
what one would expect of a tourism promoter, especially in an environment where
profound efforts are required to develop the sector.
The federal government issued a set of regulations intended for the different
subsectors that would help address the situation lived by service providers and
tourist consumers when initial travel cancellations started.They established that
these tourism actors would enjoy a twelve-month period after which they would
have to provide their customers with the scheduled refund and that they did not
have to pay any fee. In this context, the federal government was acting as
guarantor. This function continues to be exercised at the three levels of gover-
nance and through similar actions like the creation of Seals that aim to transmit
confidence to tourists and work on the image of safe destinations. There was no
evidence of the functions of stimulator, planner or harmonizer.
The role of harmonizer, related to the cooperation between agencies, was
severely weakened. As a result, it took the governments too long to resume
interrupted activities and specially to implement promotion strategies and mea-
sures that would help organize tourist flows.
Economic and financial measures for businessmen, entrepreneurs and tourism
workers included financial support for the payment of their employees’ salaries
and the extension of the established refund deadlines in situations involving
suspended or cancelled service due to the pandemic. The federal government
coordinated the claims in conjunction with the financial institutions to make
credit funds available in due time. This joint action was paramount to prevent
mass redundancies and keep companies active. However, in most cases, the
effective availability of the resource took too long.
 Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Brazilian Tourism 79

At the state level, the government allowed tourist guides to use their own
vehicles to provide tourist transport service, making the legislation during the
pandemic period more flexible.
Vertical coordination is the one that refers to ‘intergovernmental relations, that
is, those that are established between different levels of government for the pro-
duction of policies’ (Souza, 2018, p. 28). The data we analyzed allowed us to
establish that vertical coordination is stronger between the state and municipal
levels of governance, as seen with the creation of the State Social Pact for Health
and Economy. This indicates a different reaction from a scenario of institutional
disarticulation in a non-pandemic period (Silva, 2017). In this case, vertical
coordination between states and municipalities is related to the ‘design of federal
regulation and subnational implementation’ (Souza, 2019, p. 7).
In the municipalities, the horizontal coordination led by the local public power
stands out, involving and engaging various actors in actions related to access
restriction, alleviation or resumption. One of the local initiatives established a
system of flags, whose colours allowed greater or lesser flexibility in recreational,
tourist, commercial and service activities. A similar situation occurred in the city
of Rio de Janeiro. It adopted a system of colours and phases according to the risk
of contagion detected. In the city of Rio de Janeiro, tourism experiences difficult
times with cases of corruption, and, with the pandemic, this problematic state got
even more serious. Horizontal coordination with the municipal government has
therefore been hampered.
It is worth noting that in the current government, problems of (dis) coordi-
nation are constant. This situation has brought the country international discredit
and led to the implementation of measures that are currently preventing Brazilians
from entering the European Union, for example.

6. Final Considerations
The authors based their theoretical and methodological analysis on government
functions. It was observed that in the face of a pandemic such as COVID-19,
governments initially acted contrary to the role of promoters and planners
(considering the definitions found in the theoretical field) since the first goal was to
limit mobility and access to services and tourist attractions. Regarding the role of
stimulator, the instruments used to stimulate the private sector were designed and
implemented to maintain the establishments and jobs and also carry out adver-
tising campaigns, firstly by asking tourists not to come to the country because of
the pandemic, but also paving the way for the post-pandemic context and by
stimulating their desire to visit with agreements signed between the government
and the sector to offer discounts on the purchase of tourist services.
In this analysis, the role of guarantor stands out: the government offered
guarantees to consumers and service providers that made sure that they would get
the right protection and regulations for the period of the pandemic. There were
different examples of actions taken that can illustrate this function, but the seals
and plans for gradual reopening carried out at different governmental scales were
80 Fábia Trentin et al.

crucial to guarantee the security conditions so that customers could enjoy the
different tourist destinations and their products.
However, it was observed that tourists did not seem to trust the federal gov-
ernment whose actions were not in line with those prescribed by the Presidency of
the Republic – who was known for showing little or no respect for the rules
imposed for public safety – or with those of the federal tourism agency that
encouraged life protection procedures. This lack of consultation and the position
of the head of the nation regarding the management of the pandemic were
constantly highlighted by national and international press, spreading a negative
image of the country.
Another observed point was the political arguments between the head of the
nation and the heads of the state governments about who was responsible for
certain functions, like closing airports and opening trade, which ended up
affecting the coordination of the process at the state level.
The corruption problems that led to the impeachment proceedings against the
Governor of the State of Rio de Janeiro had a negative impact on the actions
developed by the tourism agency. However, the leadership and respect for the
professional who was coordinating the agency kept vertical coordination work-
ing, despite little support for the tourism sector, especially in economic terms.
At the municipal level, there were horizontal coordination arrangements that
had a positive impact on the actions to contain and resume activities in the
context of the pandemic, such as those implemented to improve flexibility, pro-
tection, disclosure and the promotion of destinations.
The function of coordinator is expected to gain prominence once the
resumption process starts, as it will be important to support the modernization of
tourist companies, especially regarding digital technologies, and to coordinate the
subsectors in their effort to support the resurgence of tourism.
At this stage of the pandemic, people seem to be aware of the importance of
collaboration. The harmonizer will now have a vital part to play in the current
days by involving the private sector in joint and participatory actions that will
support and boost a more sustainable resumption of tourism.
In this pandemic period, with all the measures adopted to limit or even forbid
mobility, and with the closure of certain services, the functions of coordinator and
harmonizer were compromised. However, with the gradual resumption of activ-
ities, including those of the tourism sector, the importance of the functions of
coordinator and harmonizer are more than evident.
Finally, this study, as well as the methodology, can serve as a basis for the
analysis of the dialogue between the different levels of governance vis-a-vis public
tourism policies, both in this exceptional period marked by the pandemic and in
post-pandemic times.

Note
1. For more information http://www.regionalizacao.turismo.gov.br/ and http://
www.mapa.turismo.gov.br/mapa/init.html#/home.
 Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Brazilian Tourism 81

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Chapter 5

Perceptions of Safety and Risk in the Daily

Life and Travel Plans in the COVID-19
Context: One Year and Three Waves After
C. Seabra, C. Silva, O. Paiva, M. Reis and J. L. Abrantes

Abstract
Since early 2020, the world has faced a pandemic that has caused a
disruption in our lives, the likes of which have never been seen before. The
COVID-19 pandemic changed the way we live, work, communicate,
socialize, travel and even plan our future life. The lockdowns and civilian
and travel restrictions imposed by countries worldwide have drastically
affected citizens’ daily routines and mobility. In consequence, all sectors are
currently struggling with an unprecedented crisis, as health-related concerns
have substantial effects on travel industry at the local, national and global
level. The current increase in mortality rate caused by the new coronavirus
has affected individuals’ risk and safety perceptions and consequently their
travel behaviour.
A quantitative research methodology using an online questionnaire was
implemented in Portugal, and a sample composed of 1900 answers collected
during one year allowed to analyze the impact that the current pandemic has
on people’s safety and risk perceptions and how it is affecting their daily life
and travel behaviours and their willingness to accept civilian and travel
restrictions. The results confirmed that the pandemic had a strong impact on
Portuguese residents’ safety perceptions and their travel and tourism plans.
Also, it was possible to conclude that those perceptions have changed over
the course of three pandemic waves.
The discussion focuses on the kind of implications this situation may have
for tourism destination management and marketing. Study limitations and
guidelines for future research are also forwarded.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; health risks; safety in tourism; acceptance

of restrictions and safety measures; travel risk perceptions; residents

Pandemics and Travel, 83–105

Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
doi:10.1108/978-1-80071-070-220211006
84 C. Seabra et al.

1. Introduction
The onset of the 21st century brought disasters, terrorism attacks and virus
outbreaks (Korstanje, Skoll, Schroeder, Pennington-Gray, & Chavez, 2016),
increasing fear and risk perception in modern societies (Seabra, Reis &
Abrantes, 2020). A new coronavirus type was identified in Wuhan, China, in
late December 2019. Due to its level of spread, its severity and the outbreaks
identified in 114 countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared this
new coronavirus (COVID-19) a pandemic on 11 March 2020 (UNWTO, 2020),
and Europe was its epicentre (Neuburger & Egger, 2020; Zhou, Yu, Du, Fan, Liu,
Liu, & Cao, 2020).
The pandemic rapidly altered people’s daily life on a global scale and changed
every aspect of our lives. As the number of COVID-19 cases increased and spread
worldwide, several civilian and travel restrictions were imposed by almost all
countries (Gössling, Scott, & Hall, 2020). 96% of the overall population was
affected by civilian or international travel restrictions (UNWTO, 2020). In
consequence, this pandemic has progressively managed to stop the world and
undermine global economy.
Tourism is one of the industries that suffered the most from the impact of
COVID-19 (Iaquinto, 2020). COVID-19 tourism impacts will be different in space
and time, and apart from the human tool, estimates show that the pandemic had,
has and will continue to have an enormous impact (Sigala, 2020). The virus
swiftly spread across the world (Ozdin & Bayrak Ozdin, 2020), affecting the
whole tourism industry.
The impact of pandemics on tourism is not new. The world has experienced a
number of major epidemics/pandemics over the last 40 years (Gössling et al.,
2020). Other health-related problems like severe acute respiratory syndrome
(SARS) (Pine & McKercher, 2004), H1N1 (Lee, Son, Bendle, Kim, & Han, 2012)
or Ebola (Cahyanto, Wiblishauser, Pennington-Gray, & Schroeder, 2016), among
others, have affected the tourism industry and consequently tourists’ travel
behaviour. However, none of these epidemics and pandemics had similar impacts
on travel behaviour (Neuburger & Egger, 2020). The impact of COVID-19 will
remain even after the pandemic is over (Bae & Chang, 2020). The literature and
the most recent studies focussing on the impacts of COVID-19 on tourism habits
describe long-term severe effects that will be felt worldwide for years to come
(Brouder, 2020; Gates, 2020; Li, Nguyen, & Coca-Stefaniak, 2020; Sharma &
Nicolau, 2020).
The COVID-19 pandemic represents a massive global health problem that
needs a large-scale behaviour change (Gössling et al., 2020). In line with the
importance of risk perception for tourism and travel industry (Kwok et al., 2020)
and the need to better understand the effects of the current pandemic on society, it
is crucial to analyze the impacts that COVID-19 is currently having and will have
on citizens’ daily life, future plans and behaviours (Neuburger & Egger, 2020).
The aim of this study is to analyze citizens’ daily life perceptions of risk and
safety, and future travel and tourism behaviours within the context caused by
COVID-19 during one year and after three waves of the disease. The work
 Perceptions of Safety and Risk in the Daily Life 85

conducted intends to contribute to studies on tourism crisis and to provide future

research insights that can be used by tourism destinations and transportation
managers, as well as by other travel services that want to provide their customers
with the safest travel conditions.

2. Literature Review
The relationships between pandemics and travel are central to understand
global change (Larson, 2018). Several researchers had already drawn people’s
attention to the importance of understanding the relationships between epi-
demics, pandemics and virus outbreaks and travel to comprehend global change
(Burkle, 2006; Hall, 2006; Larson, 2018) and the evolution of global health
safety (Hon, 2013).
There have been several warnings that pandemics pose a major threat to
society and tourism due to a fast-growing world population; large gatherings,
urbanization trends; and to the development of global transport and air flight
networks that will act as vectors in the spreading of pathogens. All the epidemics
and pandemics such as SARS, Ebola, Marburg, hantavirus, Zika and avian
influenza have had a dramatic impact on this new century (Depoux et al., 2020).
Tourism is not only affected by pandemics and epidemics but also contributes
to their spread, affecting not only the tourists but also the communities who are
living in the destinations they have chosen to visit (Hall, 2006). The present crisis
triggered by the new coronavirus is a good example of this dual relationship
(Wilson & Chen, 2020).
Pandemics and virus outbreaks have a strong impact on the tourism industry,
since markets are extremely sensitive to health risks that may involve potential
physical danger, injury or sickness (Baker, 2014; Jonas, Mansfeld, Paz, &
Potasman, 2011). In fact, tourism is a sector that is highly exposed to risks
(Ritchie, 2004), and international tourism is highly sensitive to safety and security
matters (Pizam & Mansfeld, 1996; Seabra, Dolnicar, Abrantes & Kastenholz,
2013). Safety is a factor that strongly affects tourists’ decision-making process and
is a key factor influencing tourism destination selection (Beirman, 2003; Woodside
& King, 2001; Woodside & Lysonski, 1989).
Previous research shows that risk perception restricts travel and influence
tourism demand and travel behaviour (Bae & Chang, 2020). More than the real
and effective risk, it is the perceived risk that influences human behaviour (Nagai,
Ritchie, Sano, & Yoshino, 2020). Thus, perceived risk attached to travel is one of
the most important determinants of tourists’ travel behaviour (Gössling et al.,
2020; Zhu & Deng, 2020). Risk perception is a subjective evaluation of the risk of
a threatening situation based on its features and the severity of its impact
(Neuburger & Eggen, 2020). In tourism, risk perception is defined as the indi-
viduals’ perception of ‘the probability that an action may expose an individual to
danger can influence travel decisions if the perceived danger is deemed to be
beyond an acceptable level’ (Chew & Jahari, 2014, pp. 383–384).
On the other hand, researchers have demonstrated the important role that tourism
and air travel play in accelerating and disseminating diseases and in amplifying
86 C. Seabra et al.

pandemics and virus outbreaks (Wilson & Chen, 2020). The present crisis triggered by
the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced consumer behaviours throughout the world,
and almost all countries’ travel and tourism industries are now facing the same dark
fate. The sudden worldwide pandemic caused by the new coronavirus shows once
again that viruses know no borders and are a huge influence on tourists’ cognitive
travel behaviour (Wen, Huimin, & Kavanaugh, 2005).
In the face of a global pandemic that started in China but rapidly spread
worldwide aided by travel and tourism, countries have imposed severe civilian
and travel restrictions that caused lockdowns, the closure of public services and
non-essential businesses, the closure of land, air and sea boarders, the imposition
of travel bans, severe entry rules in some countries and the implementation of
severe health control measures at land, air and sea entry points, among many
others (Demirbilek, Pehlivanturk, Ozguler, & Mese, 2020; Donth & Gustafsson,
2020; Fong, Law, & Ye, 2020; Gösslinget al., 2020). Travel restrictions were the
most common measures taken to stop the pandemic, and over 90% of the world’s
population were prevented from travelling or saw their mobility severely affected
by several measures (Gössling et al., 2020).
Around the world, societies were in lockdown, and this had a significant
impact on citizens’ daily life. COVID-19 disrupted livelihoods. Daily routines
were slightly or seriously disrupted (Kwok et al., 2020). Large-scale distancing
interventions measures were applied and included flexible working time and
working from home, and online classes. Restaurants were shut down, and take-
aways and food deliveries were the only services allowed. Social distancing
accelerated online buying and consumption and the corresponding lifestyle (Bae
& Chang, 2020).
Those measures combined with the fear caused by the pandemic and fuelled by
the media (Depouxet al., 2020) provoked worldwide panic. This unstable envi-
ronment has affected global economy. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected
every business, whether they are corporate or small-scale firms, and has disrupted
business activities and sectors worldwide including oil, manufacturing, and
baking industries, finance, services, real estate or automobile and tourism
industries. Evidence shows that the new coronavirus has a deep impact on the
world economies that will last for decades (Ayittey, Ayittey, Chiwero, Kamasah,
& Dzuvor, 2020; Sheresheva, 2020; Zeren & Hizarci, 2020).
However, it is worth noting that it is impossible to predict exact figures because
as the disease continues to spread, the world entered in a second and a third wave,
and scientists and experts have warned for more waves that may last until 2022
(Devlin, 2020; Joseph, 2020). In brief, the novel COVID-19 pandemic has left the
tourism market, as well as other business and sectors, in a turmoil that may well
last for years to come.

COVID-19 provides striking lessons to the tourism industry, policy

makers and tourism researchers about the effects of global change.
The challenge is now to collectively learn from this global tragedy
to accelerate the transformation of sustainable tourism’. (Gössling
et al., 2020, p. 15)
 Perceptions of Safety and Risk in the Daily Life 87

3. Methodology

3.1 Research Setting

The research setting was based on a questionnaire applied to people (over 18) who
were living in Portugal, a southern European country whose economy depends greatly
on the tourism industry. Accounting for over 20% of the national gross domestic
product (GDP) and 10% of national employment, tourism stood over the past decades
as one of the main drivers of the country’s economy (Turismo de Portugal, 2020).
The first two cases of COVID-19 (imported from Italy and Spain) were reported
in Portugal on 2 March 2020, and three days later, the BTL, Portugal’s most
important international tourism event, was cancelled and postponed to 2021. TAP
Air Portugal, which is the leading airline company in Portugal, cancelled more than
1,000 flights around that time.
March 2020 was considered the beginning of the first wave of the COVID-19
pandemic in Portugal. Since this early stage, the Portuguese government has
imposed severe measures to contain the spread of disease. On March 16, the first
COVID-19 death was reported in the country, and the Portuguese government shut
down all schools, universities, and national museums. The border with Spain and
all the coast ports were closed. On March 19, travel warnings were extended to
most European countries. Portugal reported, at that time, the second death by
COVID-19 and activated the National Emergency response level that led to strong
mobility restrictions. During that precise period, citizens were confined to their
homes, and almost all services and shops were shut down. Flights from and to the
European Union (EU) were cancelled for 30 days. On April 2, the President
declares the second National Emergency State that included stronger restrictions
that had a huge impact on citizens’ mobility, and most services and shops remained
closed. The peak of the first wave occurred, according to several experts, between
April 13 and April 19. The highest number of new daily contagion cases – around
1,500– and the highest number of deaths per day – 30 – were recorded during that
period (Franco, 2020). On April 18, Portugal declares the third National Emer-
gency State. The same restrictions affecting citizens’ mobility and services were to
be extended. On May 2, the President declares the end of National Emergency
State and announces a National State of Calamity that included fewer restrictions.
From this date on, the country has witnessed a gradual reopening of services
and easing of restrictions. June, July and August, months that are usually
associated with the turmoil of summer holidays, were a period where the spread
of the disease decreased. The country experienced a calmer period and tallied a
daily number of new cases below 500 and less than 10 deaths per day. During
this phase, almost all restrictions were lifted. Some safety measures remained
such as: the mandatory use of masks in public and closed spaces, social
distancing, the reduction in the number of people allowed in commercial spaces,
beaches and public spaces, and all passengers were still required to present a
negative COVID-19 test before boarding their flight.
In September, with the end of the school holidays, most of the population
returned to work and there was an increase in the number of new COVID-19
88 C. Seabra et al.

cases. Due to that growth, Portugal entered a new Contingency State on

September 15 that led to the implementation of new restrictions, most of which
included mobility limitations. The second week of October is regarded as the
beginning of the second wave with more than 1,000 daily cases, a higher
mortality rate and more infections among the active population. For the first
time, more than 50% of the infection cases were recorded among people aged
between 20 and 49 years (Claudino, 2020). Between October and December, the
government strengthened the restriction measures in accordance with the spread
of the virus. The most serious measures included curfews and a ban on trav-
elling between counties during the weekends and holidays (Franco, 2021).
In mid-December, the first case of the new British COVID-19 variant was
recorded in Portugal. The third wave began in the week of Christmas, and there
was evidence of about 500 new cases per 100 inhabitants, with the COVID-19 R
number – an indicator that measures the transmissibility strength of the virus –
above 1. During the holidays, there was a relaxation in the restriction measures
and that fact, together with the presence of new British variant, turned Portugal
into the country with the worst COVID-19 incidence: in January 2021, Portugal
was already the country with the highest number of deaths and contagion cases
per number of inhabitants. By the end of December 2020, the President declared a
new State of Emergency that included several restrictions that were tightened on
22 January 2021. On that day, the country faced the same measures that were
imposed in March 2020: closure of trade and non-essential services, mandatory
remote working, closure of schools and mandatory lockdown. Since mid-January,
Portugal has recorded more than 10,000 new contagion cases and 200 deaths per
day, on average. The contagion peak was reached during the last week of January
with more than 16,000 new cases and 300 deaths in one single day.

3.2 Survey Instrument Design

The survey instrument used was based on scales found in the literature focussing
on tourism. The scales used in the survey instrument that were created to measure
tourists’ perception of safety when they are planning international or domestic
travels were adapted from Wong and Yeh (2009). An exploratory scale was built
to analyze how residents assess the risk associated with tourism activities. The
scales used to assess the effects of the COVID-19 threat on risk perceptions in
people’s daily life, and future plans were adapted from the works of Huddy,
Feldman, Capelos and Provost (2002), Jeuring and Becken (2013) and Yun and
MacLaurin (2006). Scales from the work of Huddy, Khatib, and Capelos (2001)
were used to evaluate the level of acceptance of civil and travel restrictions. The
scales were translated from English into Portuguese and then were back translated
by native speakers to avoid any language deviation.

3.3 Data Collection

This study is based on an unrestricted random sample obtained from an online
questionnaire shared on social networks. Field research took place between
 Perceptions of Safety and Risk in the Daily Life 89

2 February 2020 and 2 February 2021. The study population consists of individuals
from both genders, who were living in Portugal and who were 18 or older. 1902
valid answers were obtained. The following represents the respondents’ back-
grounds: (1) Gender: 70.2% were women, and 29.8% were men; (2) Age: 25.2% of
the respondents were between 18 and 24 years old; 32.9% of them were between 25
and 40 years old; 27.3% were between 41 and 54 years old; and 14.6% of the
participants were 55 and over; (3) Educational level: 87.9% have college education,
10.7% are high school graduates, the remaining 1.4% are equally divided for six and
nine years of education; (4) Jobs: 4.3% are sole traders, 9.1% are independent
professionals, 37.1% are junior/senior executives, 11.3% are commercial employees
or administrative officers, 1.6% are blue-collar workers, 2.5% are retired persons/
pensioners, 2.3% are housewives/unemployed and 31.8% are students. 43.5% of the
respondents made at least five international trips over the last 3 years, 25% went on
between 5 and 10 trips and the remaining 18.5% took part in more than 10 trips.

3.4 Data Analysis

The main goals of this study are to analyze the effects of the current pandemic on
people’s perception of safety surrounding domestic or international journeys and
different types of leisure and tourism activities. It will also analyze the level of fear
and concern related to situations involving the risk of contagion and focus on the
kind of safety measures/restrictions by which Portuguese residents must abide to
feel safer and whether or not they are willing to accept them.
The first stage includes the analysis of the overall data related to those different
aspects. Subsequently, a survey-type analysis was carried out to understand
possible changes of opinion among Portuguese residents over time, considering
four moments that were marked by specific events related to the current
pandemic:

(1) First period covering the beginning of the pandemic and the first wave:
Starting on February 2 when the first case in Europe was reported and
confirmed; the three States of Emergency from March 18 to May 1 when the
State of Emergency was lifted. During this phase, the peak of new daily cases
and number of deaths was, respectively, 1,500 and 30, and was reached in the
second week of April. Severe restrictions and an almost complete lockdown
were imposed for two and a half months.
(2) The second period ran during the months of summer, when the country
registered a daily number of new cases below 500 and less than 10 deaths per
day, on average. There was a relaxation of restrictions specially those con-
nected with mobility and travelling.
(3) The third period coincides with the second wave that started on October 12 and
ended on December 22, the beginning of the third wave. During this period,
there was a significant increase in the daily number of new infections and
deaths, with a peak of more than 7,000 new cases and almost 100 deaths during
the last week of November. At this stage, the government imposed various
restrictions and safety measures, essentially to prevent the mobility of people.
90 C. Seabra et al.

(4) The fourth and last period refers to the third wave that started on December
23 and continues on to this day with a drastic rise in the daily number of new
contagions and deaths, placing Portugal at the top of the affected countries
worldwide reaching 16000 new cases and 300 deaths per day over the last
week of January. Once again, the government had to impose the State of
Emergency with restrictions and a complete lockdown much similar to those
imposed during the first wave.

4. Results
4.1 Safety Perceptions to Travel Inside and Outside Country
The main results of the study show that the current pandemic has a significant
impact on the perceived safety that Portuguese residents are currently associ-
ating with domestic or international trips claiming that safety is a serious matter
travelling domestically or internationally with answers above 90%. Residents
agree that safety is a key factor when they plan a trip and that safety is the most
important attribute when they have to choose a destination for domestic or
international destinations. Respondents consider that, due to the pandemic,
travelling is risky. Holiday trips, work-related trips, family trips or trips made to
visit friends and family inside their own country are risky endeavours.
Responses are even more significant when this same kind of trips involve foreign
destination. Finally, they consider that additional security measures at airports
make domestic and international travel safer. An analysis based on the different
age groups showed that all the generations involved in the study consider safety
to be one of the most important aspects when they plan a trip. However, the
older generation shows a higher travel risk perception both for domestic and
international destinations (see Table 5.1).
The analysis of the responses provided during the four aforementioned time
periods shows that the residents’ fear of travelling has changed over time, but that
it follows different patterns whether it relates to domestic or international trips.
Overall fear of travelling was lower when it involved domestic destinations during
the summer and during the second wave, but when international destinations were
involved, the fear of travelling was always high especially during the summer and
the third wave. Interestingly, the Portuguese respondents indicated that during the
first and second wave, they felt more confident about travelling inside their
country, but felt safer to travel to foreign countries during the first and third wave.
When asked about the level of safety felt during their different types of travels
(holidays, business trips, visiting friends and family or travelling with family),
respondents stated that they felt much safer during the first wave both for
domestic or foreign destinations. The nervousness caused by the travelling
experience was a constant during the four periods, with a slight decrease during
the second wave for national and international travel. At the same time, the
importance attached to security was another constant, with answers around 90%
for national and international travels. The importance attached to safety issues in
airports and when people were choosing their travel destinations was higher
 Perceptions of Safety and Risk in the Daily Life 91

Table 5.1. Safety Perceptions Associated with Inside and Outside Country
Travel (Global).

Safety Perceptions to Inside Country Outside Country

Travel Disagree Neutral Agree Disagree Neutral Agree
Travelling is risky right 24.4% 17.1% 58.1% 9.9% 11.7% 78.4%
now
I feel very comfortable 62.9% 14.4% 22.7% 75.9% 9.5% 14.6%
travelling right now
Holiday travel is 67.6% 13.7% 18.7% 79.9% 10.4% 9.8%
perfectly safe
Travelling for business or 63.5% 17.0% 19.5% 76.8% 13.4% 9.8%
work is perfectly safe
Travelling to visit friends 63.8% 15.7% 20.6% 78.1% 11.3% 10.6%
or relatives is perfectly
safe
Travelling with my 60.5% 16.6% 23.0% 76.2% 13.5% 10.3%
family is very safe
I feel nervous about 24.8% 15.4% 59.8% 17.8% 10.2% 72.0%
travelling right now
Additional security 28.8% 24.9% 46.3% 31.7% 21.8% 46.5%
measures at airports
make travelling safer
Safety is the most 5.9% 13.8% 80.3% 6.0% 13.2% 80.7%
important attribute a
destination can offer
Safety is a serious matter 2.3% 4.4% 93.3% 2.3% 3.7% 94.0%
to me
Source: Own Production.

during the first and the third wave. The highest scores were indicated during the
first and the last period, coinciding with the periods of complete lockdown in
Portugal (see Table 5.2).

4.2 Safety Perception in Tourism Activities Practicing

This study indicates that, due to the threat of the new coronavirus, Portuguese resi-
dents feel too unsafe to take part in leisure and tourism activities. More than 80% of
the respondents claim that casinos or nightclubs are currently very unsafe places.
Between 60% and 80% of the participants consider that it is highly unsafe to visit
theme parks, galleries, museums, monuments, and urban and historical centres; to
Table 5.2. Safety Perceptions Associated with Inside and Outside Country Travel (Per Period).

92
Inside Country Foreign Country

C. Seabra et al.
% of Respondents Who Consider It Safe % of Respondents Who Agree
First Summer Second Third First Summer Second Third
Perceived Travel Safety Wave Wave Wave Wave Wave Wave
Travelling is risky right now 59.4% 51.8% 45.1% 68.4% 76.7% 82.0% 78.9% 80.3%
I feel very comfortable travelling right now 27.4% 14.0% 19.2% 18.2% 15.0% 11.8% 12.8% 16.2%
Holiday travel is perfectly safe 26.2% 9.6% 10.5% 10.4% 11.3% 8.3% 7.1% 8.5%
Travelling for business or work is perfectly 26.3% 12.7% 12.4% 10.9% 11.8% 6.1% 7.5% 8.5%
safe
Travelling to visit friends or relatives is 27.0% 18.9% 11.7% 11.2% 12.7% 10.1% 6.8% 8.0%
perfectly safe
Travelling with my family is very safe 27.1% 20.6% 20.3% 15.7% 10.8% 8.3% 9.8% 10.2%
I feel nervous about travelling right now 59.8% 58.3% 53.4% 64.9% 73.7% 70.6% 68.0% 71.4%
Additional security measures at airports make 47.5% 41.7% 47.7% 48.0% 47.8% 41.2% 46.2% 48.5%
travelling safer
Safety is the most important attribute a 83.4% 72.4% 68.0% 85.3% 84.8% 68.9% 69.5% 84.6%
destination can offer
Safety is a serious matter to me 95.0% 89.0% 87.6% 95.3% 95.2% 89.5% 90.2% 96.0%
Source: Own Production.
 Perceptions of Safety and Risk in the Daily Life 93

take part in events such as concerts, festivals, sports or religious events; to take part in
indoor sports or activities; to have their meals in restaurants; to stay in a hotel; to take
part in tourist visits or to go to shopping centres and street markets. On the opposite
side, trips to beaches, rivers and lakes are still safe activities when compared with the
other activities, according to the participants in the study. Going to natural parks,
hiking and doing sport activities in natural environments are the only activities
considered relatively safe by the Portuguese in the context of the COVID-19
pandemic (see Table 5.3). The older generations seem to be much more afraid of
taking part in any sort of leisure and tourism activities.
The perception of safety when leisure and tourism activities are involved
reached its lowest level during the summer and the most recent period, the third
wave. It is clear that tourism activities especially those involving big crowds,
going to parks, museums and monuments, concerts and festivals, visiting city
centres and historic sites, having dinner in restaurants, sightseeing tours, attending
sport events, staying in hotels and going to religious places are currently associ-
ated with a lower degree of perceived safety. On the other hand, activities in
closed spaces like shopping, going to casinos, going out at night and doing sports
in closed spaces were voted the most unsafe choices during the second and third
wave and the safest during the first wave. Leisure activities in open spaces and
nature such as going to natural parks or sites and going to beaches were
considered less safe during the first wave and safer during the second and third
wave. It is worth mentioning that the periods when respondents felt more confi-
dent to take part in activities directly related with tourism (going to amusement
parks, visiting museums and galleries, going to beaches, visiting city centres and
historic sites, having dinner in restaurants, sightseeing or doing organized visits
and staying in hotels) coincided with the second wave. In the last studied period,
there was a global decrease in the levels of perceived safety related to almost all
these activities (see Table 5.3).

4.3 Safety Perceptions in Daily Life and Future Plans

When participants were asked to address the topic of fear and concern related to
contagion, more than 85% of them agreed that citizens and tourists may fall
victims of contagion and that they fear for themselves and their families
(Table 5.4). Even though they feel concerned with the situation, with almost 50%
of respondents stating that have been bothered and nervous by coronavirus fear,
respondents state that they do not have trouble sleeping. Regarding the need for
additional information on protective measures against COVID-19, the results are
mixed with 42% indicating their disagreement, almost 28% were neutral and
almost 33% indicated that they need further information to protect their selves.
Finally, about 50% of the respondents say they will change various aspects of
their lives and daily routines because of the disease. The percentage rises to almost
70% when it comes to holiday and travel plans, though (see Table 5.4). These
concerns are more significant among the older participants, and those who are
between 40 and 65 years old seem to need more information on how to protect
themselves against the virus than the younger respondents.
94 C. Seabra et al.

Table 5.3. Safety Perception in Tourism Activities (Global and Per Period).

Per Period
% of Respondents Considering
Global Safe
Tourism Activities Unsafe Neutral Safe First Summer Second Third
Practicing Wave Wave Wave
Going to 74.1% 16.6% 9.3% 12.1% 5.6% 9.0% 6.0%
amusement or
theme parks
Going to natural 18.5% 25.0% 56.5% 46.4% 57.9% 83.8% 62.9%
areas such as
national parks or
forests, hiking…
Visiting art 60.7% 24.7% 14.7% 12.9% 10.5% 25.6% 14.2%
galleries, museums,
monuments
Going to beaches, 38.7% 27.8% 33.5% 26.2% 35.1% 59.4% 38.6%
rivers or lakes
Going to concerts, 79.7% 12.6% 7.7% 10.0% 4.4% 5.6% 5.2%
festivals, shows
Visiting historical 60.9% 23.9% 15.1% 14.9% 12.3% 21.1% 13.4%
and cultural sites,
city centres
Having dinner in 64.5% 22.1% 13.5% 13.6% 6.6% 16.2% 15.2%
restaurants
Shopping in 65.4% 23.9% 10.7% 12.4% 9.6% 9.4% 8.0%
shopping malls,
streets, markets
Going to casinos or 84.3% 10.0% 5.7% 8.3% 3.5% 1.9% 3.0%
gambling
Going out at night, 86.0% 8.1% 5.8% 8.8% 4.8% 2.3% 1.2%
dancing, going to
nightclubs or
discos
Sightseeing and 67.6% 20.3% 12.1% 12.6% 11.0% 14.3% 11.2%
participating in
organized visits
Attending sporting 73.0% 17.6% 9.4% 11.4% 4.8% 9.0% 7.0%
events
 Perceptions of Safety and Risk in the Daily Life 95

Table 5.3. (Continued)

Per Period
% of Respondents Considering
Global Safe
Tourism Activities Unsafe Neutral Safe First Summer Second Third
Practicing Wave Wave Wave
Staying in hotels, 56.5% 25.2% 18.2% 14.2% 13.6% 29.3% 23.6%
resorts, camping
Practicing sport in 76.5% 14.8% 8.7% 10.1% 9.6% 6.0% 6.5%
closed spaces
(Gyms,
stadiums…)
Going to religious 77.5% 14.5% 7.9% 9.3% 6.1% 6.4% 6.5%
places, doing
pilgrimages or
participating in
religious events
Source: Own Production.

When we analyzed these answers and compared the four periods, it became
evident that the second wave was once again the period when the Portuguese
population felt safer. Their answers confirm lower levels of concern about being
infected with the disease and show that they are not afraid that their family
members might catch the virus while engaging in tourism activities. On the other
hand, the highest levels of perception that tourists or citizens could be victims of
the disease occurred during the summer and the third wave. But the concern that
they might get infected or that someone of their families might contract the virus
was much more evident during the first and the third wave. The need for
more information about protective measures was greater during the summer.
Portuguese respondents felt higher levels of nervousness and sleeplessness due to
the fear of COVID-19 during the third wave. The willingness to change aspects of
their daily routine and travel and holiday plans increased over time and reached
its higher scores during the third wave (Table 5.4).

4.4 Acceptance of Restrictions and Safety Measures

Participants were also asked to give their opinion on the kind of measures/
restrictions that residents would agree with (Table 5.5). The results show that,
regardless of their age group, the overwhelming majority of the Portuguese
population agrees with home quarantine duty for people with diagnosed
COVID-19 (93%) and greater border control (81%). Participants also agree that
96 C. Seabra et al.

Table 5.4. Safety Perceptions in Daily Life and Future Plans.

Per Period
Global % of Respondents Who Agree
Disagree Neutral Agree First Summer Second Third
Safety Perceptions Wave Wave Wave
Tourists are not 85.2% 8.5% 6.3% 5.7% 6.6% 4.5% 6.2%
likely to be
victims of
coronavirus
Normal citizens 85.8% 8.9% 5.3% 5.0% 5.7% 4.5% 6.5%
are not likely to
be victims of
coronavirus
I need more 42.4% 24.7% 32.9% 35.3% 46.1% 17.7% 29.4%
information
about how to
protect myself
from coronavirus
I am concerned 7.0% 8.0% 85,0% 86.2% 76.8% 74.2% 89.6%
that I, myself or
someone from
my family could
be a victim of
coronavirus
I have been 25.9% 27.3% 46.8% 43.0% 46.5% 41.4% 60.0%
bothered and feel
nervous because
of my fear of
coronavirus
I have had 69.7% 17.1% 14.2% 14.1% 12.7% 8.6% 18.9%
trouble sleeping
because of the
fear of
coronavirus
I am thinking 26.3% 23.2% 50.5% 49.1% 42.5% 48.5% 59.7%
about changing
many aspects of
my life and
routines because
 Perceptions of Safety and Risk in the Daily Life 97

Table 5.4. (Continued)

Per Period
Global % of Respondents Who Agree
Disagree Neutral Agree First Summer Second Third
Safety Perceptions Wave Wave Wave
of the fear of
coronavirus
I am thinking 17.1% 13.6% 69.2% 65.6% 69.3% 71.8% 76.6%
about changing
travel or holiday
plans due to my
fear of
coronavirus
Source: Own Production.

there should be strong restrictions on the entry of foreign travellers into

Portugal or into other countries, and state that people coming from areas
affected by the disease should not be allowed to enter the country (60.8%,
59.6% and 57.8%, respectively). Also, the obligation of all citizens to be
examined by medical teams gathers some acceptance by the Portuguese
(55.9%). Responses are more moderate when it comes to accepting more pre-
scriptive measures such as total closure of borders (48.9%). Respondents seem
to think that repatriation is a good measure, but mostly when it applies to
Portuguese citizens who are stranded abroad (43.7%). The levels of agreement
are mixed when they address the cases of foreign citizens held in Portugal.
41.4% of the study participants disagree with this measure, but 32.8% agree.
When they were asked about the possibility of people being randomly stopped
by security forces to be examined, almost 44% of participants stated that they
were totally against; however, 36.5% agreed with such measure, and 19%
adopted a neutral position (see Table 5.5).
The acceptance of the restrictions and safety measures by Portuguese resi-
dents dropped significantly during the second wave. The sole exception was
related to the mandatory quarantine in case of disease diagnosis that was
accepted by most of the respondents (around 90% of them) during the four
periods. Respondents gladly accepted most of the safety restrictions and mea-
sures enacted during the first and third wave. As a matter of fact, this last period
has recorded the highest acceptance scores for almost every measure considered.
Two specific measures must be highlighted, though: the measure that declares
that all citizens must be tested by medical teams and the other measure that
states that foreigners who have been diagnosed with the virus should be sent
back to their country of origin, since they received high levels of acceptance
during the summer (see Table 5.5).
98 C. Seabra et al.

Table 5.5. Acceptance of Restrictions and Safety Measures (Global and Per
Period).

Per Period

Acceptance of Global % of Respondents Who Agree

Restrictions and Disagree Neutral Agree First Summer Second Third
Measures Wave Wave Wave
Total closure of 31.4% 19.6% 48.9% 53.4% 45.6% 21.1% 58.2%
borders
More control in 7.9% 11.0% 81.1% 86.3% 78.9% 60.2% 83.1%
all countries’
borders
Mandatory 2.7% 4.0% 93.2% 95.3% 88.3% 90.2% 93.3%
quarantine in
case of disease
diagnosis
Limitations in all 21.1% 19.3% 59.6% 63.8% 58.8% 35.3% 65.4%
countries to
receive migrants
and foreigners
Limitations in my 21.0% 18.2% 60.8% 64.1% 63.2% 36.1% 67.4%
country to receive
migrants and
foreigners
Obligation of all 21.9% 22.1% 55.9% 52.6% 65.4% 43.2% 67.4%
citizens to be
examined by
medical teams
Possibility for 44.3% 19.2% 36.5% 37.0% 36.4% 15.8% 49.0%
security forces to
randomly stop
people on the
streets, so they
can be examined
Preventing 22.0% 20.2% 57.8% 62.1% 61.8% 28.2% 64.4%
citizens from
areas affected by
the disease from
entering my
country
 Perceptions of Safety and Risk in the Daily Life 99

Table 5.5. (Continued)

Per Period

Acceptance of Global % of Respondents Who Agree

Restrictions and Disagree Neutral Agree First Summer Second Third
Measures Wave Wave Wave
Repatriation of 29.3% 27.0% 43.7% 48.7% 41.2% 28.2% 43.0%
nationals who are
in areas affected
by the
coronavirus
Repatriation of 41.4% 25.8% 32.8% 33.6% 36.4% 18.4% 38.1%
foreign nationals
who had been
diagnosed with
coronavirus to
their country of
origin
Source: Own Production.

5. Discussion, Conclusions and Implications

Pandemics have had a long transformational effect on societies (Hall, Scott, &
Gössling, 2020), and in the midst of the pandemic outbreak, it is very difficult
to estimate its long-term effects on health, society and tourism (Donthu &
Gustafsson, 2020). Still, one can truly assume that COVID-19 pandemic will
change the world (Davies, 2020; Gills, 2020) and that international tourism will
be deeply affected. In a more positive perspective, COVID-19 could represent an
opportunity to rethink tourism in a sustainable way.
This study aims to determine the risk perception of Portuguese citizens in a
context created by the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in situations related to
travel, leisure activities and daily life and their willingness to accept the safety
measures implemented.
In general, Portuguese residents value their safety and consider it to be a
serious matter. They have also showed high levels of perceived risk associated
with travelling and felt highly concerned about travelling inside their country,
but even more uncomfortable when travelling involved international destina-
tions. Those feelings of unsafety were deeper during the third wave even for
domestic trips. As for international trips, the Portuguese respondents stated that
they felt less safe during the summer months. This is possibly connected with the
number of contagion cases and deaths recorded inside and outside their country.
During the summer, the country recorded a smaller number of contagion cases
and deaths. On the other hand, respondents felt that international tourism trips
100 C. Seabra et al.

were still very risky. Interestingly enough, respondents stated that they felt much
more confident about taking part in different types of travel experiences (holi-
days, business, visiting friends and family or travelling with family) during the
first wave both for domestic and international destinations. However, those
feelings decreased as the different periods went by. This may have to do with the
global evolution of the disease and the increased knowledge of its impacts.
The importance attached to safety issues was stronger during the first and third
wave, showing that during the summer and second wave, the Portuguese citizens
were less concerned with safety matters. The same pattern was recorded for leisure
and tourism activities. Although the respondents had mentioned their level of
unsafety concerning tourist and leisure activities, except for those involving nat-
ural parks and outdoor sports, evidence showed that they felt less anxious during
the second wave. This higher level of safety and carefree sentiment that spread
among Portuguese population can perhaps explain the coming of the third wave
which yielded a significant increase in the number of infections.
A surprising result was obtained for activities specifically linked to tourism or
involving large crowds. The highest levels of insecurity were recorded during the
summer, when the country recorded fewer cases of contagion and deaths. This
result can be explained by the great tourist demand that the country experienced
at that stage. Residents felt that those activities could attract more people and,
therefore, could cause greater risk. In addition, activities that required the use of
closed spaces and that attracted more people during the fall and the holidays were
considered less safe during the second wave.
As for safety perceptions related to people’s daily life and future plans, the
Portuguese respondents showed that they were highly concerned with the disease
and that they will, therefore, change several aspects of their daily routine and
future holiday plans due to this COVID-19 context. Once again, the second wave
was the period when Portuguese felt safer. Surprisingly, residents were very
worried about the possibility of citizens and tourists being infected during the
summer, and during that period, they felt that they needed more information
about protective measures. Again, this result could be explained by the increase in
population due to tourism demand. The fear of being infected himself or someone
in their families was higher during the 1stwave, perhaps because of the disease
being unknown; the same reaction occurred during the 3rd wave. The levels of
nervousness and sleeplessness caused by COVID-19 were higher in the last period.
The fact that Portugal is currently the country with the highest number of
infection cases and deaths can explain this concern.
Results show that, globally, the Portuguese citizens have accepted most of the
restrictions and safety measures imposed by the government. However, more
prescriptive measures involving the limitation of mobility between countries were
not quite popular among Portuguese residents. The long tradition of Portugal as a
country permanently open to the world, sending and receiving migrants during its
900 years of history, can certainly explain this aversion to accept restrictions that
jeopardize the free movement of people across borders.
 Perceptions of Safety and Risk in the Daily Life 101

Once again, the acceptance of restrictions and safety measures by Portuguese

residents dropped significantly during the second wave. Most of the safety
restrictions and measures recorded higher levels of acceptance during the first and
third wave. This conclusion shows that the level of restriction and the acceptance
of safety measures are mostly influenced by the strict implementation of highly
restrictive measures, specifically by the severe lockdowns imposed during those
periods, and that the number of deaths and infections are considered to have a
weaker influence. Because of the increasing tourism-led movements occurring
across the country during the summer period, the Portuguese citizens agreed that
all citizens should be tested and that foreigners who had been diagnosed with the
disease should be sent back to their country of origin.
The goal of this work is to contribute to the tourism literature addressing
COVID-19 and travel behaviour. Additionally, the study provides insights into
tourism destinations managers, transportation and travel services that will be
useful to improve destinations and travel safety images. The results are in line
with previous studies regarding the impact of this pandemic in tourists’ and cit-
izens’ perceptions and behaviours (Bae & Chang, 2020; Brouder, 2020; Gates,
2020; Li et al., 2020; Sharma & Nicolau, 2020) that will affect tourism activity in
the following years (Sigala, 2020). Also, the present research proves the influence
of restrictions and safety measures in citizens’ global lives in the COVID-19
context (Demirbilek et al., 2020; Donth & Gustafsson, 2020; Fong et al., 2020;
Gössling et al., 2020).
This research will contribute to a better understanding of how the current
pandemic is affecting the daily life of the Portuguese population and their leisure
and travel plans, and will also draw people’s attention to several very important
aspects like the level of safety felt when people are planning a domestic or
international journey and the way this perceived safety will evolve over time.
Results clearly show that over time tourists tend to find domestic trips less and less
risky. Also, outdoor activities and activities performed in a natural environment
are clearly the safest forms of recreation considered by the Portuguese population.
Tourism organizations should invest in this kind of offer in the future. The highest
level of fear and concern is evidenced by the older generations, so this market
segment will surely need more time to feel safe enough to travel again. The study
also shows that the Portuguese population are willing to accept the measures
imposed by their government, but that they do not agree with the imposition of
more oppressive safety measures and restrictions, especially those connected with
the borders closure.

6. Limitations and Further Research

This work has some limitations that have to be considered. The first one is the
online approach. The process could not have been conducted differently since
face-to-face interviews could not be conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic
period. However, and because of this particular approach, the study cannot
include the opinions of all those who do not have access to or do not use the
Internet as is the case of the oldest age groups. Obviously, these groups will be
102 C. Seabra et al.

underrepresented. On the other hand, the study only analyzes the participation of
Portuguese citizens, which can clearly represent a limitation, particularly when it
comes to generalize the findings of the study. That way, further research is
required to diversify nationalities. It would also be interesting to conduct a deeper
investigation on the relationship between the impacts and the population’s cul-
tural background. To that end, the results obtained should be compared to others
collected from different cultural and geographical countries inside or even outside
of Europe.

Acknowledgements
This work was funded by national funds through FCT – the Portuguese Foundation
for Science and Technology (UID/ECO/00124/2013 and Social Sciences DataLab,
Project 22209), POR Lisboa (LISBOA-01-0145-FEDER-007722 and Social Sciences
DataLab, Project 22209), POR Norte (Social Sciences DataLab, Project 22209) and
under the projects UIDB/05583/2020 and UIDB/04084/2020. Furthermore, we would
like to thank CEGOT – Geography and Spatial Planning Research Centre, and
Research Centre in Digital Services (CISeD), the Polytechnic of Viseu and the Faculty
of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra for their support.

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Chapter 6

The Effects of COVID-19 on the Russian

Federation: Resident’s Perspectives
Maria Koroleva

Abstract
The twenty-first-century virus outbreak caused by COVID-19 is playing a
significant role in people’s lives all over the world. According to the latest
data (23 November), 58,751,191 people have already been infected, and
1,389,770 have died across the globe (JHU CSSE COVID-19 Dashboard,
2020). As far as the Russian Federation is concerned, 2,096,749 people have
already been infected (23 November) and there are 36,192 confirmed deaths
from COVID-19 (JHU CSSE COVID-19 Dashboard, 2020). This pandemic
has affected different spheres, including travelling. The main purpose of this
chapter is to analyze how Russian respondents perceive the impact that the
coronavirus has had on their perceptions of safety, travel and leisure plans
and activities. Based on a sample of almost 300 respondents, who took part
in an online questionnaire, it was possible to conclude that Russian residents
consider that travelling abroad is riskier than travelling within Russia.

Keywords: Tourism; COVID-19; Russia; risk perception; safety;

health-related outbreaks

1. Introduction
In 2020 both international and domestic tourism industries faced an insur-
mountable obstacle to their development – a severe crisis associated with the rapid
spread of a new type of coronavirus (COVID-19), which began in Wuhan, China
(Karabulut, Bilgin, Demi, & Doker, 2020; Loguncova, 2020; Sharma, Leung,
Kingshott, Davcik, & Cardinali, 2020). Declared a pandemic by the World
Health Organization (WHO, 2020), COVID-19 unconditionally affected all
socially significant systems: economy, politics or social life (Sigal, 2020). In April,
WTO claimed that world trade would fall between 13% and 32% in 2020 because
of the coronavirus disease (WTO, 2020) that, given the number of infection and

Pandemics and Travel, 107–120

Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
doi:10.1108/978-1-80071-070-220211007
108 Maria Koroleva

deaths it has caused so far, is already considered by many researchers as the

deadliest virus in the world (Barua, 2020; Sharma, Leung, Kingshott, Davcik, &
Cardinali, 2020).
Most countries implemented different protective strategies (e.g. closure of
external borders, community lockdown, social distancing, mandatory use of
masks, self- or mandatory isolation, stay-at-home orders, etc.) to limit the effects of
a disease that was spreading at an alarming rate (Chen, 2020; Evans, 2020;
Karabulut, Bilgin, Demi, & Doker, 2020; Qiu, Park, Li, & Song, 2020; Sharma
et al., 2020; Sigal, 2020). However, by restricting human movement, governments
suspended global travel, tourism and leisure, and initiated a process that had a severe
impact on global trade and many economies to a point of near ‘de-globalization’
(Sharma et al., 2020; Sigal, 2020).
Being a part of the globalization process, tourism is considered by many
researchers as one of the activities that is most vulnerable to crises and disasters
due to external factors, e.g. economic conditions, political instability, the envi-
ronment and weather (Cró & Martins, 2017; Okumus, Altinay, & Arasli, 2005;
Qiu, Park, Li, & Song, 2020; Ritchie, 2004; Ritchie & Jiang, 2020; Seabra,
Dolnicar, Abrantes, & Kastenholz, 2013; Sharma et al., 2020). According to Sigal
(2020), tourism is a result and at the same time is responsible for several processes,
such as globalization, pollution and climate change, global, national and regional
economic development, etc. Therefore, climate change and health-related out-
breaks can be perceived as two crucial push factors of change for the tourism
industry in the twenty-first century (Jamal & Budke, 2020).
The world has already experienced a number of pandemics and researchers
have provided a description of their impact on tourism (Karabulut et al., 2020):
the foot and mouth disease, for example, reduced tourism expenditures in Great
Britain (Blake, Sinclair, & Sugiyarto, 2003); SARS was considered a short-term
crisis with dramatic effects on tourism in China (Zeng, Carter, & De Lacy, 2005);
a significant decline was observed in tourists’ arrivals in SARS affected countries
but not in avian flu affected countries (Kuo, Chen, Tseng, Ju, & Huang, 2008);
dengue, Ebola, malaria and yellow fever have caused a crucial decrease in tour-
ists’ arrivals (Rosselló, Santana-Gallego, & Awan, 2017).
Based on the above, it is estimated that the previous virus outbreaks were
mostly regional and caused fewer infections and deaths compared to the COVID-
19 disease, which has a global nature (Karabulut et al., 2020). According to Yang,
Zang, and Chen (2020), the impact that the coronavirus pandemic had on the
tourism industry in 2020 led to a decline in tourism demand following the rising
health risk. It was then decided to conduct a study to find out the kind of impact
that the coronavirus has on the perceptions of safety, travel and leisure plans and
activities among Russian respondents during the coronavirus ‘first wave’ period.
Previous studies have indicated that the tourism industry, especially interna-
tional tourism, is strongly dependent on safety and risk issues as they have a great
impact on tourists’ behaviour (Pizam & Mansfeld, 1996; Seabraet et al., 2013).
Safety on vacation and leisure is an essential requirement for any tourist in any
type of travel (Baker, 2014; Seabra, Reis, & Abrantes, 2020). Risk perceptions are
associated with the uncertainty of consequences and potential loss and, just like
 The Effects of COVID-19 on the Russian Federation 109

safety issues, they deeply affect tourists’ behaviour, particularly their decision-
making process (Dholakia, 2001; Reichel, Fuchs, & Uriely, 2007; Seabra, Reis, &
Abrantes, 2020). According to Qiu et al. (2020), there are several types of tourism-
related risks, associated with: (1) terrorism; (2) war; (3) social instability and (4)
health concerns. We assume that perceived risk (or anxiety) may lead tourists to
avoid coronavirus affected areas.

2. COVID-19 in the Russian Federation: Chronology of Events

The Russian respondents took part in our research between 15 March and 19 May
2020 – during the so-called ‘first wave’ of the coronavirus, when there were only
272,043 COVID-19 infections and 2,537 deaths (16 May) in the Russian Federation
(Coronavirus COVID-19: Russia, 2020). During this time, the Russian authorities
have taken several restrictive measures to slow down the spread of the coronavirus.
According to media reports, the government began to introduce special arrange-
ments in the Russian regions because of the coronavirus on 10 March (Lenta.ru:
URL1, 2020); six days later, it was announced that the leading universities in
Russia were switching to distance learning mode (Kommersant.ru: URL2, 2020);
then on 23 March, the government issued an order that forced all working citizens,
except doctors, builders, policemen, military forces, and employees of large
industrial enterprises to work from home till 12 April (Lenta.ru: URL3, 2020);
during that same period, Russian schools shut down and Russian pupils were sent
on early holidays (Lenta.ru: URL3, 2020); on 29 March, Moscow authorities
imposed a high-alert regime (Apuleev, 2020) and two days later the same measures
were taken by Moscow region authorities (RG.ru: URL5, 2020); on 30 March,
Russian borders were completely closed due to coronavirus (BBC.com: URL4,
2020); between 13 April and 9 June Moscow adopted severe mobility restrictions
(Apuleev, 2020; Mos.ru: URL6, 2020) and in the Moscow region this regime
prevailed between 15 April and 23 May (Russian.rt.com: URL7, 2020).
As for regional authorities, they were allowed to take what appropriate
measures they deemed necessary, in accordance with the number of COVID-19
cases reported in their territory, e.g. Chechnya was one of the first Russian regions
that imposed border closure, thus affecting every movement but transit transport
operations and food supplies transportation (Lenta.ru: URL8, 2020).
Both domestic and international tourism were suspended in the Russian
Federation during the ‘first wave’ of coronavirus.

3. Methodology
As mentioned above, our research was conducted online. The questionnaire was
posted on the platform Estatisticas-ESTGV Lime Survey Manual. The link was
sent to 350 Russian respondents via e-mails, private messages in social networks
(VKontakte, Facebook, Instagram) and message apps (WhatsApp, Facebook
Messenger, Telegram). A limiting factor in the study was the geographical factor –
we only interviewed Russians living in Moscow and in the Moscow region.
110 Maria Koroleva

Participation in the survey was voluntary. We received 240 questionnaires

back, but only 233 were fully completed. The questionnaire consisted of 10
questions (six closed-ended questions and four scaling questions, where
respondents should rate the statements from 1 to 5 to show their agreement or
disagreement), grouped into three parts: ‘Daily life and travelling’, ‘Travelling
and coronavirus’ and ‘Socio-demographic information’. The first group of
questions helped to characterize respondents’ personal experiences, routines,
behaviours and attitudes. The aim of the second group was to evaluate their
feelings of safety and security related to many aspects of their daily life.
Finally, the third group referred to respondents’ social and demographic data
and responses were used with segmentation purposes only.
We encrypted the questions and the proposed response options to create a
codifier and then a database. The codifier consisted of nine categories (coded
questions) and 80 subcategories (single answers and situations that are offered to
the respondents for assessment) – we chose not to include the first question about
the country of residence in the codifier and database because we only analyzed
answers provided by Russian residents.
We collected all the data in an Excel table by moving the respondents’
answers to the questions according to the codification system. For scaling
questions, we used numbers from 1 to 5 to fill in the table, and for closed-ended
questions, we used numbers from 1 to 8, depending on the number of the
variables. To analyze the data, frequency and correlation analysis procedures
using IBM SPSS-Statistics package were conducted.

4. Findings
4.1 Basic Results
The basic results are presented in Table 6.1. The results of the correlation analysis
are statistically significant, which confirms the consistent and unbiased nature of
the estimates. Moreover, other estimates show consistent findings.
Table 6.1 presents perceptions of safety related to travelling in Russia and
abroad. The results show that travelling seemed risky for Russian respondents in
both circumstances – abroad (101b) and within the country (101a) – and it did not
matter whether it was a vacation trip (103a, 103b), travelling for business or work
(104a, 104b), travelling with family (105a, 105b) or travelling to visit friends or
relatives (106a, 106b). Moreover, Russian respondents showed some anxiety
about travelling at the time of the study (102a, 102 b): they claimed they did not
feel comfortable travelling during the period under study.
However, according to the results of the frequency analysis, it was found that
travelling abroad seemed riskier for Russian respondents than travelling within
their country. The eponymous subcategories (101a, 101b) reflect that difference:
81% of the Russians surveyed agreed that international travel was risky at the
stated period, while 61% of the respondents agreed that domestic travel was not
safe for the same period of time. And that attitude seems reasonable, as previous
research works indicate that perceived risk can affect travellers’ choice and travel
 The Effects of COVID-19 on the Russian Federation 111

Table 6.1. Safety Perceptions of Travelling in Russia and Abroad (For

the Name of Variables Associated with the Numbers, Please, See the
Appendix).

101a 101b 102a 102b 103a 103b 104a 104b 105a 105b 106a 106b
101a 1 ,563** -,543 ** -,402 ** -,658
**
-,495
**
-,617
**
-,476
**
-,536
**
-,373
**
-,457
**
-,277
**

** 1 -,506 ** -,463 ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **
101b ,563 -,519 -,508 -,446 -,502 -,479 -,451 -,369 -,411
** ** 1 ,778** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **
102a -,543 -,506 ,667 ,522 ,668 ,576 ,593 ,434 ,459 ,303
** ** ** 1 ,518 ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **
102b -,402 -,463 ,778 ,570 ,511 ,592 ,509 ,537 ,376 ,399
** ** ** ** 1 ,702** ,801** ** ** ** **
103a -,658 -,519 ,667 ,518 ,670 ,674 ,510 ,578 ,436**
** ** ** **
103b -,495 -,508 ,522 ,570 ,702** 1 ,603** ,790 **
,534 **
,691 **
,433 **
,564**
** ** ** ** ** ** 1 ** ** ** ** **
103a -,617 -,446 ,668 ,511 ,801 ,603 ,724 ,704 ,482 ,547 ,399
** ** ** ** ** ** ** 1 ,588 ** ** ** **
104b -,476 -,502 ,576 ,592 ,670 ,790 ,724 ,685 ,464 ,586
** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** 1 ,719** ,610** **
105a -,536 -,479 ,593 ,509 ,674 ,534 ,704 ,588 ,434
105b -,373 ** -,451 ** ,434** ,537** ,510** ,691** ,482** ,685** ,719** 1 ,412** ,580**
106a -,457 ** -,369 ** ,459** ,376** ,578** ,433** ,547** ,464** ,610** ,412** 1 ,719**
** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** 1
106b -,277 -,411 ,303 ,399 ,436 ,564 ,399 ,586 ,434 ,580 ,719

* . The correlation is significant at 0.05 (two-way).

** . The correlation is significant at 0.01 (two-way).
Correlations/variables = @101a @101b @102a @102b @103a @103b @104a @104b @105a @105b @106a @106b
a = in my country, b = abroad

behaviour (Reichelet et al., 2007). For instance, tourists tend to avoid travelling to
affected areas during health-related outbreaks (Qiu et al., 2020).
The results of our research also indicate that safety was very important for the
Russians surveyed during the coronavirus ‘first wave’ period. According to the
results of the frequency analysis, 64% of the respondents claimed that safety was
the most important attribute a destination can offer in the Russian Federation;
62% agreed with the same idea for abroad trips. Respondents agreed that safety is
a very serious matter – 86% of them concurred that safety was a matter of great
importance to them for both types of travel.
The interest was also to understand where respondents thought it would be safe
to spend their free time during the surveyed period. The respondents were offered
15 options for evaluation (please, see subcategories 201–215 in the Appendix).
According to the results of the frequency analysis, the safest option was to go to
natural areas, such as national parks or forests, hiking – 61% of the respondents
claimed these activities were safe. Interestingly, going to beaches, rivers or lakes
divided the participants’ opinions – 37% thought it was safe, and the same
amount said otherwise. In case of leisure (e.g. having dinner at restaurants,
practicing sport in closed areas, shopping in malls and street markets, etc.) and
tourism activities (e.g. visiting historical and cultural sites, city centres; visiting art
galleries, museums, and monuments, etc.) the participants’ responses showed that
these activities will not be safe any time soon.
Consequently, both domestic and international tourism are highly sensitive to
safety issues, since safety has a great impact on tourist’s decision-making pro-
cesses (Seabra, Dolnicar, Abrantes, & Kastenholz, 2013). To support this, we
112 Maria Koroleva

provide figures on Russian international and inbound tourism losses. According

to the Federal Agency for Tourism (Rostourism) estimates, relevant at the time of
the survey, the domestic tourism industry is losing at least $4 billion on a quar-
terly basis (TASS.ru: URL9, 2020), while losses caused by border closure due to
the coronavirus pandemic were estimated at 300 billion roubles on a quarterly
basis (IZ.ru: URL10, 2020).

4.2 Key Results

In this section we describe the indicators of stress experienced because of the
coronavirus (please, see Table 6.2).
Events related to pain, death and injury; images of grief and despair; the
consequences of natural disasters and catastrophes; the demonstration of situa-
tions of uncertainty, hopelessness, threat and danger – everything that causes a
person to feel fear, helplessness and despair – have a powerful influence on the
human mind (Pronina, 2001). The previous studies have shown that traumatic
events can be a source of stress and even lead to long-lasting health problems
(Mills, Teesson, Ross, & Peters, 2006).
An interesting finding is that the participants stated that both tourists (301) and
host citizens (302) were likely to be victims of coronavirus. This indicates that the
respondents are aware of the possibility of infected tourists spreading the virus
across urban areas (Richter, 2003) and that there is high risk of community
transmission (MacIntyre, 2020).
One more key finding is the strong correlation between three variables: (1)
being bothered and feeling nervous because of the coronavirus fear (305); (2)
thinking about changing many aspects of their life and routines because of the

Table 6.2. The Indicators of Stress Experienced

because of the Coronavirus (For the Name of
Variables Associated with the Numbers, Please,
See the Appendix).

301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308

301 1 ,715** -0,071 -,200 ** -0,090 0,100 -0,118 -,201
**

302 ,715** 1 -0,037 -,240 ** -,159 * 0,024 -,190 ** -,274

**

303 -0,071 -0,037 1 ,332** ,269** ,166* ,286** ,251

**

304 -,200 ** -,240 ** ,332** 1 ,493** ,216** ,438** ,478

**

305 -0,090 -,159 ,269 * **

,493 1 ,489
**
,580
**
,525
**
**

306 0,100 0,024 ,166* ,216** ,489** 1 ,457** ,311**

307 -0,118 -,190 ** ,286** ,438** ,580** ,457** 1 ,648**
308 -,201 ** -,274 ** ,251** ,478** ,525** ,311** ,648** 1

* . The correlation is significant at 0.05 (two-way).

** . The correlation is significant at 0.01 (two-way).

Correlations/variables = @301 @302 @303 @304 @305 @306 @307 @308

 The Effects of COVID-19 on the Russian Federation 113

fear of contagion (307) and (3) thinking about changing travel or vacation plans
because of the fear of the virus (308). These findings further support the idea that
health-related crises can have an immense impact on tourism risk perceptions and,
as a result, can cause a sudden decline in tourism demand (Novelli, Burgess,
Jones, & Ritchie, 2018).
However, the results of the frequency analysis show some contradictions in the
respondents’ answers.
We found out that 70% of the people surveyed are worried that they or
someone from their family could become another coronavirus victim (304). At the
same time, 37% of the residents supported and 41% rejected the idea that they
have been bothered and felt nervous because of their fear of the coronavirus (305).
Moreover, 36% of them agreed that they are thinking about changing many
aspects of their life and routines because of the coronavirus fear, while 42%
disagreed (307). Interestingly, 54% of the respondents claimed they are thinking
about changing travel or vacation plans because of their fear of the coronavirus
disease, while 28% denied such intention (308).
Thus, when there are obvious signs of stress (e.g. fear of infection), people
claim that they do not feel anxiety due to COVID-19 and that there is no need to
change their daily business because of coronavirus fear. Nevertheless, as previ-
ously stated, the respondents had already changed many aspects and routines of
their life because of the restrictions imposed by the Russian government (please,
see Part II above). We consider that these contradictions in the responses are
likely to indicate the evolution of the respondents’ psychological mechanism of
denial caused by the stress provoked by the coronavirus pandemic.

5. Conclusion
COVID-19 resulted in numerous economic, socio-cultural and psychological
impacts that have affected various spheres, including tourism, which is a highly
vulnerable industry to numerous environmental, political, socio-economic and
health-outbreaks risks (Sigal, 2020).
When most countries managed to implement some restrictive measures to
prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease, it seemed like mankind was put on
an ‘anthropause’ (Rutz et al., 2020) of unknown future scale and duration
(Buckley & Westaway, 2020). According to Sharma et al. (2020), restricting
human movement had a debilitating impact on economic activity. The tourism
industry was, as expected, the most affected sphere because of the travel bans
(both external and internal) and border closures (Karabulut et al., 2020).
The aim of our research was to illustrate the impact of COVID-19 on the
perceptions of safety, travel and leisure plans and activities among Russian
respondents. According to the results of previous studies, coronavirus has greatly
jeopardized the tourism industry considering its dependence on human mobility.
This happens because during health outbreaks people tend to avoid travelling to
affected destinations (Choquet & Sam-Lefebvre, 2020; Qiu et al., 2020; Yang
et al., 2020). Consequently, tourism demand is sensitive to the coronavirus
114 Maria Koroleva

pandemic, since tourist value safety and the willingness of healthcare when they
choose a destination (Araña & León, 2008; Seabra et al., 2020).
Safety as one of the basic human needs affects not only our behaviour in
general, but, inter alia, our consumer behaviour (Isaac & Velden, 2018). The
results of our research have confirmed this idea: Russians surveyed claimed that
safety was a matter of great importance to them for both global and inbound
travelling; moreover, they claimed that they would rather walk in open-space
natural areas, like parks and forests, than attend potentially crowded places.
If a destination cannot provide stability and safety, it is likely to cause
perceived risk among tourists and residents, a feeling closely related to the
uncertainty of consequences and potential loss (Dholakia, 2001; Seabra et al.,
2020). According to our findings, Russian respondents showed that they are not
entirely sure whether travelling within Russia or abroad is safe during the ‘first
wave’ of the coronavirus.
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected not only travellers’ behaviour in terms
of consumer demand but also their mental well-being. Pandemic-induced panic
(American Psychiatric Association, 2020) and lack of social interaction in peo-
ple’s everyday life caused by lockdowns and stay-at-home orders could become
crucial stress factors (Chen, 2020). The results of our frequency analysis have
shown some contradictions in the Russian residents’ responses. We suppose that
these contradictions are likely to indicate the evolution of their psychological
mechanism of denial. Further research is therefore needed to investigate the
impacts of the coronavirus-induced crisis on tourists’ behaviour, decision-making
process and mental well-being.
Therefore, we assume that the individuals’ risk and safety perceptions have
become key concepts for assessing the impact of coronavirus on travelling, leisure
plans and activities.

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Appendix
Chapter ‘The Effects of COVID-19 on the Russian Federation: Resident’s
Perspectives’ – The Codifier

I. Daily life and travelling

Category 1. Safety perceptions of travelling in your country and abroad (100)

101a. Travelling is risky right now (In my country)

101b. Travelling is risky right now (Abroad)
102a. I feel very comfortable travelling right now (In my country)
102b. I feel very comfortable travelling right now (Abroad)
103a. Vacation travel is perfectly safe (In my country)
103b. Vacation travel is perfectly safe (Abroad)
104a. Travelling on business or work is perfectly safe (In my country)
118 Maria Koroleva

104b. Travelling on business or work is perfectly safe (Abroad)

105a. Travelling to visit friends or relatives is perfectly safe (In my country)
105b. Travelling to visit friends or relatives is perfectly safe (Abroad)
106a. Travelling with my family is very safe (In my country)
106b. Travelling with my family is very safe (Abroad)
107a. I feel nervous about travelling right now (In my country)
107b. I feel nervous about travelling right now (Abroad)
108a. Additional security measures at airports make travelling safer (In my
country)
108b. Additional security measures at airports make travelling safer (Abroad)
109a. Safety is the most important attribute a destination can offer (In my
country)
109b. Safety is the most important attribute a destination can offer (Abroad)
110a. Safety is a serious matter to me (In my country)
110b. Safety is a serious matter to me (Abroad)

II. Travelling and coronavirus

Category 2. How safe would you feel in the following situations? (200)

201. Go to amusement or theme parks.

202. Go to natural areas such as national parks or forests, hiking, etc.
203. Visit art galleries, museums or monuments.
204. Go to beaches, rivers or lakes.
205. Go to concerts, festivals or shows.
206. Visit historical and cultural sites, or city centres.
207. Having dinner at restaurants.
208. Shopping in shopping malls, streets or markets.
209. Go to casinos or gambling.
210. Go out at night, dance, go to nightclubs or discos.
211. Sightseeing and participating in organized visits.
212. Attending sport events.
213. Stay in hotels, resorts or camping sites.
214. Practice sport in closed spaces (Gyms, stadiums, etc)
215. Go to religious places, do pilgrimages or participate in religious events.

Category 3. Personal opinion on the following situations (300)

301. Tourists are not likely to be victims of coronavirus

302. Normal citizens are not likely to be victims of coronavirus
303. I need more information about how to protect myself from coronavirus
304. I am concerned that I or someone from my family may become a victim of
coronavirus
305. I have been bothered and felt nervous because of my fear of coronavirus
 The Effects of COVID-19 on the Russian Federation 119

306. I have had trouble sleeping because of my fear of coronavirus

307. I am thinking about changing many aspects of my life and routines because
of my fear of coronavirus
308. I am thinking about changing travel or vacation plans because of my fear of
coronavirus

Category 4. Which additional measures would you be willing to accept to feel

safer regarding coronavirus? (400)

401. Total closure of borders

402. More control in all countries’ borders
403. Mandatory quarantine in case of disease diagnosis
404. Limitations in all countries to receive migrants and foreigners
405. Limitations in my country to receive migrants and foreigners
406. Obligation of all citizens to be examined by medical teams
407. Possibility for security forces to randomly stop people on the streets so they
can be examined
408. Preventing citizens coming from areas affected by the disease from entering
my country
409. Repatriation of nationals who are in areas affected by the coronavirus
410. Repatriation of foreign nationals to their country of origin in case of diag-
nosis of coronavirus disease

III. Socio-demographic information

Category 5. The number of trips you made outside your country over the last
3 years (500)

500-1. Less than 5

500-2. 5–10
500-3. 10–15
500-4. 15–20
500-5. 20–25
500-6. More than 25

Category 6. Gender (600)

600-1. Female
600-2. Male

Category 7. Year of birth (700)

700-1. 1940s
700-2. 1950s
120 Maria Koroleva

700-3. 1960s
700-4. 1970s
700-5. 1980s
700-6. 1990s
700-7. 2000s

Category 8. School education (800)

800-1. About 6 years at school

800-2. About 9 years at school
800-3. About 12 years at school
800-4. University

Category 9. Occupation (900)

900-1. Businessman
900-2. Freelancer/self-employed
900-3. Middle and senior management
900-4. Administration/Commercial
900-5. Factory worker
900-6. Retired
900-7. Housewife
900-8. Student
Chapter 7

COVID-19 Surprise Effect and

Government Response Measures on the
Influence on Asset Pricing Risk among
European Travel and Airline Sectors
Pedro Manuel Nogueira Reis and Carlos Pinho

Abstract
Purpose: This work provides an empirical analysis of investor behaviour’s
simultaneous influence due to the surprise effect caused by COVID-19 cases
and government responses to market risk. This analysis compares tourism
assets risk with other sectors and different types of investors’ assets and cate-
gories in Europe.

Design: The paper applies an ARIMA with a GARCH model to predict

conditional volatility of models for market uncertainty. Nonlinear models,
factor analysis and time series linear regression for stationary variables in
first differences are applied to predict market uncertainty.

Findings: We demonstrate that market risk does not arise from COVID-19
cases but instead from the surprise effect, as the market accurately predicts
future cases. Only the volatility of the sectors Travel, Airline, and Utility are
influenced by both surprise effect and government response, but only the travel
sector reveals an interaction effect with both government response effort and
surprise effect.

Originality: The article mutually studies the simultaneous interactions among

investor behaviour due to the surprised effect caused by COVID-19 and
government responses to the pandemic and the influence on professional
investors’ volatility in two asset types and between different sectors.

Pandemics and Travel, 121–139

Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
doi:10.1108/978-1-80071-070-220211008
122 Pedro Manuel Nogueira Reis and Carlos Pinho

Practical implications: With this model and results, investors and financial
service providers may verify whether or not government intervention during
pandemic periods is effective in reducing uncertainty and risk levels on sectors,
types of investors and different sorts of assets.

Keywords: Government response; surprise effect; volatility; risk; COVID-19;

institutional investors

1. Introduction
The COVID-19 outbreak created a fierce disturbance in stock markets, originating
uncertainty and leveraging asset price risk. The rise in confirmed cases and deaths
caused by the coronavirus is associated with a significant dilapidation of market
liquidity. Moreover, the pandemic causes public fear and the implementation of
restrictions and lockdowns reinforces market illiquidity and volatility of markets
(Baig, Butt, Haroon, & Rizvi, 2021). Trust in a government’s actions during the
pandemic, and the willingness of its citizens to obey the government’s orders, signif-
icantly reduces the uncertainty among investors (Engelhardt, Krause, & Neukirchen,
2020). However, academia is still struggling to find out what is causing market
volatility, in terms of verified volatility cases, predicted cases or, as we intend
to prove, the surprise effect. Similarly, combined individual government market
response measures to the crisis are yet to demonstrate their impact on reducing
market risk, as the recent studies present opposite results (Baig et al., 2021; Zaremba,
Kizys, Aharon, & Demir, 2020; Ashraf, 2020). When combined, both regressors
may produce different interactions among institutional and semiprofessional
investors that should be studied.
The tourism industry, mainly airline companies and the travel and hospitality
business, is among those most harmed by this pandemic. Song, Yeon, and Lee
(2020) suggest that the effect of COVID-19 on tourism (restaurant) firms’ stock
returns variations should be examined. Furthermore, we need to have a better
understanding of the role played by the government’s measures in market volatility
(Ashraf, 2020). Additionally, the degree of anticipation that investors show when
dealing with market volatility due to COVID-19 ought to be studied by sectors,
type of assets or investors.
Accordingly, this work aims to provide additional insights into the investors’
reaction based on the anticipation of the COVID-19 case evolution and its com-
bined effect with government response measures on market volatility. An interac-
tion effect is a powerful tool for governments and investors to assess the efficiency
of those measures in a pandemic-driven context by sector, asset and type of investor.
The outcomes of this work may provide new insight that allows understanding the
anticipation effect mechanism to which institutional investors respond better. It
enables regulators to observe in which sectors the measures implemented may be
more effective for civil society and reminds people that they must comply with
government restrictions and beware of the surprise effect cases in a pandemic.
This sort of outbreak has predictable patterns that should guide our behaviour
and not the verified cases that are more than often underestimated.
 COVID-19 Surprise Effect and Government Response 123

The paper is organized as follows: After this section, we provide a Literature

Review, then the Methods, afterwards the Results and finally the Conclusions.

2. Literature Review
The concept of efficient stock markets was released by Fama (1970) and offers
an efficient market hypothesis as a framework of efficient markets and rational
investors based on the utility theory. Macroeconomic fundamentals manage all
the price movements and reflect all the available information that leads to their
investment decisions based on this information. Later, Fama (1991) and Fama
and French (1996a, 1996b) provide a further review of theoretical and empirical
work to explain returns, including a three-factor model. Currently, supporters of
the behavioural finance framework reject the expected utility theory and propose
that stock markets are inefficient systems and investors can become irrational and
biased (Sharma & Kumar, 2019). Sentiments also drive asset price movements
and, thus, risk.
It has been widely accepted that rational expectations about fundamentals
per se do not drive market risk and that investor sentiment must be considered.
Moreover, it is also known that irrational sentiments have a more immediate and
pronounced impact on stock market returns than rational sentiments (Verma,
Baklaci, & Soydemir, 2008).
Corredor, Ferrer, and Santamaria (2019) show that although analysts translate
their earnings forecast valuations into recommendations, the effectiveness of this
process is reduced by investor sentiment only in highly sentiment-sensitive stocks.
The mean-variance concept relating to risk and return is also affected by investor
sentiment. For instance, Wang (2018) finds that individual investors’ increased
presence and trading over high sentiment periods would undermine the risk-return
trade-off.
Also, the value-at-risk concept when compared with returns is influenced
by investor sentiment. Bi and Zhu (2020) find that the relationship between the
value-at-risk and expected returns is negative, but this negative relationship
changes according to the different investor sentiment levels. For a high sentiment
period, value-at-risk is negatively related with the expected return and cannot be
explained by volatility. The relation between the value-at-risk and expected returns
during a low sentiment period is mixed.
Several studies have approached the influence of sentiment on stock returns
and volatility (Reis & Pinho, 2020b) and on the intention to measure investor
sentiment (Reis & Pinho, 2020a). Considering that the COVID-19 pandemic pro-
vokes market fear and panic and is capable of shifting investor sentiment, recent
studies have also addressed the relation between this outbreak and stock returns
(Reis & Pinho, 2020c) and markets volatility. For instance, Papadamou, Fassas,
Kenourgios, and Dimitriou (2020) built a google trend synthetic index concerning
coronavirus and studied its impact on the implied volatility of several major stock
markets across Europe, Asia, USA and Australia and discovered that increased
search queries for COVID-19 have a direct effect on implied volatility and an
124 Pedro Manuel Nogueira Reis and Carlos Pinho

indirect effect via stock returns highlighting a risk-aversion channel operating

over pandemic conditions.
Zaremba, Kizys, Aharon, and Demir (2020), relying on the Oxford COVID-19
Government Response Tracker (GRT), showed that non-pharmaceutical inter-
ventions significantly increase equity market volatility. The effect is independent
of the role of the coronavirus pandemic itself. The authors refer that two types of
actions – information campaigns and public event cancellations – are the major
contributors to the growth of volatility. Zaremba and colleagues (2020) used as
a proxy for volatility Fama and French’s return logs or residual returns and as
explanatory variables they used the non-pharmaceutical interventions measure
defined in the Oxford government index tracker, the daily evolution of COVID-19
cases and deaths. Government interventions significantly increased the volatility
of international stock markets, particularly due to the role of information cam-
paigns and to the cancellations of public events (Zaremba et al., 2020).
Ashraf (2020) defend that government intervention harms returns due to their
impact on economic activity. The author used the Oxford COVID-19 GRT that
includes variables such as the stringency index, the containment and health index
and economic support index (first difference variables) and the daily growth of
COVID-19 cases as well as the interaction effect between the growth of COVID-19
cases and Stringency index for a period starting on January to April 2020 in several
countries. Measures that can reduce outbreaks may also affect economic activity;
however, it is not easy to analyze the net impact, and further research is needed to
understand the real impact of such measures. Alexakis, Eleftheriou, and Patsoulis
(2021) also confirm the negative relation between stock market returns and the
intensity of lockdown measures.
Baek, Mohanty, and Glambosky (2020) show that volatility in the US market
is affected by specific economic indicators and is sensitive to COVID-19 news. Both
negative and positive COVID-19 information are significant, though negative news
is more impactful, suggesting a negativity bias. They use the percentage of deaths
and recoveries as proxies for negative and positive COVID-19 news, respectively.
Albulescu (2020) studied the effect of the official announcements regarding
COVID-19 new cases of infection and fatality ratio on the financial market
volatility for the United States. His conclusion is that that the sanitary crisis
enhances the S&P 500 realized volatility. Onali (2020) also found significant
increases in volatility for US stock markets in response to reports of COVID-19
cases and deaths in several countries. He claimed that volatility varies across industries
and that higher rated environmental and social firms show lower stock return
volatility. Haroon and Rizvi (2020) researched the influence of COVID-19-related
news coverage on volatility. These authors claim that this association is stronger
for transportation, automobile, energy and travel and leisure industries. However,
most industries they analyzed did not display significant shifts in volatility
resulting from media coverage and news sentiment.
The impact of investor sentiment on volatility may be compared to institu-
tional or retail (nonprofessional) investors’ influence. Considering that there are
more institutional investors in the market than retail investors, their sentiment
decides market volatility. Institutional investors such as pension funds, investment
 COVID-19 Surprise Effect and Government Response 125

funds or insurance companies invest large amounts of money, and thus, their
sentiment often has a greater impact on the market. It is an error to assume that
institutional investors are rational (Ahmad, Ibrahim, &Tuyon, 2017).
Aren, Aydemir, and Şehitoğlu (2016) examined home bias and explained it
with institutional investors’ information or culture. Additionally, they estimated
disposition effect through overconfidence and experience when investors sell their
winning investments more quickly while holding on to losing investments. Simi-
larly, they refer to herding behaviour that comes from pursuing the same published
information and protecting the institutional investor’s reputation and career.
Talwar, Talwar, Kaur, Tripathy, and Dhir (2020) examined the relative influence
of financial anxiety, optimism, financial security, deliberative thinking, interest in
financial issues and needs for precautionary savings on retail investors’ trading
activity during the pandemic. They conclude that all six dimensions had a positive
influence on trading activity (and thus volatility) and consider that interest in
financial issues exerts the strongest influence. Li, Rhee, and Wang (2017) analyzed
the differences between institutional and individual (retail) investors in herding.
The authors demonstrated that better-informed institutional investors trade more
selectively, whereas less-informed individuals allocate their investments evenly
across stocks. Furthermore, individual investors rely more on public information,
as they are influenced by market sentiment and eye-catching events. Institutional
investors react asymmetrically to up and down market movements, whereas indi-
vidual investors do not. However, despite these differences in herding both individual
and institutional, investors are influenced by one another’s trades in forming a
consensus. Psychology, sociology and biological forces induce non-fundamental
factors that explain market movements. Ahmad and colleagues (2017) summarized
the main institutional investors’ behavioural biases. These biases are anchoring
(value estimates depending on an initial piece of information), availability (recent
information by analysts or brokers influences decision), confirmation (the desire to
find information that could confirm the investors’ existing beliefs), disposition
effect (sell stocks with gains and maintain losing stocks to avoid loss recognition),
gambler’s fallacy (investors wrongly predict a sure stock market up or drop based
on fluctuation patterns), hot hand fallacy (investors believe that certain positive
events will repeat), loss aversion (a situation where investors generally opt to
maintain an actually loosing portfolio rather than make a stop, as they hope
for a chance to recover), mental accounting (the different values people place
on money), over-optimism, overconfidence, representativeness (in a situation of
uncertainty, investors tend to look for familiar patterns believing that they would
replicate in the future) and herding (believing in the opinion of the majority)
(Ahmad et al., 2017).
This work will test whether or not market volatility will react to the surprise
effect over COVID-19 cases (an investor sentiment bias) and if there is any inter-
action with the government response measures to reduce market risk. This analysis
further assesses if the surprise effect and government response present different
impacts on tourism assets risk and on other sectors and different types of assets
and categories of investors in Europe.
126 Pedro Manuel Nogueira Reis and Carlos Pinho

3. Method
The information that formed our database was collected during the first COVID-19
wave between January 1 and the end of July. Europe was the second continent most
impacted by the pandemic, which caused substantial market volatility in the markets
(28 million cases vs 39 million cases in the America Continent by January 2021).
Table 7.1 presents the variables, statistics and respective measures. Confirmed
COVID-19 cases mean the absolute daily number of COVID cases reported
for the following European countries: Germany, UK, Italy, Spain and France.
The government response index, for those countries, is that obtained from Oxford
COVID-19 GRT or index. The Oxford COVID-19 GRT calculates 19 sub-indexes
grouped according to (Hale, Petherick, Phillips, & Webster, 2020a):

(1) Containment and closure:

(1) C1 School closures
(2) C2 Workplace closures
(3) C3 Cancellation of public events
(4) C4 Restrictions on public gatherings
(5) C5 Closure of public transport
(6) C6 Stay-at-home requirements
(7) C7 Restrictions on internal movement
(8) C8 International travel controls
(2) Economic response:
(1) E1 Income support
(2) E2 Debt and contract relief to households
(3) E3 Fiscal measures
(4) E4 Providing international support
(3) Health systems:
(1) H1 Public information campaign
(2) H2 Testing policy
(3) H3 Contact tracing
(4) H4 Emergency investment in healthcare
(5) H5 Investment in COVID-19 vaccines
(6) H6 Facial covering

A simple average of the sub-indexes gives the overall government response

measure that considers the 18 sub-indexes: Index C1 to C8, E1 to E4 and H1 to H6.
Each index is composed of a series of individual policy response indicators. For each
indicator, they create a score by taking the ordinal value and subtracting an extra
half-point if the policy is general rather than targeted, where applicable. Afterwards,
they rescale each of these by their maximum value to create a score between 0 and
100. These scores are then averaged to get the composite index. The full database
is available on Hale et al. (2020). The GRT shows the measures implemented in
each country to fight COVID-19 economic, health and social impacts.
Table 7.1. Summary Statistics, Variables Definition, Source of Data and Measures.
Variable Resume N Mean SD Min Max Meaning Data Source Proxy

etf_equity_europe etf_equity ; e 143 20.00 0.03 20.12 0.09 The Vanguard FTSE Europe Exchange https://etfdb.com/etf/VGK/ Institutional/experienced/
Traded Funds (ETF’s) daily return is an #etf-ticker-profile professional Investor
ETF that tracks FTSE Europe and invests portfolio performance
in equity large caps. This ETF offers
broad-based exposure to the developed
economies of Europe, spreading holdings
across more than a dozen markets. As
such, this ETF can be an efficient tool for
investors looking to tilt exposure towards
this region of the world.
ret_corp_eur ret_corp_eur 113 20.00 0.00 20.03 0.01 Daily return of the iShares Core € Corp https://www.ishares.com/uk/ Institutional/experienced/
Bond UCITS ETF EUR. This is an ETF individual/en/products/ professional Investor
that embodies Europe corporate bonds. 251726/ishares-euro- portfolio performance
corporate-bond-ucits-etf?
switchLocale5y&
siteEntryPassthrough5true
europe_utilit europe_uti ; t 121 20.00 0.02 20.14 0.06 Europe utilities daily return www.investing.com Semi-proinvestor portfolio
performance
europe_banks europe_banks 123 20.00 0.03 20.14 0.10 Europe banks daily return www.investing.com Semi-proinvestor portfolio
performance
europe_airlines europe_air ; s 122 20.00 0.04 20.16 0.12 Europe airlines daily return www.investing.com Semi-proinvestor portfolio
performance
europ_travel europ_travel 121 20.00 0.04 20.13 0.10 Europe tourism daily return www.investing.com Semi-proinvestor portfolio
performance
Vstoxx vstoxx 124 32.72 17.20 10.69 85.62 Options volatility index www.investing.com Investor sentiment
ConfirmedCases_Ger ConfirmedC ; r 168 75617.89 79224.95 0.00 187,184 Daily confirmed COVID-19 cases https://www. Investor mood
(absolute number) europeandataportal.eu/
data/datasets/covid-19-
coronavirus-data?locale5en
Table 7.1. (Continued)
Variable Resume N Mean SD Min Max Meaning Data Source Proxy

GovernmentResponse Government ; r 168 42.53 26.64 0.00 75.64 Oxford COVID-19 Government https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/ Government response
Index_Ger Response Tracker (GRT) research/research-projects/
coronavirus-government-
response-tracker
ConfirmedCases_Spain ConfirmedC ; n 167 102,144.5 105,081.8 0.00 244,328 Daily confirmed COVID-19 cases https://www. Investor mood
(absolute number) europeandataportal.eu/
data/datasets/covid-19-
coronavirus-data?locale5en
GovernmentResponse Government ; n 169 46.92 31.82 0.00 81.41 Oxford COVID-19 GRTGRT https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/ Government response
Index_Spain research/research-projects/
coronavirus-government-
response-tracker
ConfirmedCases_Italy ConfirmedC ; y 168 99542.25 99816.54 0.00 237,500 Daily confirmed COVID-19 cases https://www. Investor mood
(absolute number) europeandataportal.eu/
data/datasets/covid-19-
coronavirus-data?locale5en
GovernmentResponse Government ; y 168 52.84 30.14 0.00 85.26 Oxford COVID-19 GRTGRT https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/ Government response
Index_Italy research/research-projects/
coronavirus-government-
response-tracker
ConfirmedCases_France ConfirmedC ; e 168 61246.81 64988.33 0.00 157,716 Daily confirmed COVID-19 cases https://www. Investor mood
(absolute number) europeandataportal.eu/
data/datasets/covid-19-
coronavirus-data?locale5en
GovernmentResponse Government ; e 168 49.77 35.21 0.00 84.62 Oxford COVID-19 GRTGRT https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/ Government response
Index_France research/research-projects/
coronavirus-government-
response-tracker
ConfirmedCases_UK ConfirmedC ; K 168 89028.07 111,178.2 0.00 298,136 Daily confirmed COVID-19 cases https://www. Investor mood
(absolute number) europeandataportal.
eu/data/datasets/covid-19-
coronavirus-data?locale5en
GovernmentResponse Government ; K 168 41.44 29.25 0.00 70.51 Oxford COVID-19 GRTGRT https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/ Government response
Index_UK research/research-projects/
coronavirus-government-
response-tracker
bitcoin_eur bitcoin_eur 175 0.00 0.05 20.37 0.18 Bitcoin daily return www.investing.com Macroeconomic measures
gold_etf gold_etf 121 0.00 0.01 20.04 0.05 Daily gold return www.investing.com Macroeconomic measures
crude Crude 148 20.01 0.06 20.33 0.17 Daily crude return www.investing.com Macroeconomic measures
int_europe Int_ rate 168 0.715 0.762 20.248 2.80 Daily European government bond yield https://sdw.ecb.europa.eu/ Macroeconomic measures
from ll issuers whose rating is triple A – quickview.do?
Svensson model – continuous SERIES_KEY5
compounding – yield error minimization – 165.YC.B.U2.EUR.
yield curve spot rate, 10-year maturity 4F.G_N_A.SV_C_
YM.SR_10Y
130 Pedro Manuel Nogueira Reis and Carlos Pinho

Considering the high correlation among the countries’ government response

indexes, we factor the variables to obtain a single response index for Europe
(GRT). Factor analysis allows obtaining common factor(s) that explain related
variables.
y1 2 m1 ¼ l11 f1 1 l12 f2 1 ⋯ 1 l1m fm 1 «1
y2 2 m2 ¼ l21 f1 1 l21 f2 1 ⋯ 1 l2m fm 1 «2
:
(7.1)
:
:
yp 2 mp ¼ lp1 f1 1 lp1 f2 1 ⋯ 1 lpm fm 1 «p

with y as the GRT for different countries and observations, f1 as the single factor
that captured most of the variance with an eigenvalue of 4.63 that captured 98%
of all variance and a Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy of 0.82.
The new variable is named Factor2.
We calculate the conditional volatility for all the sector indexes and the equity
and corporate Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). Conditional volatility measures
assets-specific embedded risk caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Conditional
volatility is calculated by applying a generalized autoregressive conditional heter-
oskedasticity (GARCH) model with an ARCH level.
The conditional variance of each asset return at time t in ARCH and GARCH
terms is
p q
s2t ¼ u 1 + qi m2t2 i 1 + vj s2t2 j (7.2)
i¼1 j¼1

where s2t is the asset return variance; qi is the ARCH effect or the parameter
representing the influence of the mean squared error on the variance, when past
information holds significance for the stock return variance; vj is the GARCH
effect, measuring past volatility in the current volatility of stock returns. When the
p q
measure + qi 1 + vj is close to unity, the volatility would have both short- and
i51 j51
long-term memory (Reis & Pinho, 2020b; Sudha, 2015).
Vstoxx is the European volatility benchmark – VIX European counterpart –
for European markets and is used largely by academia as a proxy for investor
sentiment or implied volatility for the short term (Akyildirim, Corbet, Lucey,
Sensoy, & Yarovaya (2020); Reis & Pinho, 2020a). Although Vstoxx is a risk
predictor, we adapt Baker and Wurgler (2006) and Aydogan’s (2017) procedure
to orthogonalize the index against four macroeconomic variables (brent price
fluctuation, interest rate, gold ETF price fluctuation and bitcoin price fluctuation)
through ordinary least squares. Brent, gold and interest rate allow us to withdraw
systematic risk and bitcoin does the same for speculative risk. So, residuals are
used as our true investor sentiment measure (Sent).
Sentt;i ¼ b1 brentt;i 1 b2 interestratet;i 1 b3 goldt;i 1 b4 bitcoint;i 1 Sent’
t;i (7.3)
 COVID-19 Surprise Effect and Government Response 131

with Sent’t,i being the true sentiment corresponding to the error term of
expression 3, Sent, our raw sentiment, brent price variation, gold ETF price
variation, the daily 10y sovereign European bond yield and bitcoin price varia-
tion; t is the time and i is the country.
Considering that there might be a relationship between asset risks and pre-
dicted cases rather than real cases, as market moves in fact anticipation, and using
the COVID-19 cases for the main five countries, we estimate a non-linear four-
parameter logistic function (R2 . 0.998):
C ¼ b0 1 b1 =ð1 1 expð 2 b2 pðd 2 b3 ÞÞÞ (7.4)
with b being the parameters, C the aggregate cases in the European countries
and d the date:
1092538
C ¼ 2 16131:73 1 (7.5)
ð1 1 e 2 0;0852773pðd 2 22014:94Þ Þ

Then we observe whether asset risk measured by conditional volatility is

more prone to predicted cases than to daily cases and to the surprise effect. The
COVID-19 surprise effect is derived from the daily number of increase in cases
minus the last 10 days moving average (expression 6). Markets should react more
to the surprise effect than to the real or the predicted scenario (see Kothari,
Lewellen, & Warner, 2006, regarding earnings surprise).
 t 2 10 cases

i;t
Surprise ¼ D casesi;t 2 + (7.6)
casesi;t i;t 10

with i being the European country and t the day.

Moreover, as we are studying the impact of surprise effect on asset price risk
for Europe and considering the strong correlation between the surprise effect in
Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, we factor the variables
into a new factor (according to expression 1), the factor with an eigenvalue of 4.19
that captured 91% of all variance and with a Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of
sampling adequacy of 0.75, which shows that factoring the variables is adequate.
We also create a new variable resulting from the interaction effects between
factor and factor2 to observe the predominance of the joint effect of surprise effect
and government response index, as long as the two measures together are strong
enough to predict market volatility.
Then, we regress all the variables, factor, factor2, investor sentiment and the
interaction effect, against conditional volatility using first differences to avoid unit
root and robust standard errors to prevent heteroscedasticity.
The main model is as follows:
s2t ¼ b0 1 b1 factor 1 b2 factor2 1 b3 Sent 1 b4 intfactor 1 «t (7.7)
2

with s2t being the conditional volatility of European equity, ETF corporate bond,
and sector indexes, travel or tourism, banks, utilities and airlines. Also, factor is
the resulting factor of the surprise effect on COVID-19 cases and factor2 is the
resulting factor of the country individual government response index; Sent is
the orthogonalized Vstoxx index, and int_factor2 is the interaction effect.
132 Pedro Manuel Nogueira Reis and Carlos Pinho

4. Results
This work finds statistical evidence that both cases’ predictions (expectation cases),
in accordance with inverse exponential model and surprise effect, positively
influence stock risk, in general and by sectors, but not the bond risk (Table 7.2).
However, according to t-statistics, surprise effect exerts a stronger effect on conditional
volatility than the investors’ expectations. Investors do not react to real confirmed
COVID-19 cases, but rather react anticipating the behaviour of COVID-19 cases.
Two ways are to be expected: (1) investors anticipate the risk by predicting future
cases according to a statistical model built based on ongoing real cases or (2) relying
on the surprise effect or the increase in cases over a moving average. Here we
can observe that the COVID-19 surprise effect seems a little more appropriate to
predict market conditional volatility. Investors are frightened of the abnormal
increase in cases rather than of the regular expected growth. Our use of the prediction
model indicates that institutional, well-informed investors are fully aware of the
potential nonlinear evolution of cases and are sensitive to the evolution models. We
predict an inverse exponential growth model according to expression 5. Irrational
sentiment has a more immediate and pronounced consequence on stock market
returns than does rational sentiment (Verma et al., 2008). Institutional managers
are more prone to anticipate the upcoming facts than the facts themselves. For
instance, Papadamou and colleagues (2020), Albulescu (2020), Haroon and Rizvi
(2020) and Baek et al. (2020) show the market volatility reaction to sentiment news
and announcements. Institutional investors face investors’ behavioural biases in
stock markets, as investors with early experience of a similar pandemic tend to
react faster and stronger to COVID-19 than those without such prior experience
(Bissoondoyal-Bheenick, Do, Hu, & Zhong, 2020). We provide evidence that the
market also reacts to the prospect of the forthcoming events.
Considering that the strongest explanation power arises from the surprise
effect (an investor sentiment bias), we used these variables on the main estima-
tions. According to Table 7.3, the surprise effect has a strong positive effect on all
sectors’ conditional volatility (a 5 0.1%) and global European ETF at a 5 5%
level. The effect on corporate bond risk is non-existent. The variation over the last
periods’ increase in European cases raises risk (surprise effect) concerns in all
sectors. However, European governments’ response and intervention in the
economy, health and containment reduced market risk and was therefore effective
in utilities, airlines and travel risk (a 5 1%, a 5 0.1% and a 5 5%, respectively).
Those macromeasures influence utilities as the containment increases the con-
sumption of essential goods. They also provide relief on the airlines’ risk as they
supply an expectation of reduced contagion and potential recovery of worldwide
trips. For the travel sector, one of the most affected by direct containment and
lockdown impositions, the measures induce a high level of faith in the economic
recovering and thus in the future stability of restaurants, hotels and travel agencies
turnover and gains. The government response index does not affect the banks’ risk
considering that EU measures were taken by the Central Bank that provided funds
to reinforce credit and injected a large amount of money into the real economy to
avoid abnormal increase of non-performing loans. Those measures are not included
Table 7.2. Anticipation Effect on Market Conditional Volatility Across Sectors and Type of Assets.

COVID-19 Surprise Effect and Government Response

var_etf_eq ∼ e var_europe ∼ t var_europ ∼ ks var_europ ∼ es var_europ_∼l var_ret_co ∼ r
F30.pred_c ; r 3.97e-10* 5.43e-10*** 1.36e-09*** 2.13e-09*** 1.05e-09*** 1.63e-12
(2.16) (4.05) (7.97) (9.76) (6.52) (0.82)
D.factor 0.00557*** 0.00661*** 0.00829*** 0.0130*** 0.00806*** 0.0000225
(5.30) (8.62) (8.52) (10.39) (8.76) (1.97)
cons 0.000319* 0.000220* 0.000274* 0.000585*** 0.000288* 0.00000447**
(2.30) (2.17) (2.13) (3.55) (2.37) (2.96)
N 161 161 161 161 161 161
adj. R-sq 0.150 0.336 0.425 0.526 0.394 0.013
Note: F30.pred_c ; r, the 30-day cases prediction, d.factor, the surprise effect, and as independent variables. The dependent variables are as follows:
var_etf_eq ; e, the European ETF conditional volatility, var_europe ; t, the European utilities sector volatility, var_europ ; ks, European banks sector
volatility, var_europ ; es, the European airlines sector volatility, var_europ_;l, the European travel sector volatility, and var_ret_co ; r, the European
ETF corporate bonds volatility. *, ** and *** mean the significance level at 5%, 1% and 0.1%, respectively. T-statistics are shown in brackets.

133
 134
Pedro Manuel Nogueira Reis and Carlos Pinho
Table 7.3. Surprise Effect, Government Response, Global Sentiment and Interaction Effect on the Explanation of the Asset
and Sector Volatility in Europe.
var_etf_eq ∼ e var_europe ∼ t var_europ ∼ ks var_europ ∼ es var_europ_∼l var_ret_co ∼ r
D.factor 0.00266* 0.00277*** 0.00253*** 0.00536*** 0.00358*** 0.0000102
(2.23) (5.16) (4.01) (4.87) (3.58) (1.01)
D.factor2 20.000204 0.00119** 20.000116 20.00486*** 20.00155* 0.00000119
(20.15) (2.83) (20.15) (23.62) (22.06) (0.16)
Sent 0.0000460*** 0.0000354*** 0.0000605*** 0.0000833*** 0.0000540*** 0.000000260
(5.02) (6.97) (10.10) (9.11) (7.38) (1.38)
int_europe2 20.0218 0.0139 20.00948 20.00827 20.0399* 20.000218
(20.71) (1.10) (20.59) (20.28) (22.25) (20.80)
_cons 0.000130* 0.000122*** 0.000447*** 0.00108*** 0.000390*** 0.00000313***
(2.29) (4.22) (12.87) (15.49) (9.15) (3.96)
N 114 114 114 114 114 114
adj. R-sq 0.464 0.769 0.791 0.718 0.660 0.081
Note: The dependent variables are var_etf_eq ; e, the European ETF conditional volatility, var_europe ; t, the European utilities sector volatility,
var_europ ; ks, European banks sector volatility, var_europ ; es, the European airlines sector volatility, var_europ_;l, the European travel sector
volatility, and var_ret_co ; r, the European ETF corporate bonds volatility. The independent variables are as follows: D.factor is the surprise effect,
D.factor2 is the government response, sent is the global sentiment and int_europe2 is the interaction effect; *, ** and *** mean the significance level at
5%, 1% and 0.1%, respectively. T-statistics are shown in brackets.
 COVID-19 Surprise Effect and Government Response 135

in the Oxford government index tracker. Nevertheless, the only sector where the
joint surprise effect and government response index has a fierce outcome is the
travel sector. With opposite impact, the surprise effect positively conditions risk in
the travel sector, whereas the government measures reduced travel sector uncer-
tainty and those interactions pooled effects present a successful approach to control
risk (interaction effect 5 int_europe2, with a 5 5%). A different asset-corporate
bonds risk – managed by institutional investors – does not seem to react to any of
the proposed variables, possibly because their safe asset characteristics are not so
subject to market conditional volatility.
Zaremba and colleagues (2020) also apply Oxford COVID-19 GRT and
conclude that non-pharmaceutical interventions increase equity market volatility
mainly due to the role of information campaigns and cancellations of public
events. However, they argue that the government effect is independent from the
role of the coronavirus pandemic itself.
Ashraf (2020) claims that government intervention has a negative impact on
stock market returns due to its impact on economic activity and suggests that,
even though government measures can reduce outbreaks, they also affect the eco-
nomic activity and for that it is difficult to analyze the net impact of such measures.
Further research is needed to really understand the impact of such measures.
Option volatility risk (Vstoxx) as a proxy of short-term investor sentiment is a
strong predictor of stocks and all sectors. This is an important control variable
that has a high prediction power over the stock market, as the increase in the
buying of equity puts when compared to the trading of equity calls and their
implicit price variation gives the market an important future trend that investors
are betting on a bear market. Also, Papadamou and colleagues (2020), Albulescu
(2020), Haroon and Rizvi (2020) and Baekand colleagues (2020) found that
market volatility reacts to sentiment news and announcements that characterize
investor sentiment.
This work considers the European equity portfolio ETF and the corporate
bond portfolio ETF as a proxy for institutional investor behaviour (well-informed
and specialized group of individuals). In those ETFs (equity and bonds), despite
tracking a specific benchmark, the weights of the portfolio constituents are different,
and so are the returns and the risk, as the ETFs are managed by institutional
investors. Investor behaviour is the ability to deal with uncertainty and risk-taking.
Also, for the less-professional but still well-informed investors, the proxy for
investor behaviour arises from sectorial index portfolios. Investors who replicate
those index constituents and their weight in their portfolio are thus exposed to a
copy of the sectorial risk or uncertainty. The results presented in Table 7.3 tell
us that less well-informed investors’ uncertainty and risk are determined by the
surprise effect and government response across sectors, but evidence seems to
show that the airline and travel investors are more prone to react to the surprise
effect and to government measures than institutional investors.
Surprise effect sensitivity is related to the herding theory, where investors
pursue the same procedure analysis. Better-informed institutional investors trade
more selectively and carefully, so they rely more on prediction models than simple
news (that affects more retail investors). Li and colleagues (2015) say that
136 Pedro Manuel Nogueira Reis and Carlos Pinho

individual investors place higher trust in public information as they are influenced
by market sentiment and eye-catching events. Institutional investors react asym-
metrically to up and down market movements, whereas individual investors do
not. Espinosa-Méndez and Arias (2020) confirm the finding of robust evidence that
the COVID-19 pandemic increases herding behaviour in the capital markets of
Europe. It could be explained by less informed investors following more informed
ones, leading to the erratic behaviour of the capital markets. Fear and uncertainty
over the effects of the pandemic could drive the less informed agents to abandon
their beliefs and follow the more informed ones (Espinosa-Méndez & Arias, 2020).
Besides herding, institutional investors, during the COVID-19 first wave period,
may have been influenced by anchoring, availability and gambler’s fallacy (see
Ahmad et al., 2017 about institutional biases). The estimations of market evolution
relied on an initial optimistic market value. They estimate that COVID-19 would
condition severely market risk. Availability as specialist model predictions and
surprise information effect were likely to decide market pricing. We also find
the bias of Gambler’s fallacy on the results as institutional investors, despite all the
ability to predict COVID-19 evolution, were subject to surprise effect and unable
to predict a sure reversal of the market’s low peak.

5. Conclusions
Our results indicate that investors do not react to confirmed COVID-19 cases, but
rather react in anticipation of the behaviour of COVID-19 cases. Despite the
strong reaction of market volatility over a 30-day non-linear prediction model, the
surprise effect exerts a stronger effect on conditional volatility than on investors’
expectation of cases. It is an investor sentiment bias. Investors become anxious due
to abnormal increase in cases rather than on regular expected growth. Institu-
tional, well-informed investors are fully aware of the potential non-linear evolution
of cases and sensitive to the progress models and only an extraordinary growth
in cases leads to higher market risk. The travel sector risk is the only sector that
depends on changes in the surprise effect triggered by COVID-19 cases and on
government response measures. Government measures combined with the surprise
effect may reduce uncertainty across the markets. Those sectors, being the most
damaged by COVID-19 impact, show a high sensibility to the economic, health
and containment government procedures and a strong reaction to the surprise
effect. Although containment measures may provoke lower activity and cause
higher risk, health measures and economic support mitigate stronger impacts on
those sectors, diminishing risk. The surprise effect also influences the utility sector
risk, but the government measures increase volatility in this sector since none of
the measures were specifically addressed to this sector. This sector was one of the
least affected by the pandemic, with the exception of the industrial consumption
of gas and electricity. Rather, telecommunications and Internet services increased.
Equity share-related risk perception of institutional investors does not react to
government response but responds to the surprise effect. Corporate bonds port-
folio risk held by institutional investors is independent from both surprise and
 COVID-19 Surprise Effect and Government Response 137

government intervention measures. Less well-informed investors who replicate

sectorial portfolios, namely utilities, airlines and travel, find that their portfolios’
risk is susceptible to the pandemic surprise effect and government intervention.
Whether due to the presence of volatility channel or of the surprise effect, investor
sentiment strongly affects portfolio and institutional risk. However, it can be
moderated through the implementation of government measures that will provide
a more leveraged impact on the travel industry.
This work’s practical implication lies in providing a tool to anticipate the
market volatility sustained on predicting a surprise effect in a future pandemic
or an equivalent catastrophic event with subsequent negative and continuous
impacts. Future research should focus on mathematical models capable of pre-
dicting certain events because markets do not specifically react to confirmed daily
events but rather to the anticipation of those events. Furthermore, economic, health
and government containment measures will only maximize the effect on reducing
volatility in society’s most damaged sectors. Government intervention strongly
reduces not only activity but also contagion and it is of the utmost importance to
verify the future impact that these combined individual measures may have on
other sectors. The main limitation of this work lies in the fact that it focusses
on the restrictions applied within the European market. Further assets reaction,
such as gold and cryptocurrencies, should also be studied in future research
studies.

Acknowledgements
This work is funded by the National Funds through the FCT – Foundation for Science
and Technology, I.P., within the scope of the project Refa UIDB/05583/2020. Further-
more, we would like to thank the Research Centre in Digital Services (CISeD) and the
Polytechnic of Viseu for their support.

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Chapter 8

Pandemic (COVID-19) News Sentiment,

Economic Policy Uncertainty and Volatility
Spillover in Global Leisure and Recreation
Stocks
Leticia Bollain-Parra, Oscar V. De la Torre-Torres,
Dora Aguilasocho-Montoya and Marı́a de la Cruz del Rı́o-Rama

Abstract
In this work, we estimated the impact that the US VIX, economic policy and
epidemic uncertainty indexes had on leisure and recreation stocks. We
extended the current literature in two ways: first, we estimated the smoothed
probabilities of being in ‘normal’ (s 5 1), ‘distress’ (s 5 2) and ‘crisis’ (s 5 3)
episodes in the Refinitiv global leisure and recreation index. Then, we esti-
mated the influence that the VIX and uncertainty indexes had on the gen-
eration of distress and crisis episodes in these stocks. By using logit
regressions, we found out that only the US Economic policy uncertainty
index is a detonator of distress and crisis episodes. We also found that the
pandemic (COVID-19) news uncertainty has no significant and direct
influence on the smoothed probabilities. Finally, and complementary to the
current literature, we found that the volatility spillover effect from the S&P
500 to these stocks generates extreme volatility (crisis) episodes. Our results
could be of use for practitioners and scholars and could provide a model to
forecast distress and crisis episodes among leisure and recreation stocks. This
model could be used for potential portfolio management or economic
(tourism) policy purposes.

Keywords: Markov-switching GARCH; news sentiment; uncertainty;

behavioural finance; leisure and recreation stocks; volatility spillover

Pandemics and Travel, 141–156

Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
doi:10.1108/978-1-80071-070-220211009
142 Leticia Bollain-Parra et al.

1. Introduction
The declaration of the World Health Organization (2020) that COVID-19 was
indeed a pandemic led to high volatility times in financial markets (regimes for the
purposes of the present work). Tourism has been one of the most (perhaps even
the most) affected economic activities, given the isolation and health measures
taken in several countries.
Also, given the high contagion rate of the SARS-COV2 (COVID-19) virus,
several travel bans were declared. This led to a reduction in tourism flow and to a
high level of tours and hotel reservation cancelations. Businesses such as travel
agencies, movie theatres, amusement parks, sport clubs (football, basketball,
baseball, etc.), gyms and fitness centres, guided tour operators, golf courses,
marinas or hunting sport companies were also impacted in their cash flow and
financial performance.
The review and test of dependence of these type of companies to economic
cycles or the uncertainty level is not new (Baker & Wurgler, 2006, 2007). As an
example, we can mention the work of Demir, Asli Alici, and Chi Keung Lau
(2017). These authors offered a highly specific test whose aim was to establish the
relationships between macroeconomic factors and tourism companies’ stock
returns. They found strong evidence that consumer confidence, the exchange rate
and foreign tourist arrivals are related with the performance of tourism stocks.
We found the approach of Demir and Ersan (2018) to be quite similar to
ours. These authors found strong evidence of the relationship between tourism
stock performance and the level of economic policy uncertainty (EPU). This
uncertainty level is measured using the economic policy news sentiment in the
main newspapers published in several countries like the United States, the United
Kingdom, Canada, Japan and China or in papers from the Euro zone and
others (Baker, Bloom, & Davis, 2016). The higher the index level, the higher the
uncertainty felt by stock markets investors perceived in newspaper articles.
These authors, as is the case of this study, measure the relationship between
EPU and stock market performance. The difference with the present work (being
a new analysis perspective) is that we relate the EPU with the probability of low
(s 5 1), high (s 5 2) and extreme (s 5 3) volatility scenarios or stock market
regimes.
In a parallel perspective, the work of Akdağ, Kiliç, and Yildirim (2019) made
another review of the uncertainty-performance relationship in tourism stock
prices. More specifically, they tested the influence that the implied volatility on
S&P 500 index options (VIX) has on the tourism stock prices of 11 countries. The
authors found out that practically all the countries hold this negative relation,
except for the US and Sri Lankan stocks. This test is a motivation to the present
paper by the fact that we also incorporated VIX as stock market uncertainty
proxy.
The works of Mahdi-Hadi, Katircioglu, and Adaoglu (2019) and Jiang, Tian,
Wu, & Mo (2020) test the relationship between geopolitical risk or terrorist
attacks and the stock performance of tourism companies. Using both quantile
regression between these events and stock returns and generalized autoregressive
Pandemic (COVID-19) News Sentiment, Economic Policy Uncertainty 143

conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) volatility models in a panel data

regression, these two works use geopolitical uncertainty indexes or terrorist
attacks counts in countries such as China, France, Germany, Spain, Thailand,
Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. Their results show evidence
that highlights the influence that these type of events and uncertainty levels have
on the performance of tourism companies’ stocks.
Three interesting works that are closely related to ours are those conducted by
Costa, Reis, and Pinto (2020) and Reis and Pinho (2020) These works develop news
sentiment indexes from either financial and economic variables or text media (news).
When they measured the impact of these sentiment indexes on the performance of
European and US markets, they found out that the US markets tend to be more
sensitive to news (COVID-19 news more specifically) than the European ones. Also,
another interesting result related to ours is the fact that tourism stocks in Spain and
Italy are among the most affected by market uncertainty and COVID-19 news.
These last works are a special encouragement to ours and we had the
opportunity to extend these tests to leisure and recreation stocks (in a globally
diversified index).
As mentioned previously, the novelty in our work is that we tested the rela-
tionship between volatility spillovers, economic policy and geopolitical uncer-
tainty with the probability (js5i;t ) of being in a high (s 5 2) or extreme (s 5 3)
volatility regime at t. We did not test this relationship with the low (s 5 1)
volatility regime because we wanted a model of high and extreme volatility regime
forecast for investment purposes. In other words, if economic policy or geopo-
litical uncertainty or the VIX index level had an influence on s 5 2 or s 5 3, this
relation could be used to forecast these episodes. Based on these forecasts, a
portfolio manager could make proper investment decisions (Brooks & Persand,
2001; De la Torre-Torres, Galeana-Figueroa, & Álvarez-Garcı́a, 2020).
In this paper, we used Markov-switching models (Hamilton, 1989, 1990) to
estimate the smoothed regime-specific probabilities of the Refinitiv global leisure and
recreation stock index (RGLR). This index measures the performance of global
companies that, as mentioned before, include travel agencies, movie theatres,
amusement parks, sport (football, basketball, baseball, etc.) clubs, gyms and fitness
centres, guided tour operators, golf courses, marinas or hunting sport companies that
work with travel reservations. All these entities are important sub-sectors of tourism.
With these estimated probabilities ðjs52;t ; js53;t Þ, we tested the impact that
EPU, geopolitical uncertainty (GEOU) and VIX indexes have on the develop-
ment of each of these two regimes. We also tested and documented the impact
that infectious disease news (such as COVID-19 news) had on the generation of
this probability or, in other words, the impact of epidemic news (EPI) uncertainty
index on js52;t and js53;t .
Given the economic collapse caused by some epidemic episodes across the
world, several tourism firms felt a strong impact on their cash flow and economic
growth level (Ging Lee, 2018; Kim, Chen, & Jang, 2006). Based on these results,
there are tests that establish relationships between economic and financial risk
factors and the performance of hotels, restaurants and general tourism stock per-
formances (Chen, 2007; Chen, Kim, & Kim, 2005; Gu & Kim, 2002; Wang, 2015).
144 Leticia Bollain-Parra et al.

The work of Chen, Chen, Tang, and Huang (2009), much in line with our
study, measures the impact that the SARS outbreak had on the Taiwanese
tourism stocks.
In spite of these findings, little has been written about the impact that EPU,
GEOU and EPI news sentiment had on the development of crisis episodes in
leisure and recreation stocks.
Among all the potential applications of MS and MS-GARCH models, we are
interested in the forecast of the high (s 5 2) or distress (s 5 3) regime probabilities
to develop warning or trading systems in tourism (leisure and recreation) stocks,
as suggested by Hauptmann, Hoppenkamps, Min, Ramsauer, and Zagst (2014)
and Engel, Wahl, and Zagst (2018).
That way, one of our specific goals is to prove that pandemic news has a
marginal impact on the development of high volatility or distress (s 5 2) and crisis
(s 5 3) episodes in the RGLR index.
Once we have presented the aim of our work, we structured it as follows: in the
next section, we will start with a brief methodology review of the EPU, geopo-
litical uncertainty and epidemic news (trade policy uncertainty [TPU]) indexes. In
this review, we will mention some of the works that relate these indexes to stock
performance and volatility levels. In the third section, we will discuss our data
collection and processing process, followed by the review of our results. Finally,
we summarize our findings and concluding remarks and we present some
guidelines for further research.

2. The Economic Policy Uncertainty Indexes Calculation and the

Studies That Test Their Use
There are several approaches used to measure news, Internet and social media
sentiment related to investment decisions. Almost all the news sentiment meth-
odologies use either Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms or lexicons (a dictio-
nary or group of words with a previously determined sentiment score and sign).
With the help of a computer algorithm, these two techniques make a word count
and determine the sentiment (positive, negative or neutral) found in the news
articles. These techniques determine a numerical score with a sign that will be,
given the word count or sentiment meaning, interpreted using the AI algorithm.
One of the methods that is gaining popularity among scholars and among
practitioners in the financial markets is the uncertainty index developed by Baker
et al. (2016). In their proposal, these authors estimated the level of EPU from the
10 main US newspapers from January 1985 onwards. As a starting point, these
authors use three term sets:

• E: {Economic, Economy} and variations of these terms.

• P: {Federal Reserve, Congress, White house, deficit, legislation, regulation,
budget, trade, tax} and variations.
• U: {Uncertainty, Uncertain} and variations.
Pandemic (COVID-19) News Sentiment, Economic Policy Uncertainty 145

As noted, these three sets are related to the three dimensions of this index.
‘Regulatory’, ‘rules’ and similar terms are variations of a given term set like
‘regulation’, for instance. The method to use these three sets is very straightfor-
ward. With the help of computer algorithms, the authors determined a daily count
of newspaper articles that use words from a given term set. If a given article
contains words from these three sets, the article is selected for the uncertainty
level.
This article count is carried out on a daily basis and the count value is
normalized to a 100. This means that, when the number of newspaper articles that
include terms related with economic uncertainty rises, the EPU index also rises
above 100. In numeric terms, this result means that an EPU index value above
100 signals a high level of uncertainty.
A detailed discussion focussing on EPU index is outside the scope of this work.
Baker, Bloom, and Davis (2016) designed a very straightforward and detailed
one. These authors provided significant details about the human audits conducted
to determine the external validity of their computer EPU index estimations.
Following the EPU index estimation for the United States, additional specific
and global indexes could be developed for different countries. The country-
specific index followed the same estimation method as the US EPU index and
used a specific set of local newspapers and some other term sets (parliament
instead of congress in the U.K. for instance). For the global EPU (GEPU) index,
these authors estimate the index by weighting each country-specific EPU index
against the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in US dollars (USD) or with the
Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) of each country in USD terms.
Baker, Bloom, Davis, and Kost (2019) latter developed the US stock market
volatility index (USVI). This index measures the uncertainty level according to
three term sets and their variations:

• E: {economic, economy, financial}

• M: {stock market, equities, standard and poors}
• V: {volatility, volatile, uncertain, uncertainty, risk, risky}

With this index, the authors measure the US stock market level of uncertainty
according to the frequency with which these three sets appear in the 10 most
important newspapers in the country. The authors estimate that an infectious
disease market volatility tracker or an epidemic preparedness (EPI) index is an
example of USVI-specific indexes. These indexes are also estimated using the
three previous term sets and a fourth one (that includes different variations of the
words):

ID: {epidemic, pandemic, virus, flu, disease, MERS, SARS, Ebola, H1N1, H5N1,
coronavirus}

The use of these indexes has been tested in previous works conducted in
Australia (Smales, 2016, 2017), the US stock market (Antonakakis, Babalos, &
146 Leticia Bollain-Parra et al.

Kyei, 2016; Brogaard & Detzel, 2015) or in Malaysia (Hoque & Zaidi, 2019).
These works found a negative and significant relationship between the global,
local or US (EPU) index and the local stock performance. Sum (2012) tested the
North American stock markets (Canada, México, US) and found that the US
EPU index had a negative impact on the Canadian and Mexican stock markets.
For the specific case of the US markets, the TPU index had a higher impact than
the EPU index.
In order to measure the effect of the EPU index on volatility levels, Shaikh
(2020) tested the relationship of this index with the VIX and found a significant
and direct influence of the EPU.
By following these previous works, we tested the next general equation for the
regime-specific smoothed probabilities (js5i;t ):
js5i;t ¼ a 1 b1 × EPUUS;t 1 b2 × GEOUt;US 1 b3 × EPIt 1 b4 × VIXt 1 «t (8.1)

Our position, as previously mentioned, is that b3  0. If this is not true, the

influence of EPUUS;t and GEOUt;US is higher than the EPIt one. This means that
b1 ; b2 . b3 .

3. Methodology
3.1 Data Processing and High Volatility Regime Smoothed Probability
Estimation
In order to run our test in Eq. (8.1), we downloaded the historical daily data of
EPUUS;t and EPIt indexes from the websites of Baker, Bloom, and Davis (2016)
and the GEOUt data from the site of Iacoviello (2018). The RGLR historical data
come from the Refinitiv (2018) databases. The uncertainty indexes data and the
RGLR were retrieved on a daily basis between 1 November 2000 and 24 October
2020 (a total of 5,207 different dates). This date range incorporates several eco-
nomic policy and geopolitical events that increased the corresponding level of
uncertainty. The geopolitical issues related with the 9/11 (2001) terrorist attacks,
the war in Iraq in 2003, the 2003 SARS and the 2009 N1H1 influenza epidemic
episodes are examples of those events.
In a similar way, the data incorporate the 2001 corporate scandals, the
2007–2009 financial crisis that led to severe EPU levels in the United States, the
2013 European debt crisis and the 2016 BREXIT and US election processes.
Finally, in the same time series, the most recent global (social, financial and
economic) crisis triggered by the SARS COV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic episode is
included.
In order to determine the high (s 5 2) or the extreme (s 5 3) volatility episodes,
we calculated the percentage variation or daily return of the RGLR index over
the continuous time method:
rRGLR;t ¼ lnðRGLRt Þ 2 lnðRGLRt 2 1 Þ (8.2)
Pandemic (COVID-19) News Sentiment, Economic Policy Uncertainty 147

With the estimated time series (rt ), we detrended the returns in order to get to
the residuals («RGLR;t 5 rRGLR;t 2 rt ). With these residuals we inferred two and
three-regime MS models that assumed the next stochastic process:
«RGLR;t ;Pð0; ss;t Þ (8.3)

For the estimation process of the MS models, we assumed three possible

likelihood or probability Pð×Þ functions: the Gaussian, the t-Student and gener-
alized error distribution:
«RGLR;t 
1 21
js5i;t ¼ Pð«RGLR;t ; uÞ ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffi e 2 ss;t
(8.4)
2p
«RGLR;t !
Gðns 21 1Þ ss;t
js5i;t ¼ Pð«RGLR;t ; uÞ ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi 11 (8.5)
ðns 2 2ÞpGðn2s Þ ðns 2 2Þ

1 ns ns
!
ns e 2 2 jls j Gðn1s Þ
js5i;t ¼ Pð«RGLR;t ; uÞ ¼ ; ls ¼ (8.6)
ns 2ð1 1 ns Þ Gðn1s Þ
1 1
4ns Gðn3s Þ

In the previous expressions, ns is the degrees of freedom of each regime and ls

is a shape parameter. These time-varying probabilities are known as the filtered
probabilities that were inferred from a hidden two or three Markovian chain that
modelled the process of changing from a given volatility regime (st 2 1 5 i) to
another one (st 5 j).
This unobserved process was filtered in (8.4)–(8.6), for each date (t), by following
the estimation process suggested by Hamilton (1989, 1990) and improved with the
Viterbi (1967) algorithm for computational efficiency. These filtered probabilities
were also smoothed with Cai’s (1994) algorithm in order to get to js5i;t .
In the filtering process, the parameter set u of the stochastic process was also
inferred. This set is conformed with the aforementioned regime-specific smoothed
probabilities, along with the transition probabilities matrix (P), the scale (vari-
ance ss;t ), the degrees of freedom (ns ) or shape (ls ) parameters:
u ¼ fP; js;t ; ss;t ; ns ; ls g (8.7)

The scale parameter or variance was estimated with a time-fixed variance

sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
2
(ss;t 5 « + ×T 2 1 ×js;t ) or with a GARCH variance (Haas, Mittnik, & Paolella,
t
2004; Hamilton & Susmel, 1994):
vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
u
u P Q
ss;t ¼ tv 1 + bp × «2t 1 + g p × s2t 2 q (8.8)
p¼1 q¼1

This led to estimate 18 MS models: three time-fixed variance MS models – one

for each likelihood function (8.4)–(8.6), three ARCH (not generalized GARCH
process) and three GARCH MS models – one for each probability function. These
nine combinations of models were estimated in two- and three-regime scenarios.
From this 18 possible MS or MS-GARCH models, we used the one that best
fitted the data, i.e., the one with the lowest Akaike (1974) information criterion.
148 Leticia Bollain-Parra et al.

This selection method allowed us to determine if it was appropriate to assume a

two or three-regime stochastic process and revealed the most suitable likelihood
function to filter the data.
Once we had determined the most suitable MS or MS-GARCH model, we
used the smoothed probability (js52;t ) of the high (s 5 2) and extreme (js53;t , s 5 3)
regimes and made the next logistic transformation:
lnðjs5i;t Þ
ls5i;t ¼ (8.9)
1 2 lnðjs5i;t Þ

With this standardized smoothed probability data for each regime, we ran an
ordinary least squares (OLS) regression estimation for the eight regression models
displayed in Table 8.1.
As noted, we estimated the individual relation of each regressor with the
logistic or standardized value (lt ), along with the pair combination of the epidemic
uncertainty index (EPI) with each of the other regressors to check if these had an
influence on the EPI-js5i;t relation and to check for potential collinearity issues.
Finally, with the eighth model we estimated the full functional form.
To deal with serial correlation, we used the Newey–West (1987) robust stan-
dard errors. This was of importance because the aforementioned studies found
out that the uncertainty VIX indexes showed unit roots. To reduce the impact of
this regression model issue, we used these estimators for a more robust analysis.
As mentioned previously, our position was that the EPI uncertainty index has
no significant impact on the probability of being in a high or extreme volatility
regime as we consider that the economic policy decisions and the geopolitical risk
are key factors for travel decision and for the choice of some touristic and leisure
services. As an example, hotel cancelations or plane ticket reservations are two
decisions made when people feel comfortable with the economic or geopolitical
environment of a given destination.

3.2 Results Discussion

In Table 8.2 we summarized the goodness-of-fit tests of the two- and three-regime
MS and MS-GARCH models. As noted, the t-Student three-regime MS-GARCH

Table 8.1. The Regressions Performed in Our Test.

Variable Type 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Dependent lt lt lt lt lt lt lt lt
Regressor EPU EPU EPU
GEOU GEOU GEOU
EPI EPI EPI EPI EPI
VIX VIX VIX
Source: Own elaboration.
Pandemic (COVID-19) News Sentiment, Economic Policy Uncertainty 149

Table 8.2. Goodness of Fit of the MS and MS-GARCH Models.

Likelihood Function
Gaussian t-Student Generalized Error
MS Models and Regimes Distribution
MS 2 regimes 2 33,651.93 2 33,825.09 2 33,789.07
MS 3 regimes 2 33,893.23 2 33,955.80 2 33,942.94
MS ARCH 2 regimes 2 33,694.09 2 33,874.34 2 33,841.00
MS ARCH 3 regimes 2 33,889.23 2 33,959.87 2 33,939.44
MS GARCH 2 regimes 2 33,890.60 2 34,025.85 2 33,963.79
MS GARCH 3 regimes 2 33,968.94 2 34,043.88 2 33,897.99
Source: Own elaboration with data from Refinitiv (2018), Baker et al. (2016) and Iacoviello (2018).

model is the one that best explains the stochastic process of the RGLR returns.
This means that this index is generated, at t, in one of three possible regimes or
states of nature: a ‘normal’ or low volatility (s 5 1), a ‘distress’ or high volatility
(s 5 2) and a ‘crisis’ or extreme volatility (s 5 3) regime.
Given this result, we ran two logit regressions as in (8.1). One of them for the
logistic (standardized) value of the smoothed probability (js52;t ) of the high
volatility regime (s 5 2) and the other for the extreme volatility regime (js53;t ). We
estimated the eight regressions shown in Table 8.1 and we selected the best
regression model according to the Hannan–Quinn (1979) information criterion.
A natural question did arise: Why did we used the Akaike information crite-
rion in the goodness of fit of the MS and MS-GARCH models and the
Hannan–Quinn in these logit regressions. In order to estimate the MS and MS-
GARCH models summarized in Table 8.2, we used the R MSGARCH package
(Ardia et al., 2017) and this package only allows for an estimation of either
ARCH or GARCH variances with only one lag in the ARCH and GARCH
terms. Therefore, the precision and parsimony trade-off is out of the scope of the
MS model fitting test.
For the specific case of the logit regression fit test, we preferred the
Hannan–Quinn because this criterion provides, in our perspective, a more
balanced measurement of the level of precision of goodness of fit and parsimony.
In Tables 8.3 and 8.4, we present the results of the eight estimated regressions
for ls52;t and ls53;t , that is, the OLS regressions of the smoothed probabilities of
s 5 2 and s 5 3, given the logit transformation in (8.8).
In Table 8.3, we present the regression results for the high volatility regime
smoothed probability’s ls52;t value. As noted from the Hannan–Quinn informa-
tion criteria, the best fitting model is the one that includes the four regressors of
interest (model 8). These models showed a criterion of 21,973.2783, followed by
the models that consider the VIX or the VIX and the EPI indexes (models 4 and 7).
As noted from these three best fitting models, the EPI (COVID-19) index or the
uncertainty generated with epidemic news is not significant. In other words, there
150 Leticia Bollain-Parra et al.

is no statistical relationship between this uncertainty index and the standardized

(ls52;t ) value of the high volatility regime smoothed probability. In the best fitting
model, only the EPU index, along with the VIX, showed a significant relation-
ship. The VIX shows a negative sign in the relationship. This means that an
increase in the VIX value lowers the possibility of a high volatility regime. This
result is contrary to the literature reviewed because it suggests that, in this specific
type of stocks, the high volatility (s 5 2) regime is driven by other financial or
economic factors that do not have a volatility spillover effect.
In a similar rationale, the EPU index has a significant and direct relationship
and its value is positive. This led us to conclude that the EPU is the only driving
factor of this regime in our test.
In Table 8.4, we also present the regression results for the extreme (s 5 3)
volatility regime’s standardized smoothed probability (ls53;t ). As in Table 8.3, we
found that the VIX index plays a significant role in the probability of being in this
regime at t. Also, the EPU index was found to have a significant relationship, but,
in this specific case, the GOEU index (geopolitical uncertainty) has a significant
and direct influence on the generation of the regime’s probability, as well.
We also found that epidemic news uncertainty (EPI) has no significant rela-
tionship with the high and extreme volatility probability regime and could not be
considered a proper regressor to forecast this regime. In other words, the epidemic
news has no influence on the generation of these two regimes (s 5 2, s 5 3).
Contrary to the high (s 5 2) volatility regime, the geopolitical uncertainty and the
volatility spillover effect (influence from the VIX index) are the key drivers of the
probability of being included in a crisis or extreme probability regime (s 5 3).
For the specific case of the model in which the EPI has a significant influence
on each of the regime-specific probabilities, we found that these two models
(model 6 for each regime regression) have one of the lowest explanation levels
(measured with the R2adjusted ) and cannot therefore be regarded as the best fitting
model.
To sum up, we found evidence against the importance of epidemic (EPI) or
COVID-19 news as regime generator factor. This result goes against previous
works conducted on the subject (Nogueira Reis & Pinho, 2020; Reis & Pinho,
2020) since we found out that only the EPU generates a higher volatility that
would place us in a high (s 5 2) volatility regime within the RGLR stock index.
We also found that the economic policy and geopolitical uncertainty indexes were
the only indexes with a negative but marginal influence on the probability of being
in the extreme (s 5 3) volatility regime. Only the VIX index has a direct and
important relationship in s 5 3. In sum, only the level of EPU explains the
increase of the high volatility (s 5 2) regime, and the volatility spillover (VIX
influence) has the same kind of influence on the extreme (s 5 3) regime.

4. Concluding Remarks
The use of MS and MS-GARCH models has been studied in several applications.
One of the most useful applications for investors is to determine the probability
Table 8.3. Logit Regression of the Distress or High Volatility Regime (s 5 2), Given the Uncertainty and Risk Indexes of

Pandemic (COVID-19) News Sentiment, Economic Policy Uncertainty

Interest.
lnðP Þ
Dependent Variable ls52;t 5 1 2 lnðP
s52;t
s52;t Þ

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

Constant 22.3387*** 22.8223*** 22.5212*** 20.4056 22.4556*** 22.7804*** 20.3740 20.7955
EPU 20.0024 20.0007 0.0070**
GEOU 0.0024 0.0024 0.0024
EPI 20.0597*** 20.0539* 20.0790** 0.0126 20.0054
VIX 20.1108*** 20.1132*** 20.1414***
LLF 2 2 2 211,412.3459 2 2 211,410.445 2
11,902.1027 11,559.5482 11,879.2335 11,878.2029 11,549.0371 10,975.9051
Akaike 23,810.2054 23,125.0964 23,764.467 22,830.6917 23,764.4058 23,106.0741 22,828.8901 21,963.8102
Schwarz 23,829.8781 23,144.6736 23,784.1397 22,850.3644 23,790.636 23,132.1772 22,855.1203 22,002.9647
Hannan–Quinn 23,812.7927 23,127.6836 23,767.0543 22,833.279 23,769.2867 23,110.955 22,833.771 21,973.2783
Adjusted R2 0.0066 0.0093 0.0152 0.1769 0.0154 0.0132 0.1774 0.2136
F statistic 35.3661*** 48.3992*** 81.6005*** 1,119.9970*** 41.8388*** 34.8227*** 562.2003*** 343.2754***
(df 5 1; (df 5 1; (df 5 1; (df 5 1; 5,204) (df 5 2; (df 5 2; (df 5 2; (df 5 4;
5,204) 5,041) 5,204) 5,203) 5,040) 5,203) 5,038)
p-value *p**p***p , 0.01
codification
Source: Own elaboration with data from Refinitiv (2018), Baker et al. (2016) and Iacoviello (2018).

151
Table 8.4. Logit Regression of the Crisis or Extreme Volatility Regime (s 5 3), Given the Uncertainty and Risk Indexes of

152
Interest.

Leticia Bollain-Parra et al.

lnðP Þ
Dependent Variable ls52;t 5 1 2 lnðP
s52;t
s52;t Þ

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

Constant 21.1447*** 20.8216*** 20.9093*** 22.4786*** 21.1002*** 20.8720*** 22.5206*** 22.3834*
EPU
GEOU 0.0026* 0.0019 20.0025***
EPI
VIX 20.0005 20.0005 20.0006***
LLF 29,163.5676 28,946.9964 29,178.3935 28,398.6039 29,153.6932 28,904.0707 28,387.9177 28,103.9783
Akaike 18,333.1352 17,899.9928 18,362.787 16,803.2077 18,315.3865 17,816.1414 16,783.8355 16,219.9567
Schwarz 23,829.8781 23,144.6736 23,784.1397 22,850.3644 23,790.636 23,132.1772 22,855.1203 22,002.9647
Hannan–Quinn 23,812.7927 23,127.6836 23,767.0543 22,833.279 23,769.2867 23,110.955 22,833.771 21,973.2783
Adjusted R2 0.0226 0.0008 0.0170 0.2715 0.0261 0.0175 0.2743 0.2843
F statistic 121.2943*** 5.1689** (df 91.0493*** 1,940.5210*** 70.7534*** 45.8957*** 984.7664*** 501.8343***
(df 5 1; 5 1; 5,041) (df 5 1; (df 5 1; 5,204) (df 5 2; (df 5 2; (df 5 2; (df 5 4;
5,204) 5,204) 5,203) 5,040) 5,203) 5,038)
p-value *p**p***p , 0.01
codification
Source: Own elaboration with data from Refinitiv (2018), Baker et al. (2016) and Iacoviello (2018).
Pandemic (COVID-19) News Sentiment, Economic Policy Uncertainty 153

(at t 1 p periods in the future) of being in each of the regimes. That way, the market
risk exposure could be estimated at t 1 p (Ardia, 2008; Ardia, Bluteau, Boudt, &
Catania, 2018; Ardia & Hoogerheide, 2013, 2014) and proper investment decisions
could be made according to these estimated probabilities (Ang & Bekaert, 2004;
Brooks & Persand, 2001; Engel, Wahl, & Zagst, 2018; Hauptmann, Hoppenkamps,
Min, Ramsauer, & Zagst, 2014; Kritzman, Page, & Turkington, 2012).
The aforementioned investment decisions application has been moderately
studied but, according to Hauptmann et al. (2014) and Engel et al. (2018), we want
to determine if the uncertainty levels in the economic policy (EPU), geopolitical
events (GEOU), epidemic news (EPI) or the general stock market volatility (VIX)
are factors that can be used in a warning system used to forecast high and extreme
volatility regimes at t 1 p in tourism (leisure and recreation) stocks.
In order to test the statistical relationships of high and extreme regime-specific
probabilities, we used daily historical RGLR, EPU, GEOU and EPI data and
VIX indexes. Based on the RGLR, we estimated the regime-specific smoothed
probabilities (js52;t and js523;t , respectively).
We estimated a logit regression model with data from 1 November 2000 to 24
October 2020 (5,207 days) using the EPU, GEOU, EPI and VIX indexes as
regressors. We found out that epidemic news uncertainty (EPI) had no meaningful
influence on the generation process of each regime. In other words, epidemic news
did not generate high (s 5 2) or extreme (s 5 3) volatility episodes in the global
leisure and recreation stock markets. The most influential uncertainty source was
the US EPU. Our results suggest that the US EPU has a greater influence on the
uncertainty level of these stocks than epidemic news. Therefore, we could
conclude that these stocks, as a specific group, valued a long-term and economic
perspective, setting aside the impact of epidemic news uncertainty.
We also found out that volatility spillover effect and geopolitical uncertainty
(GEOU) generated by wars, terrorist threats or attacks has a significant influence
on the extreme probability regime (s 5 3). Despite this conclusion, the influence is
lower than the one exerted by the EPU index.
Our results are useful for practitioners since we demonstrate that the use of
EPU, VIX and GEOU indexes is appropriate to forecast extreme (s 5 3) volatility
regimes and will help develop a warning system that could be of use for invest-
ment decision purposes.
Among the extensions to our work, we suggest the inclusion of financial and
economic indicators, along with an expansion to other touristic businesses such as
hotels and cruise line companies. We also suggest extending our work to airlines
and ground transportation companies and using other MS or MS-GARCH
models with asymmetric probability functions in our estimations.

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Chapter 9

Impacts of COVID-19 on Tourism-related

Activities: A Case Study of Ecuador by
Scenarios
Christian Viñán-Merecı́, Katty Celi-Sánchez,
Ronny Correa-Quezada and Amador Durán-Sánchez

Abstract
The health emergency resulting from the SARS-CoV-2 virus is a public
health crisis with serious effects on all social dimensions. This chapter has
estimated the effects that this pandemic could potentially have on tourism
activities in Ecuador. The scenario methodology was the method of choice
since it allows analyzing the environment and comparing different internal
and external factors, placing them in a future context for the tourism sector.
The data were obtained using the following: (1) UNWTO estimates antici-
pate that the pandemic will cause a decrease in tourist arrivals and income
between 250% and 278% across the world; and (2) a simulation of the
pandemic’s possible impacts on employment, production and taxes that
would cause drops of 50%, 70% and 78% in the demand for accommodation
and food and beverage services that represent economic activities that are
directly related to tourism.
The results confirm that in scenario 1, losses will amount to 1.327 million
US dollars; in scenario 2, to 1.600 million USD; while for scenario 3, the
country will stop receiving more than 1.700 million USD. Eight sectors of
the economy will suffer 95% of the impact on job loss: the food and beverage
service stands out from the rest, since 77 out of 10 jobs lost will come from
those types of activities. The two other sectors that would suffer significant
impacts would be trade and accommodation activities, which account for 8%
and 5%, respectively, of the total number of jobs lost.

Keywords: SARS-CoV-2; COVID-19; tourism; socio-economic variables;

scenario method; Ecuador

Pandemics and Travel, 157–172

Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
doi:10.1108/978-1-80071-070-220211010
158 Christian Viñán-Merecı́ et al.

1. Introduction
The World Health Organization (WHO) health alert was a result of the appearance
of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes the COVID-19 disease and plunged the
different sectors of the economy into a severe crisis. The tourism sector has
undeniably been one of the most affected. In this chapter, our analysis will focus on
a brief explanation of the current tourism situation in Ecuador and on the forecast
of the post-COVID-19 impact based on different scenario constructions.
The impact of this crisis will cause several challenges to the tourism industry
and affect the future behaviour of travellers and mainly the tourists’ response to
this crisis. In other words, the recovery will depend on the consumers’ behaviour
(Sharifpour, Walters, & Ritchie, 2014). Travellers have to make several decisions
when they decide to travel and those decisions are influenced by their motivations
and beliefs and by the destination’s economic environment and safety, among
others. COVID-19 has had a critical impact on tourism activities. As a matter of
fact, according to Couto et al. (2020), tourism is one of the activities that suffered
the most from the impact caused by the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, either due to
contagion issues or to flight cancellations that occurred due to the crisis.
Furthermore, after the first quarter of 2020, most of the countries implemented
social distancing measures, which led to the suspension of several activities,
including tourism activities; therefore, the coronavirus outbreak is expected to
have counterproductive consequences for the global tourism and hospitality
industry (Wen, Kozak, Yang, & Liu, 2020).
As Hernández (2020) mentioned, the crisis that we are currently experiencing
due to the fall in economic activity and income has significant consequences on
the travellers’ purchasing power, since this is a simultaneous crisis that affects
both the travellers’ country of origin and the destination countries. Tourism as a
system has been resilient to other types of global crises; however, there is evidence
that the impact and recovery efforts required to overcome the COVID-19
pandemic will be unprecedented (Chebli & Said, 2020; Gössling, Scott, & Hall,
2020; Wen et al., 2020). The pandemic has revealed the vulnerability of various
sectors of the tourism activity and obviously of the work force that is part of
this industry, as jobs have been severely affected. After several months of
confinement, COVID-19 made the sector, the current governments and academia
aware of the effects of the global changes it triggered. The challenge facing
the ector is its ability to learn from this global tragedy to be able to implement a
truly consistent and sustainable tourism that will hopefully return as soon as the
vaccine is available. It is also an opportunity to reorient the entire tourism system
towards innovation.
History has already taught us that pandemics are uncontrollable when they
erupt unexpectedly. However, the tourism industry has always been exposed to
several external changes due to its nature and to the globalization of the world’s
economic and political systems. This industry has also a direct relationship with
various sectors and therefore contributes in various degrees to the development of
these sectors.
 Impacts of COVID-19 on Tourism-related Activities 159

After the report of the coronavirus outbreak in China, Europe became the
epicentre of the pandemic due to the high number of deaths reported. Currently,
Northern and Southern America are leading this crisis and the United States,
Brazil and Mexico are the countries with the highest number of COVID-related
deaths, according to WHO (WHO, 2020).This crisis has affected many destina-
tions and the global tourism and hospitality industry are facing several extreme
scenarios. Many countries have witnessed the loss of many lives, companies were
forced to shutdown their ventures and populations had to go into lockdown and
keep a safe social distance.
According to Chebli and Said (2020), the crisis will influence travel patterns, as
people will avoid travelling in groups and being surrounded by other people.
Furthermore, travel safety will be another factor influencing decision-making,
and hygiene and health-related issues will be fundamental factors in people’s
destination choices. Therefore, tourism companies must be prepared and improve
hygiene conditions to regain customer confidence. As a direct consequence, the
economic crisis will limit tourist’s economic strength and will consequently
affect trip decisions and travel expenses. Concurrently, scholars seem to highlight
two arguments when discussing the tourism sector: the demand side – the risk
perception at the individual level, and the supply side – crisis management at the
social level. In fact, it becomes clear that the accelerated growth of mass tourism
and the development of tourism infrastructure to meet the growing demand have
generated major ecological crises in several established tourist destinations, and
that host destinations’ residents play an important role in flattening the curve of
new infections during a crisis, but at the same time have to face a decline in
revenues from tourism (Qiu, Park, Li, & Song, 2020).

2. Literature Review
Currently, tourism is a word that encompasses many issues. Tourism should
basically be conceived as the set of activities that provide sensations to visitors
during their trips to different places in their usual context. Tourism is a social,
cultural and economic phenomenon which entails the movement of people from
their place of residence to other locations for personal reasons – leisure, rest and
recreation or for business/professional reasons – in which they do not carry out
any lucrative or remunerated activity (Guerrero & Ramos, 2014; Gurrı́a Di-Bella,
2007; Ministry of Tourism, 2008; World Tourism Organization, 2007). In this
context, and according to the United Nations, ‘Tourism is a subset of trips, and
visitors a subset of travellers’ (2010, p. 10). Speaking of tourism is recognizing that
this is an activity that has always existed and that has been part of our social
condition, out of curiosity or due to the interaction with other people or just
because people feel the need to know new environments (Moragues, 2006).
Undoubtedly, the presence of tourism has been a constant in the different stages
of human history and has had repercussions in cultural, social, commercial,
religious and political areas.
160 Christian Viñán-Merecı́ et al.

Tourism has evolved and that evolution can be seen in the current tourists’
motivations and behaviour. Consequently, destinations have to offer new tourism
alternatives that will involve innovation in new tourism ventures, a focus on
sustainability and a deep awareness of how resources available in the territories
should be used, based on environmental and cultural aspects, in order to recover
and value the cultural and ancestral tourist practices that are typical of each place.
Before COVID-19, the tourism activity represented one of the world’s major
economic sectors. UNWTO predicted that by 2020, international tourist arrivals
would have an estimated growth of 4%, compared to 2019 in which 1.500 million
tourist arrivals were recorded. This clearly shows that tourism is the activity with
the greatest effect on the economy and that it benefits the development of regions
and countries (UNWTO, 2020b). In fact, at that time, planning and managing the
activity with responsibility was a real concern to everyone involved and people
were determined to make the best possible use of the opportunities that tourism
can offer to different destinations around the world. Undoubtedly, its importance
lies in its worldwide impact and growth fuelled by the arrival of tourists who were
mostly interested in recreational and leisure activities that have generated massive
income for the chosen destinations.
Knowing the current post-COVID-19 trends is the key to offering products
and services in accordance with visitors’ needs and requirements. Future tourists
will force the sector to innovate and constantly improve its performance. On the
other hand, tourism is one of the most exposed and vulnerable economic activities
to the effects of extreme situational events. This sector has experienced several
natural and social traumatic events, the last of which being the health crisis caused
by the COVID-19 pandemic (Cantos, 2020). Cantos (2020) points out that several
studies show that the tourism sector in Spain has weakly losses of EUR 2.000
million in GDP due to the cessation of economic activity. Tourism activity is
expected to recover throughout 2021, but evidence shows that this recovery will
be very progressive, because it will largely depend on the sector’s ability to
demonstrate that the advertised destinations are biosafe. Biosecurity protocols
and innovative processes will have to be drawn up and implemented with the
support of all the actors working in the tourism chain and the potential of each
destination has to be highlighted so that health-related concerns will not affect
tourists and will not fuel their most vulnerable concerns.
Bearing in mind that tourism generates income and mobility of people
worldwide, Martı́n (2020) claims that the current crisis generated by the COVID-19
pandemic has accelerating and unique effects. He also states that these effects may
be classified into four dimensions, and that they will become the indicators that will
allow mediating the mobility and income generated by this activity. Those cate-
gories focus mainly on health, mobility patterns, economics and the change in
tourists’ behaviours. Considering that tourism implies the interrelation between
trips and travellers, one can consider that the current crisis has generated a context
that completely contradicts this definition. At this moment, health factors and
mobility restrictions imposed within cities are the most important aspects to trav-
ellers when they are planning their trips. On the other hand, restrictions between
 Impacts of COVID-19 on Tourism-related Activities 161

countries have had a negative effect at the international level that has affected what
took globalization years to achieve.
Mobility in the sector will depend on air transport strategy, which is undoubt-
edly a very professional and international industry. That way, once mobility
restrictions are lifted, the generation of new income for airlines will start again
backed by the work of intermediary companies and travel organizers that will
contribute with knowledge, reputation and ability to adapt to the new circum-
stances to travellers’ needs and to the innovation of tourist destinations (Martı́n,
2020). The fall in global economic activity generated by the crisis will affect the
mobility of international tourists because of the costs generated by travelling and
travellers’ purchasing power. As Martı́n (2020) points out, destinations must be
prepared to innovate when it comes to accommodation, transport or restaurants, to
name some of the activities that characterize tourism or to handle certain desti-
nations as opposed to others due to the changes in tourists’ behaviour that will lead
to the emergence of new demand segments.
The tourism sector has been strongly affected mainly because air transport was
immediately considered one of the three main causes associated with the spread of
the virus (Hall, Scott, & Gössling, 2020). Balcan et al. (2009) explain how the
behaviour of a global epidemic is regulated by long-range air traffic that determines
the arrival of infected individuals at a certain destination, spatial agglomeration
economies and the need for food consumption in addition to transport (Connolly,
Keil, & Ali, 2020). Chinazzi et al. (2020) estimated a global model of disease
transmission in which it is shown that travel restrictions have a modest effect, while
public health intervention measures and changes in travellers’ behaviour could
further reduce the risks of contagion and the spread of COVID-19.
The tourism industry is one of the most important activities in many world
destinations. Its impact has supported the development of different sources of
employment and boosted the economy of various sectors. In this activity, the
resources must be used in a sustainable way. This new concern constitutes a trend
that is widely sought after by tourists and that generally reflects a new vision of the
world that highlights the way natural resources should be handled (Vargas-Sanchez,
Abbate, & Perano, 2019).
In the case of Ecuador, there are few studies and contributions focussing on
this topic. In this area, we can mention the study conducted by Viñán-Merecı́,
Correa-Quezada, and Garcı́a-Vélez (2020) that produced a set of estimates of the
impact of tourism in Ecuador in the first quarter of 2020. These authors state that
the impact of the arrival of tourists in Ecuador reflects a decrease in the tourism
sector revenues that could range between USD 2458 and 2686 million, a situ-
ation that would result in 80,000–134,000 people losing their jobs. The sectors
that are directly involved would lose their capacity to absorb labour but there are
other sectors that would be significantly affected such as trade, cattle breeding and
mail activities, among others.
As for domestic tourism, the Ministry of Tourism (2020a) with the support of
several public and private universities conducted the Behaviour Survey of
Domestic Tourism Trips during the pre-COVID-19 period and under the ‘New
Normal’ situation, in August, in order to study travellers’ behaviour and their
162 Christian Viñán-Merecı́ et al.

travel planning regarding domestic tourism. It was observed that 54% of those
surveyed indicate that they were ready to travel in 2021 and that 15% of them do
not have any long-term travelling plans; they seem to show a new interest in trips
related to excursion activities and 18% of the respondents indicated that this
would be their new favourite kind of travelling choice. These perceptions are the
result of our own protective measures against possible contagion and the result of
the consequent need to balance family budget.

3. Brief Characterization of the Sector

Tourism represents one of the strategic sectors in any economy. This sector has a
significant impact on any country’s GDP and on the creation of direct and
indirect employment. As would be expected, Ecuador is no exception. The health
crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic caused a total paralysis of the
tourism sector worldwide and losses represented 10% of GDP, 7% of international
trade and 30% of service operations (Chebli & Said, 2020). These figures do not
consider the direct, indirect and induced effects of the pandemic on the destina-
tion’s economy and society (Khan, Seng, & Cheong, 1990).
According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean
(ECLAC, 2020), the pandemic can generate contraction effects on the region’s
GDP of at least 1.8%. In fact, the real impact will depend on the policies and
measures that are implemented at the local, regional and global levels. Currently,
international flights have already started in different countries after a 6-month
hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The direct contribution of tourism to the GDP in Ecuador for 2019 amounted to
2.2% and the USD 2,287.5 million income from foreign tourism expenditures
represented 0.4% of the total output. This represents the third highest contribution
of foreign currency to the country, after the export of shrimp, banana and plantain
that represented USD 3,890.5 and 3,295.2 million, respectively. In addition, the
sector originated 477.382 jobs that were related to accommodation and food service
activities and to 24.257 tourist establishments (Ministry of Tourism, 2020b).
Data from the ENEMDU (2019) surveys indicate that in 2019, more than
600,000 people declared that tourism was their main occupation; it is worth
noting that more than 495,000 households depend on tourism and that most
people who work in these tourism-related activities are women. The vulnerability
of employment is reflected in the data collected that indicate that only 4 out of 10
tourism employees have a satisfactory job. Tourism influences many economic
sectors that directly or indirectly are part of it, such as hotel chains and food
service activities. It is estimated that micro, small and medium-sized enterprises
represent up to 90% of the tourist facilities in Ecuador (this includes registered
and not registered enterprises). Data also show that 80% of small enterprises are
directly affected by the current situation. Therefore, approximately 8000 hotels
and 200,000 restaurants (registered and not registered by Ministry of Tourism) are
affected by this crisis in labour, productive and economic aspects (Viñán-Merecı́,
Correa-Quezada, & Garcı́a-Vélez, 2020) (Fig. 9.1).
 Impacts of COVID-19 on Tourism-related Activities 163

Fig. 9.1. International Tourism, Number of Arrivals Non-resident –

Ecuador (2019–2020). Source: Ministry of Tourism (2020b).

As we analyze the number of visits by non-residents, either Ecuadorians or

foreigners, in 2019, evidence shows that an average of 138,798 people have
entered the country every month between January and August. The analysis of
the same time period in 2020 shows a 257% total drop in the number of arrivals:
the country welcomed only 46,296 visitors during that period. The same situation
is evident in the case of Ecuadorian residents’ departures, which in the first
semester of 2020 experienced a decrease of 58%.
On March 16, Ecuador shut down almost 100% of its productive activities as a
preventive measure against the global health emergency caused by the presence of
COVID-19. The closing of borders and other mobility restrictions seriously affected
foreign exchange earnings and, in general, the economy of the tourism sector (Fig. 9.2).
According to data collected from the Internal Revenue Service of Ecuador
(2020), sales in the tourism sector decreased by 52% between January and August
2020, compared to the same period of 2019, and April and May were the months
that suffered the greatest impact. Operators and tourism intermediaries were the
most severely affected sectors. Tourism sector sales declared in the Internal
Revenue Service are activities related to food and beverages, passenger transport,
operators and tourism intermediation and accommodation.
Considering these effects, the purpose of this chapter is to determine the impact
of the pandemic on the tourism sector in Ecuador. The methodology and results
obtained are described below.

4. Methodology
Impact scenarios were designed for the tourism sector in Ecuador taking into
consideration: (1) the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) estimates that
consider that the pandemic will cause a decrease in tourist arrivals and income
that will range between 250% and 278% worldwide (UNWTO, 2020a, 2020b)
and (2) a simulation portraying the possible impacts of the pandemic on economic
164 Christian Viñán-Merecı́ et al.

Fig. 9.2. Tourism Sector, Variation in Sales (2019–2020). Source:

Internal Revenue Service (2020).

variables (employment, production and taxes) caused by a decrease in accom-

modation and food and beverage services demand of 50%, 70% and 78%.
The data series corresponding to international arrivals and income from
international tourism were obtained from the World Bank (2020) and the Min-
istry of Tourism (2013, 2017); while the data for gross production and taxes were
obtained from the official data provided by the Central Bank of Ecuador (2020a).
To evaluate the influence of the decrease in tourism activities, the 2018 Product
Input Matrix (PIM) of Ecuador was used. It should be mentioned that the
Ministry of Tourism considers that the tourism sector includes activities related to
tourist accommodation, food and beverages, operation and intermediation and
tourist transport.
For the simulations, the final demand of two sectors – (1) accommodation and
(2) food and beverage services – was impacted, due to the reductions already
mentioned. These sectors were used because of the availability and accessibility of
information due to the low level of temporal disaggregation of the Central Bank
of Ecuador (CBE)’s national accounts. These two sectors were also considered by
the Ministry of Tourism (2019) during the procedure conducted to update the
tourism activity employment register and by CFN (2017) during the sector study
conducted on tourism. In the PIM, the demand in the accommodation sector
suffered 10% of the total impact, while the sectors related to food and beverage
services suffered 90% of the total losses; this corresponds to the proportional part
of participation of the activities as a whole and to their contribution to the
tourism sector. For this purpose, the impact simulator available in the input-
output matrix provided by the Central Bank of Ecuador (2020b) was used.
 Impacts of COVID-19 on Tourism-related Activities 165

The methodology used for this operation is as follows: Eq. (9.1) shows the
basic scenario i 5 0 and the alternative scenario i 5 1, which considers change in
tourism activities as a component of final demand in each economic activity
sector. Therefore, two results are generated with the model:

(1) The basic simulation (i 5 0), where the production levels are established
according to the final demand determined and
(2) The impact simulation (i 5 1), where the new production levels are estab-
lished according to change in the investment as part of the final demand of
each activity sector.

xi50;1 ¼ ðI 2 AÞ 2 1 f i50;1 ¼ Bf i50;1 (9.1)

where xi50;1 is the production of sector i in the base scenario (0) and in the alter-
native scenario (1), ðI 2 AÞ 2 1 is the inverse Leontief matrix and f i50;1 is the final
demand for sector i in the base scenario (0) and in the alternative scenario (1).
From these simulations, it is possible to obtain the results of the impacts that
include, for instance, the difference in production levels with the change in
demand being related to the simulation of the base scenario:
Dx ¼ ðxi51 2 xi50 Þ ¼ BDf ¼ Bðf i51 2 f i50 Þ (9.2)

To measure the effect on total employment, we used the diagonal matrix L of

constant coefficients of employment per unit of product, using current prices and
under the assumption of changes in investment in the final demand for each type
of economic activity. Employment creation is depicted as follows:
DXL ¼ ðX Li51 2 X Li50 Þ ¼ LBDf ¼ LBðf i51 2 f i50 Þ (9.3)

With these results, we proceeded to identify and quantify which sectors are the
most affected in both production and employment.

5. Results
Between 2000 and 2019, Ecuador had an annual average of 1,126,998 tourist
arrivals and followed a growing trend. In this period, the sector’s resilience was
evident, as it had to face external and internal events and circumstances, such as
internal protests of the indigenous movement against the free trade agreement in
2006, the international financial crisis in 2009, the eruption of the Cotopaxi
volcano in 2015 and an earthquake that struck the Ecuadorian coast in 2016.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on this
indicator. The UNWTO estimates state that the number of tourists may decrease
in 2020 to match the number of 2002 (in the case of a 50% decrease), as indicated
in Fig. 9.3, while for scenarios 2 and 3, with a decrease of 70% and 78%,
respectively, the number of arrivals would be below half a million arrivals.
This decrease in international tourists visiting the Ecuadorian territory causes a
direct and immediate effect on the total income from foreign tourism. Official
data show that in 2019, foreign tourists spent USD 2.288 million, which means
166 Christian Viñán-Merecı́ et al.

Fig. 9.3. International Tourism, Number of Arrivals – Ecuador

(2000–2020). Source: The World Bank (2020).

Fig. 9.4. International Tourism, Income Contribution – Ecuador

(2000–2020). Source: The World Bank (2020).

that foreign tourism generated more than USD 6 million a day in this country.
According to the aforementioned estimates, the losses for 2020 will amount to
USD 1.327 million according to scenario 1. Based on scenario 2, the impact
implies a decrease of USD 1.600 million, whereas if international tourist arrivals
decrease by 78%, income loss will amount to USD 1.700 million. According to
this last scenario, which is the most critical, it is estimated that foreign tourism
revenues will barely exceed USD 500 million (Fig. 9.4).
After the impact on the MIP, drops in income were experienced in both sectors
of the economy. The results obtained are shown in Table 9.1. Data show that
every dollar invested in the tourism sector yielded on average USD 1.64 of
product, and each job generated represented an investment of USD 7.745. In
order to measure these data, we compared it with the results presented by
 Impacts of COVID-19 on Tourism-related Activities 167

Table 9.1. Effects of the Decrease in Income from International Tourism on

the Economy and Employment.

Scenario 1 Scenario 2 Scenario 3

(258%) (270%) (278%)
A. Loss of income from international tourism and sectoral distribution
Loss of income from international 21,327.0 21,601.3 21,784.3
tourism (USD millions)
Sectoral breakdown losses (USD
millions)
Accommodation 2132.7 2160.1 2178.4
Food and beverage service 21,194.3 21,441.1 21,605.8
B. Impact of the decrease in income from international tourism
Increase in production value (USD 22,179 22,630 22.930
millions)
Production growth rate 21.22 21.48 21.65
Investment value generated ratio 1.64 1.64 1.64
Increase in employment 2171,352 2206,759 2230,389
Employment growth rate 22.26 22.73 23.04
Investment per job generated (USD) 7,745 7,745 7,745
Reduction of taxes on production 210,518 212,692 214,142
(thousands of USD)
Growth rate from Tx to production 21.01 21.22 21.36
C. Jobs lost in the main sectors
Food and beverage service 2122,192 2147,441 2164,291
Wholesale and retail, including trade in 213,719 216,554 218,446
motor vehicles and motorcycles
Accommodation 27,994 29,646 210,748
Cattle breeding, other animal breeding, 26,813 28,221 29,160
animal products and support activities
Professional, technical and 24,026 24,858 25,413
administrative activities
Cereal crops 22,788 23,364 23,749
Farming of tubers, vegetables, melons 22,329 22,810 23,131
and fruits
Transport and storage 21,893 22,284 22,545
168 Christian Viñán-Merecı́ et al.

Quintana Romero and Correa-Quezada (2017) for the case of the mining multi-
plier in Ecuador. The authors found that each dollar invested in the mining sector
yielded on average USD 1.36 of product and each job generated represented an
investment of USD 14.646.
The results show that for scenario 1, a decrease in income of USD 1.327
million (which quantifies the impact of the consequences that this simulation
would have on the rest of the sectors), together with the fall in demand caused by
the decrease in tourist income in Ecuador would imply a decrease of 1.22% in
total production. Under this scenario, due to the interrelation of tourism activities
with the rest of the economy, more than 170,000 jobs would be lost, while the
state would stop collecting more than USD 10 million in taxes.
In scenario 2, in which the predictions point to a decrease of 70% in the
demand for accommodation and food and beverage services, estimates point to
207,750 jobs lost in all sectors. Therefore, the impact of COVID-19 on tourism
amounts to 22.73% for the employment variable, 21.48% in the production
indicator and 21.22% for taxes on production. Assuming that income from
tourism activities decreases by 78%, i.e., that it experiences a decrease of USD
1.784 million, the impact on the economy could lead to a contraction of 1.65% in
production. This slowdown would cause the labour market to lose 230,000 jobs in
May and the income from taxes on production would drop in 2020 by 1.36%
compared to 2019.
Eight sectors of the economy represent 95% of the overall job losses in all
scenarios. The food and beverage service is the most affected, since 7 out of 10
jobs lost are part of these activities. The other two sectors that are significantly
affected are trade and accommodation activities, which account for 8% and 5%,
respectively, of the total number of steady jobs lost.

6. Conclusions
Tourism represents one of Ecuador’s main economic sectors. The crisis resulting
from preventive measures against COVID-19 offers the opportunity to reorient
the production model and requires the implementation of measures needed to
redefine, promote and bring greater added value to tourism so that it can face a
future where sustainability is gaining more and more prominence.
This chapter focussed on the analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on the main
tourism activities in the light of three scenarios created for the study. The first,
based on UNWTO projections, considers three possible scenarios that predict
drops in the demand for accommodation and food and beverage services of 50%,
70% and 78%, respectively.
The calculations made led us to conclude that, based on the predictions
described and the first scenario outlined, tourism revenues will lose USD 1.327
million in 2020. While for scenario 2, the decrease in income from tourism will
amount to USD 1.700 million. Scenario 3, with a more critical approach, predicts
that tourism income will barely exceed USD 500 million.
 Impacts of COVID-19 on Tourism-related Activities 169

The forecast scenarios in the study reveal that the recovery of the sector will
not be easy, but the capacity that tourist destinations, emissive markets and host
communities have always shown in the face of changes triggered by crises has
been an important reactivation factor.
These conclusions are in accordance with those of Santana Turégano (2020)
that stress that tourists travel to other destinations to obtain psychophysical
benefits that can only be obtained when they leave their usual residence and that
host markets must be prepared for this new traveller.
On the other hand, this crisis has shown that the tourism sector needs to
generate more data to influence tourists’ decision-making processes. Therefore,
governments play a fundamental role to face the post-pandemic effects. Joint
work is required between public administration, the different companies that are a
direct and indirect part of the sector and academia to develop sustainable work at
territorial level.
The proposed scenarios also highlight several of the fluctuating situations and
natural and economic risk contexts that have affected the tourism sector for these
last two decades. Taleb (2012) claimed that crises are ‘black swans’, non-existent
events or events that are not expected to occur. However, these events will
eventually happen and are incidents that will alter the course of history. The
COVID-19 pandemic is a good example of a ‘black swan’. Furthermore, we must
learn to live in a world that we did not envision and that we probably could not
have foreseen. In this regard, health safety and the confidence in host markets will
be crucial to regain travel intentions, travellers’ arrivals and foreign exchange
revenues.
There are few or no official statistics on this matter; no one can predict when
tourism activities will fully resume or when consumers’ confidence will be
restored. There is no clue as to when the economy will be able to recover from this
crisis, whether the protective measures adopted by countries will really be effective
or what can be the effect of travel bans on some of the sectors that were most
affected by COVID-19. This uncertainty explains most of the limitations of this
study.

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Chapter 10

Covid-19 and Tourism in Mexico:

Economic Impacts and Prospects
Luis Quintana-Romero, Miguel Ángel Mendoza-González
and José Álvarez-Garcı́a

Abstract
Tourism is Mexico’s largest source of foreign exchange, only surpassed by
remittances and foreign direct investment, and is one of the most wealth-
generating economic activities in the country. However, measures to mitigate
the Covid-19 pandemic – such as the suspension of flights and strict
restrictions on people’s mobility – have caused great economic damage to the
tourism industry, and with it, to large regions in the country. This chapter
aims to determine the national and regional impacts of Covid-19 on Mexican
tourism and analyze potential recovery scenarios. To this end, the study
looks at tourism performance in Mexico in 2020 and compares it to the
experience of the H1N1 influenza epidemic of 2009. The methodology uses a
spatial econometric model to simulate potential impacts and prospective
recovery scenarios. Finally, recommendations for tourism policy consider
new trends in tourism, namely the rise in tourism advertising through digital
platforms, the surge in domestic, rural and environmental tourism, and the
development of a more informed, demanding and selective consumer.

Keywords: Tourism; Covid-19; economic recovery; regional development;

prospects; economic impacts

1. Introduction
In December 2019, a previously unknown virus – now named Sars-Cov2 (severe
acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) – broke out in China, unleashing a
sanitary emergency with no precedents in recent world history that continues to
unfold (Guan et al., 2020). In a very short time, the new virus and the disease it
causes, Covid-19, spread throughout the globe reaching the status of pandemic,

Pandemics and Travel, 173–191

Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
doi:10.1108/978-1-80071-070-220211011
174 Luis Quintana-Romero et al.

infecting hundreds of thousands of people and causing more than one million
deaths in less than a year. In all affected countries, the main measure to contain
the virus was ceasing all non-essential activities and restricting social interaction
(WHO, 2020). The consequences of these mitigation measures were closed
international and sub-national borders, cancelled air flights, minimum human
mobility and proscribed mass gatherings. According to data from the website
Flightradar24 – a real-time global flight tracking service – the number of com-
mercial flights decreased by 63% in the first few months of the pandemic.
Understandably, tourism became one of the most affected economic activities in
this context, and the prospects for its recovery are now a pertinent matter of
discussion (Dolnicar & Zare, 2020; Folinas & Metaxas, 2020; Gössling, Scott, &
Hall, 2020; Hoque, Shikha, Hasanat, Arif, & Hamid, 2020; Uğur & Akbıyık,
2020).
The importance of tourism has been widely documented under the tourism-led
growth hypothesis (TLGH) due to its significant effects on economic growth, as
its name suggests. This strand of literature has shown empirically that tourism is a
crucial generator of foreign exchange and has significant effects on income and
employment in destination countries (Belisle & Hoy, 1980; Brau, Lanza, &
Pigliaru, 2007; Lee & Chang, 2008; Nissan, Galindo, & Mendez, 2011). The
effects of tourism can be classified as direct, indirect and induced. Direct effects
are immediately visible in increased sales for companies that supply goods and
services to tourists. Indirect effects are also known as ‘flows on’ and come from
the purchases of inputs and the chain ramifications that spread towards other
companies. On their part, induced effects appear when recipients of direct and
indirect gains spend their additional income while still in the tourist destination
(Dwyer, Forsyth, Madden, & Spurr, 2000). Additionally, the competitiveness
within the tourism industry has been considered a stimulus for greater efficiency in
the economy and a meaningful source of economies of scale for companies in
other sectors operating in touristic regions (Balaguer & Cantavella-Jorda, 2002).
On the other hand, tourism activities tend to be very vulnerable to movements
in the economic cycle, given their high-income elasticity of demand and the great
weight they have on the economy (Song, Witt, & Li, 2009). However, there is no
consensus on the degree of synchronization that tourist activities have with the
business cycle (Andraz, Gouveia & Rodrigues, 2009; Bleile, 1993; Chen, Lin, &
Chen, 2015; Croes & Ridderstaat, 2017; Gouveia & Rodrigues, 2005; Sala,
Torres, & Farré, 2014).
Considering the valuable role that tourism has for economic growth and the
negative consequences that the pandemic-induced crisis has had on the main
economies of the world, it is now essential to analyze the prospects for the future
recovery of this industry in our countries. In the particular case of Mexico,
tourism is a key activity for the national economy and almost the sole source of
income for several large regions. Mexican tourist income is the third largest
source of foreign exchange, only after remittances and foreign direct investment,
and it generates around 9% of national gross domestic product (GDP). The
Ministry of Tourism has estimated that, if tourism in Mexico were completely
banned, the damage to the economy could mean a fall of more than 10% in total
 Covid-19 and Tourism in Mexico: Economic Impacts and Prospects 175

production and of almost 15% in employment in the country (SECTUR, 2016).

This scenario is actually not too far from the current situation caused by Covid-
19. Data collected by this same Ministry between January and August 2020
indicate a 47% drop in the arrival of tourists and a 56% reduction in foreign
exchange earnings, which can be mostly attributed to the repercussions of the
pandemic (SECTUR, 2020).
For those reasons – the importance that tourism has for Mexican economic
growth and the effects of Covid-19 on that particular sector – this chapter will
carry out a prospective study of the possibilities for future recovery. This work
will analyze tourism performance in Mexico in 2020 in order to compare it with
the situation faced by tourism during the H1N1 influenza epidemic of 2009; then,
it will make use of a spatial econometric model to determine the national and
regional impacts of Covid-19 on Mexican tourism and to forecast potential
recovery scenarios. Finally, a series of recommendations for tourism policy-
makers are drawn from these scenarios, taking into account the new ways of
doing tourism that were introduced by the current pandemic, such as the rise in
tourism advertising through digital platforms, the surge in certain types of
tourism – mainly domestic, rural and environmental – and the development of a
more informed, more demanding and more selective consumer.

2. Literature Review
In recent years, the global tourism industry has experienced many biosecurity
threats and natural disasters (Ritchie, 2008), but none at the scale of the current
pandemic caused by the Sars-Cov2 virus. Risks abound for tourist destinations
and their stakeholders, which is why several authors have attempted to classify
them. The World Economic Forum, for instance, identifies three main sources of
disasters: environmental, which can include both natural and man-made disasters,
geopolitical, mostly referring to terrorism, and social, such as pandemics and
epidemics (WEF, 2005). For Glaesser (2003), negative events can be arranged in a
diagram according to two criteria, if the appearance is gradual or sudden and if
the degree of control that the organization or destination has over the shocks is
high or low. Similarly, Luecke (2005) distinguishes between accidents and natural
events, health and environmental disasters, technological failures, economic and
market forces, and employee malpractices. Subsequently, Henderson (2007a)
classified the sources of crisis in the economic, political, socio-cultural, environ-
mental, technological and commercial fields depending on the origin of the threat,
if it was external or if it was internally caused by the organization or destination
itself. More recently, Uğur and Akbıyık (2020) identified six types of risk that
travellers tend to assess when faced with the choice of a tourist destination:
economic, socio-cultural, political, ecological, technical and medical.
According to Prideaux, Laws, and Faulkner (2003), despite the great vulner-
ability of the tourism sector to disasters, the industry continues to be poorly
prepared. Nonetheless, Pike and Page (2014) sustain that the tourism sector shows
great strength and resistance to crises and has a faster capacity for recovery than
176 Luis Quintana-Romero et al.

other sectors of economic activity. For this reason, and because of the close and
direct connection with many other sectors of the economy, Nagai (2012) and
Ghimire (2016) figure that post-disaster recovery usually starts in the tourism
sector, where investment returns and spillover effects on the economy as a whole
are faster and more readily achievable. Mateos, Mendoza, and Guillermo (2019,
p. 236) posit that it is

…in the medium and long term when tourism acquires a great
capacity for recovery, to become its own engine, due to its
transversal nature and its close connections with many other
economic activities.

However, in the short term, disasters affect the tourism sector causing a significant
reduction in visitors, which leads to significant economic losses, therefore causing a
profound recession in the sector (Beirman, 2003; De Sausmarez, 2007; Ritchie, 2004).
In the current Covid-19 pandemic, tourism has been one of the most affected pro-
ductive sectors; it represents up to 10% of revenues worldwide, but in the first eight
months of 2020 alone, international arrivals fell by 70% (UNWTO, 2020).
Most of the research carried out in the field of disasters and tourism (Ritchie &
Jiang, 2019) has focused on response and recovery, more specifically on the
economic effects on the tourism industry, while fewer studies have dealt with
reduction and preparedness, i.e., with management and planning of tourist
disasters (Ritchie, 2008). In this sense, Ritchie (2008, p. 319) has grouped this
literature according to the type of disaster ‘on natural hazards and disasters
generally’ (Meheux & Parker, 2006) and more specifically on: hurricanes
(Chandler, 2004; Higgins, 2005; Sonmez & Backman, 1992; Young & Mont-
gomery, 1998); flooding and tsunamis (Carlsen, 2006; Cheung & Law, 2006; De
Sausmarez, 2005; Faulkner & Vikulov, 2001; Garcı́a et al., 2006; Henderson,
2005; Henderson, 2007b; Ichinosawa, 2006; Reddy, 2005; Sharpley, 2005; );
earthquakes (Huang & Min, 2002; Young & Montgomery, 1998); bushfires
(Armstrong & Ritchie, 2008; Cioccio & Michael, 2007; Hystad & Keller, 2006);
biosecurity and disease, with an emphasis on the foot and mouth disease disaster
that occurred in the United Kingdom (Baxter & Bowen, 2004; Coles, 2004; Irvine
& Anderson, 2006; Miller & Ritchie, 2003; Ritchie, Dorrell, Miller, & Miller,
2004; Rodway-Dyer & Shaw, 2005; Sharpley & Craven, 2001; Williams & Fer-
guson, 2005); and biosecurity and diseases, with an emphasis on SARS, partic-
ularly in Asia-Pacific (Au, Ramasamy, & Yeung, 2005; Chien & Law, 2003;
Henderson & Ng, 2004; Huimin & Wall, 2006; Kim, Chun, & Lee, 2005;
McKercher & Chon, 2004; Pine & McKercher, 2004; Tse, So, & Sin, 2006; Wen,
Huimin, & Kavanaugh, 2005; Zeng, Carter, & Lacy, 2005).
The pandemic is not a year old yet, but some evaluations of its impacts on
tourism are already being conducted, even though most of the publications so far
may fall into the category of opinion articles or research notes (Kreiner & Ram,
2020). At a global level, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Devel-
opment (UNCTAD) (2020) has used a computable general equilibrium model to
evaluate the effect of Covid-19 by assimilating it to a shock in productivity.
 Covid-19 and Tourism in Mexico: Economic Impacts and Prospects 177

Results indicate that global losses in production would range from 1.2 to 3.3
trillion dollars, depending on the duration of the collective illness and the
restrictions to economic activities.
Despite its global reach, the effects of Covid-19 have not been homogeneous
around the world, nor within countries. Marques Santos, Madrid, Haegeman,
and Rainoldi (2020) used panel econometric models on European Union data and
determined that the greatest job losses will be suffered in Germany, Italy, Spain
and France. An Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD) (2020) study for Southeast Asia pointed out that, because the virus first
broke out in China, which represents 17% of tourists, the whole region would
suffer great disruptive effects in terms of tourism. Other studies have made use of
seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average (SARIMA) models. It was the
case of the studies conducted by Centeno and Marquez (2020) for the Philippines
and by Correa-Martı́nez, Kampmeier, Kümpers, and Schwierzeck (2020) for
Austria.
The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)
(2020) estimations carried out to measure the effects of the pandemic in Latin
America found that the arrival of international and domestic tourists had declined
by 50% in March and reached a fall of almost 100% in April in Mexico and in
several other countries in the Caribbean, Central America and South America.
Notwithstanding the timely preparation of several global and regional analyses
on the effects of the pandemic on tourism, there is still a great limitation in sub-
national studies. Since international organizations tend to favour the national and
international dimensions in their analysis of the pandemic, it is fundamental to
produce additional studies that are capable of evaluating the within-country
conditions faced by states and regions that are highly dependent on tourism. In
this sense, the present work aims to establish national scenarios and scenarios for
Mexican touristic regions, in order to analyze the full impact of Covid-19 on
tourism in the country.

3. Methodology
The methodology relies on a set of econometric models for territorial prediction
developed by the authors at the Regional Economic Analysis Laboratory of the
National Autonomous University of Mexico (LabREG-UNAM) in 2020 to run
simulations to study the potential impacts of Covid-19 on the economic growth of
tourism and other economic activities in Mexico.1
A set of dynamic spatial panel models (Mendoza & Valdivia, 2016; Mendoza,
Valdivia, & Quintana, 2016; Salas, Quintana, Mendoza, & Valdivia, 2020) is used
to estimate the effects of Covid-19 on four fronts: on international and national
tourism, on flows of international goods (exports and imports), on foreign direct
investment and on remittances. The simulations are run in the economic sub-
sectors that are most closely linked to the tourism industry in the North American
Industrial Classification System (NAICS): the subsectors of accommodation, food
services and drinking places.2
178 Luis Quintana-Romero et al.

3.1 Model Specification by Economic Activity

The main explanatory factors for the activities of accommodation, food services
and drinking places (tourism) are the percentage of occupancy by national and
international tourists (ocupa) and the density of national and international
tourism (densi). Additional econometric models were specified for the primary,
secondary and tertiary sectors, bearing in mind that the latter includes all trade
and services other than accommodation, food services and drinking places. The
additional explanatory variables (Z) are the ratios of remittances to GDP
(rem=pib), exports to GDP (exp=pib) and foreign direct investment to GDP
(ied=pib), as well as GDP per capita (pibhab). All variables are disaggregated by
state.
In sum, the methodology specifies models to explain the growth rate of the
GDP (tpib) of 70 subsectors of economic activity (i) in the 32 states that constitute
the country (j), for the time period (t) that ranges between 2003 and 2019. A
spatial weights matrix (W ) was included to take into account the externality of
economic growth in close neighbours (Wtpib) as an explanatory variable, as
defined in Eq. (10.1):
tpibi;j;t ¼ r1;i Wtpibi;j;t 1 b1;i lnðOcupaÞi;j;t 2 1 1 b2;i lnðDensiÞi;j;t 2 1 1 b3;i lnðZÞi;j;t 2 1 1 ui;j;t
(10.1)

3.2 Data and Variable Transformation

The GDP database for the 70 economic subsectors by state was built from two
sources: the state accounts and the economic censuses of 2004, 2009, 2014 and
2019, both collected and published by the National Institute of Statistics and
Geography (INEGI). The percentages of occupancy by national and international
tourists and the densities of national and international tourism by state were
obtained from the Ministry of Tourism, and the additional explanatory variables
(Z) come mainly from national accounts and state accounts of INEGI.
The spatial weights matrix (W ) is based on a Reyna-type territorial proximity
rule, following the cartography of the 32 states.3 The only transformation of all
variables is their natural logarithm, in such a way that the estimated coefficients
will be elasticities.

3.3 Estimation Methods

The spatial panel models were estimated using the maximum likelihood method
with fixed effects, which assumes heterogeneity in each economic subsector across
states. In all cases, autoregressive spatial effects were included.4
Models for the 70 subsectors of economic activity in the 32 states are a part of
the macroeconomic models developed at LabREG-UNAM. These models
compile a macro-regional system that solves simultaneously and is used to
simulate the prediction scenarios. The procedure to generate the simulations
consists of using the predictions of a macroeconomic model for the US economy
 Covid-19 and Tourism in Mexico: Economic Impacts and Prospects 179

together with the macro-regional model for Mexico and solving the models in
equation (1) to simulate the effects of the lower international tourist occupancy
and density and on the growth of sector GDP and total GDP for all Mexican
states.
The procedure can then measure the extent of the expected impacts from the
social and productive restriction measures imposed by Covid-19 on tourism’s
GDP growth (accommodation, food services and drinking places) and on the rest
of economic activities in Mexican states.

4. Results
Results from the LabREG-UNAM macroeconomic models for the United States
and Mexico were used as an input for the simulations for economic activities in
the states. The variables that these models can predict serve as assumptions to
create a baseline scenario for the simulations; these variables are GDP growth,
unemployment rates, employment, inflation and interest rates of both countries.
From the defined baseline scenario, the simulation predicts that the US
economy is expected to reduce its GDP growth by 26.1% and have an average
unemployment rate of 9.0% by the end of 2020. Mexico would experience a
decline of 28.7% in its GDP, with an unemployment rate of 7.2% and an inflation
rate of 4% in the year of 2020 as well.
The trends shown by the Mexican Ministry of Tourism from January to
August 2020 serve as the base to build the model premises and create the baseline
for tourist occupancy percentages by state. These trends exhibit a fall of 36% in
national occupancy and an even steeper fall in occupancy at beach centres,
between 240% and 246% in places like Nuevo Vallarta (Nayarit), Puerto Val-
larta (Jalisco), Cancun (Quintana Roo), Los Cabos and Cabo San Lucas (Baja
California Sur).5
There are some differences and similarities between the expected territorial
distribution of the 2020 economic crisis, induced by the Covid-19 pandemic, and
the observed distribution of the 2009 crisis, which combined the aftermath of the
US economic crisis and the H1N1 influenza epidemic.
Unlike what happened in 2009, the current pandemic has had a greater effect
on regional economies specialized in activities linked to tourism and on the ones
that require a more intense labour, due to the sustained restrictions on social
interaction as part of the pandemic mitigation measures. The main similarity
between the two crises occurs in states that followed a specialization pattern
towards manufacturing activities that make intense use of technology, since these
depend heavily on global markets and are, therefore, very sensitive to drops in
demand for their exports. Both crises triggered a shock in exports demand, but the
Covid-19 pandemic crisis is mostly associated with the mandated interruption of
economic activities in all countries and, in particular, the United States.
Table 10.1 shows that, in regional terms, states that predominantly favour
secondary activities were more affected during the 2009 crisis, as was the case of
Coahuila, which had a GDP fall of 215.5%, and Chihuahua and Tamaulipas,
Table 10.1. Simulated Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Growth, Contribution to National Growth by State and

180
Contribution to State Growth by Economic Sector and Tourism Activities in 2020.

Luis Quintana-Romero et al.

GDP Annual Contribution to State Growth
Growth Rate Contribution to National by Sector 2020b
State 2008 2009 2019 2020 Growth by State 2020a Primary Secondary Tertiaryc Tourismd
Aguascalientes 0.4 25.1 20.6 26.2 20.08 0.13 24.4 22.0 20.6
Baja California 20.9 210.9 1.8 211.8 20.38 0.12 25.4 26.6 20.9
Baja California Sur 2.6 20.6 27.4 211.9 20.11 0.05 22.1 29.9 29.0
Campeche 28.5 210.0 22.3 24.3 20.13 0.00 23.8 20.5 20.3
Coahuila 20.4 215.5 0.9 215.4 20.55 0.09 213.6 21.9 20.4
Colima 1.8 23.2 4.1 25.0 20.03 0.13 0.7 25.8 21.4
Chiapas 2.3 20.6 22.2 24.0 20.06 20.07 21.1 22.8 21.3
Chihuahua 1.4 29.0 2.0 212.0 20.39 0.21 28.6 23.6 20.6
Mexico City 1.7 23.6 20.2 29.3 21.64 0.00 21.5 27.8 20.8
Durango 1.9 21.6 1.1 26.8 20.08 0.11 24.5 22.5 20.5
Guanajuato 2.9 24.2 20.4 26.5 20.27 0.02 23.4 23.1 21.0
Guerrero 1.7 23.4 21.4 23.3 20.05 0.05 20.9 22.5 23.2
Hidalgo 3.5 26.3 21.1 27.9 20.12 0.10 26.5 21.5 20.5
Jalisco 0.6 25.3 0.4 27.3 20.51 0.33 23.5 24.1 21.3
Mexico State 1.1 25.0 22.2 28.5 20.74 20.01 24.0 24.5 20.5
Michoacán 1.9 25.3 0.1 26.7 20.16 0.53 21.9 25.2 20.8
Morelos 0.2 20.8 22.1 210.2 20.11 0.17 26.0 24.4 22.0
Nayarit 7.2 25.3 20.2 212.0 20.08 0.08 23.1 29.0 26.7

Covid-19 and Tourism in Mexico: Economic Impacts and Prospects

Nuevo León 1.6 26.6 1.7 29.3 20.71 0.00 25.9 23.5 20.8
Oaxaca 3.1 20.9 23.3 24.9 20.07 20.13 23.4 21.4 21.5
Puebla 0.7 27.8 20.5 210.4 20.35 20.02 25.8 24.6 21.2
Querétaro 2.5 22.9 0.1 213.0 20.30 0.04 28.8 24.2 20.9
Quintana Roo 5.2 28.5 0.2 215.7 20.26 0.01 20.7 215.0 211.6
San Luis Potosı́ 2.2 25.3 21.3 27.7 20.16 20.08 24.9 22.8 21.3
Sinaloa 3.5 24.2 1.0 26.5 20.15 0.17 21.8 24.8 22.3
Sonora 0.3 26.0 20.8 28.4 20.27 20.05 24.4 24.0 20.8
Tabasco 4.7 4.4 25.4 24.9 20.12 0.02 21.1 23.9 20.9
Tamaulipas 4.2 29.0 1.4 212.7 20.36 0.00 26.4 26.3 20.9
Tlaxcala 5.3 21.8 6.5 28.4 20.05 20.01 25.4 23.0 20.6
Veracruz 20.2 22.2 0.2 25.9 20.27 20.02 22.6 23.3 21.0
Yucatán 1.0 22.0 1.5 24.9 20.07 0.15 21.6 23.5 21.4
Zacatecas 9.0 3.3 23.2 26.4 20.05 1.02 24.5 22.9 20.8
Total National 1.0 25.2 20.3 28.7 28.7 0.07 24.0 24.7 21.8
a
Contribution to national growth by state is measured as the country’s annual growth rate of 2019–2020 weighted by gross domestic product (GDP) state
share in 2019.
b
Contribution to state growth by sector is measured as the states’ annual growth rate of 2019–2020 weighted by GDP sector share in 2019.
c
Tertiary sector includes all trade and services other than accommodation, food services and drinking places.
d
The tourism sector corresponds to North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) subsectors, 721 Accommodation and 722 Food Services and
Drinking Places.
Source: Authors’ own estimations based on results from LabREG-UNAM impact simulations of the regional territorial offer model by productive
subsectors in Mexico, 2020. GDP annual growth rate 2008, 2009 and 2019 are measurements by the authors based on National Institute of Statistics and

181
Geography (INEGI).
182 Luis Quintana-Romero et al.

both with declines of 29.0%. Under the current economic crisis, states with a
stronger economic activity based on the tertiary sector are expected to experience
the greatest impacts. This was the case of Quintana Roo that would experience
an estimated GDP decline of 215.7% – the largest in the country – Nayarit
(212.0%), Baja California Sur (211.9%) and Mexico City (29.3%); see first map
of Fig. 10.1.
The states of Quintana Roo, Nayarit and Baja California Sur are expected to
experience a negative effect on their GDP, as their economy depends greatly on
the tertiary sector and particularly on economic activities that include accom-
modation, food services and drinking places (see the second map in Fig. 10.1). In
the case of Mexico City, the economic activities that could explain the crisis at the
national level are, in this order, wholesale trade, retail trade, arts, entertainment,
recreation, accommodation, food services and drinking places. However, the City
does not depend solely on these services; as can be seen in Table 10.1, construction
and manufacturing (secondary sector) would contribute less than two percentage
points to its economic downturn in 2020.
To deepen the analysis of the effects that Covid-19 has on the tourist activities
of accommodation, food services and drinking places and on the economic
growth of the states of Quintana Roo, Baja California Sur and Nayarit, Fig. 10.2
charts the 10 most relevant activities according to their contribution to the decline
of the GDP in each of these states.
The most salient feature in Fig. 10.2 is that the largest expected contribution to
the fall in state GDP by tourism-related economic activities will occur in Quin-
tana Roo. Tourism is the industry that will make for the greatest contribution to
deepen the economic crisis in the three states analyzed. However, Quintana Roo is
the state that will undergo the deepest tourism-led crisis, and service sector
activities such as wholesale trade (43) and administrative and support services (56)
will be greatly affected. Additionally, the link between tourist activities and arts,
entertainment and recreation services (71) is clearer in the case of Quintana Roo
than in Baja California or Nayarit. This is relevant because cultural services are
one of the most impacted sectors in states where economic activity is expected to
decline by more than 50%.
Another noteworthy feature is that the manufacturing sector (31–33) is not a
prominent economic activity in these three states; in turn, the construction
industry (23) is the second activity that explains the economic decline in Baja
California Sur and Nayarit in 2020, which means that the sector is marginal in the
state of Quintana Roo but will be relevant in the economic reactivation process of
these two states.

5. Conclusions and Implications

Results have shown that the current pandemic has impacted more severely on
Mexican states that are most dependent on tourism. In some of these states,
product decline has almost doubled the country’s average. The most affected
states are Quintana Roo, where Cancun – the main Mexican tourist centre – is
 Covid-19 and Tourism in Mexico: Economic Impacts and Prospects 183

Fig. 10.1. Contribution of Tourism to State Growth 2020.

Source: Authors’ creation using data from Table 10.1.

located, Baja California Sur, which encloses the great attraction of Los Cabos
beach, and Nayarit, home of more modern tourist developments in Punta Mita
and Nuevo Vallarta. The crisis in tourism generates negative multiplier effects in
other sectors, notably in the trade sectors and arts, entertainment and recreation
services.
Recovery prospects for Mexican tourist regions should take into account new
forms of tourism that are compatible with consumers’ higher risk perception,
184 Luis Quintana-Romero et al.

Top 10 sectors by contribution to economic growth in Quintana Roo, 2020

72 Accommodation, Food Services and Drinking Places

43 Wholesale Trade
56 Administrative and Support and Waste Management and
71 Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation
23 Construction
46 Retail Trade
53 Real Estate, Rental and Leasing
48-49 Transportation and Warehousing
327 Non-metallic Mineral Product Manufacturing

Weighted growth rate 22 Utilities

-14.00 -12.00 -10.00 -8.00 -6.00 -4.00 -2.00 0.00

Top 10 sectors by contribution to economic growth in Baja California Sur, 2020

72 Accommodation, Food Services and Drinking Places

23 Construction
46 Retail Trade
43 Wholesale Trade
48-49 Transportation and Warehousing
21 Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction
56 Administrative and Support and Waste Management…
71 Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation
54 Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services

Weighted growth rate 327 Non-metallic Mineral Product Manufacturing

-14.00 -12.00 -10.00 -8.00 -6.00 -4.00 -2.00 0.00

Top 10 sectors by contribution to economic growth in Nayarit, 2020

72 Accommodation, Food Services and Drinking Places

23 Construction
53 Real Estate, Rental and Leasing
22 Utilities
46 Retail Trade
43 Wholesale Trade
61 Educational Services
48-49 Transportation and Warehousing
324-326 Petroleum and Coal, Chemical, Plastics and…

Weighted growth rate 21 Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction

-14.00 -12.00 -10.00 -8.00 -6.00 -4.00 -2.00 0.00

Note: Contribu on to state growth by sector is measured as the states' annual growth rate
of 2019-2020 weighted by GDP sector share in 2019.

Fig. 10.2. Contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Growth

Rates of Quintana Roo, Baja California Sur and Nayarit by Most Relevant
Economic Sectors in 2020. Note: Contribution to state growth by sector is
measured as the states’ annual growth rate of 2019–2020 weighted by GDP
sector share in 2019. Source: Authors’ own estimations based on results from
LabREG-UNAM impact simulations of the regional territorial offer model
by productive subsectors in Mexico, 2020.
 Covid-19 and Tourism in Mexico: Economic Impacts and Prospects 185

which is bound to last for at least a couple more years – or for as long as an
effective vaccine is available at a massive scale and at an affordable price.
Decreased social interaction will also continue to pose a threat for tourism, as
subsequent waves of contagion will require restrictions anew. Therefore, the basis
for the resurgence of post-Covid tourism activities will rely on local tourism,
which excludes the need for air travel, on outdoor tourism, which dampens the
possibilities of contagion, on digital media tourism and more generally, on
tourism activities that offer extreme sanitary safety measures.
Due to the increased perception of risk, tourist services will face more demanding
consumers, who will press for more information that will allow them to carry out their
own risk assessments. Regions should advocate for a new model of inclusive tourism,
one in which information regarding health, environmental and social matters is issued
in a timely and appropriate manner to create awareness in potential tourists.
For airlines, recommencing travel will require a complete transformation in
the way companies operate. At the outset, administrative planning needs to be
more detailed and allow for adjustments in the uncertainty horizon in demand for
at least one more year, or for as long as it takes the vaccine against the virus to
become fully available. Additionally, airlines will need to further professionalize
home office workers in all of their processes and consider the very real possibility
that a large part of them will continue to operate remotely in the long run.
Therefore, companies must make administrative changes that yield an effective
management of any combination of online work and face-to-face work. In
Mexico, government authorities have not offered support plans for airlines to
cope with higher costs, which makes careful finance management, debt negotia-
tion and staff adjustments even more important to avoid bankruptcy.
Finally, one more relevant element to consider for the recovery of tourism lies
in greater service flexibility. It will become paramount to allow for itinerary
changes and cancellations in a straightforward, agile and inexpensive manner, in
accordance with the public health situation at the time. In this sense, efforts to
develop more forecasting models on the supply and demand of air travel are
relevant and can help companies draw up a careful and decisive planning of their
operations in the near and distant future.
Funding: This research was supported by UNAM project ‘PAPIIT-IN308721
Public policies for urban economic reactivation and restructuring in Mexico in the
face of economic and social impacts of COVID-19’, Directorate General of
Academic Personnel Affairs (DGAPA) Articulation Network.

Notes
1. Regional Economic Analysis Laboratory of the National Autonomous University
of Mexico (LabREG-UNAM) recent reports on the Covid-19 pandemic are
available at: https://labregional-unam.blogspot.com.
2. Subsectors corresponding to tourism are the 721 Accommodation and 722 Food
Services and Drinking Places, which comprise 72 Accommodation and Food
Services, according to the North American Industrial Classification System
(NAICS). Mexico has been using this classification system along with the United
186 Luis Quintana-Romero et al.

States and Canada since the beginning on NAFTA. NAICS identifies sectors of the
economy with two digits, subsectors with three, branches with four, sub-branches
with five and classes of economic activity with six.
3. The spatial weight matrix W is a binary matrix of physical contiguity; it assigns 1
when two municipalities or counties have a common border and 0 otherwise. These
matrices were defined following the methodology proposed by Anselin (1989),
using Reyna-type contiguities to allow maximizing the number of spatial contacts.
4. For further details on this methodology, please refer to Elhorst (2010).
5. Data from the Mexican Ministry of Tourism are available at: https://www.data-
tur.sectur.gob.mx/SitePages/ActividadHotelera.aspx.

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Chapter 11

Celebrity Positive WOM and the Impact on

Tourist Perceptions: COVID-19 and the
Case of Portugal
Inês Almeida

Abstract
This chapter presents a theoretical reflection on the possible impact of pol-
iticians’ positive Word of Mouth (pWOM) on the tourists’ risk perception
and destination image of Portugal in the context of the COVID-19
pandemic. The reflection is based on the collection of remarks or com-
ments made by international politicians collected using Google as the search
engine and subsequent manual textual content analysis. The results show
five recurring themes in the politicians’ pWOM: general praise, pandemic
numbers, politician positioning, health care and population attitude. The
discussion includes a reflection on the outputs of the channels used for the
dissemination of the messages and the importance of the politicians’ coun-
tries of origin to a market strategy that highlights Portugal as a tourism
destination.

Keywords: Word of mouth; celebrities; risk perception; destination image;

COVID-19; Portugal

1. Introduction
On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19
a pandemic (Turnšek et al., 2020). According to Gossling, Scott, and Hall (2020),
none of the most recent epidemics/pandemics ‘had similar implications for the
global economy as the COVID-19 pandemic’ (p. 6) and the hospitality value
chain suddenly became one of the most affected economic activities.
Despite the concrete measures taken to contain the disease, risk perception related
to hazards can have a substantial negative impact on tourist demand (Seabra, Reis, &
Abrantes, 2020). One risk-reduction strategy is the search for information focussing

Pandemics and Travel, 193–209

Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
doi:10.1108/978-1-80071-070-220211012
194 Inês Almeida

on the event and/or destination (Almeida-Garcı́a, Domı́gunez-Azcue, Mercadé-

Melé, & Pérez-Tapia, 2020). That way, the aim of this chapter is to present a theo-
retical reflection on the possible impact of politicians’ positive Word of Mouth
(pWOM) on tourist risk perception and on the destination image of Portugal in the
context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The collection of remarks made by international
politicians collected using Google (and posterior manual textual content analysis) is
the basis of the reflection.
Previous literature shows that information sources are important mediators of
risk during and after crisis (Kapuscinski & Richards, 2016; Xie, Huang, Lin, &
Chen, 2020) and a relevant element in the construction of perceived images in
tourism (Almeida-Garcı́a et al., 2020). WOM, in particular, is one of the sources
of information that plays a major role in the process of creating perceptions and
of decision-making in tourism (Confente, 2015; Tham, Croy, & Mair, 2013).
Similarly, celebrities have a great influence on the shaping of perceptions, on the
retention of information and on the adoption of certain attitudes by individuals
(Kim, Chow, & Petrick, 2018), including in aspects related to health care
(Hoffman et al., 2017) and in matters related to tourism (Nicolau, Sharma, &
Shin, 2020).
This study introduces a current gap in literature: celebrity WOM, especially
politicians’ WOM, seen as a possible strategic tool for the communication of
destinations during and after crises that are capable of affecting tourism. The
study focusses on Portugal as a case study, because of its competitiveness and
security and because of the positive WOM and media coverage it is receiving
internationally due to the way it has handled the pandemic.
The chapter begins with the presentation of the theoretical background of the
main constructs that support the reflection on the case study. The methodology
section contains the contextualization and justification of the reasons that made
Portugal the destination selected for the case study, a selection composed of
examples of politician’s WOM and the clarification of the proceedings. The
following section comprises the results and the discussion of the statements
collected. The last part of the chapter presents the main conclusions of the study,
as well as its limitations and implications.

2. Theoretical Background
2.1 COVID-19 and the Importance of Communication during a Crisis
On 31 December 2019, several cases of pneumonia were reported in Wuhan
(China) (Gössling, Scott, & Hall, 2020) and the problem rapidly spread to other
continents. WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic by 11 March 2020 (Turnšek
et al., 2020). On 23 November 2020, WHO reports 58,425,681 confirmed cases of
COVID-19 and 1,385,218 deaths worldwide (WHO, 2020).
The virus has spread rapidly all over the world and caused a widespread panic
fuelled mainly by social networks (Depoux et al., 2020). In fact, the pandemic has
shown how powerful and necessary information networks are during and after
crises. According to Kapuscinski and Richards (2016), the ‘lack of personal
 Celebrity Positive WOM and the Impact on Tourist Perceptions 195

experience with hazards [such as the COVID-19 pandemic] (…) increases audi-
ences’ reliance on secondary sources of information’ (p. 234) to make decisions.
Through an empirical study, the same authors concluded that ‘the use of risk
amplifying frame and risk attenuating frame result in higher and lower ratings of
risk, respectively’ (Kapuscinski & Richards, 2016, p. 234). The study showed that
the narrative delivered by the different information networks has a tremendous
impact on people’s perception of the reality surrounding them. Therefore, safety
communication is of great relevance in crisis contexts and serves several purposes:
to inform, to prevent risk attitudes, to assuage perceptions of risk and to repair
the image of the affected territory or product (Wang & Lopez, 2020). Health and
governmental authorities can contribute to improving that situation with the
creation of official platforms and forums containing reliable information (Depoux
et al., 2020), as several governments and organizations have done since the
beginning of the pandemic (e.g., WHO; National Health Service, Portugal). But
the fact is that, apart from the official sources, the news broadcast by other
information networks may have a massive impact on crisis management.
News media have a great influence on mediating risk perceptions of hazards
(Kapuscinski & Richards, 2016). These sources attribute more or less significance
to the occurrence(s) (Hall, 2002), create positive or negative images through the
interpretation and coverage of the key events (Wang & Lopez, 2020) and reach a
large part of the population.
Social media can be a particularly important platform of formal and informal
communication during (health) crises (Yu, Li, Yu, He, & Zhou, 2020) that allows
the proliferation of multiple and spontaneous perspectives (Nicolau et al., 2020)
and amplifies and accelerates the spread of messages (Hoffman et al., 2017).
Nicolau et al. (2020) argue that this medium is even more penetrative than
traditional mass media channels. In this perspective, public health and govern-
mental officials can proactively use social media as a tool to spread relevant and
truthful narratives in a global forum (Depoux et al., 2020). Nonetheless, as
anyone is free to share information and insights, the risk of misinformation on
social media (Depoux et al., 2020) and of escalating the crisis instead of mitigating
it (Sigala, 2011, as cited in Mizrachi & Fuchs, 2016) is high.
Celebrity WOM – a communication perceived as non-commercial in which the
communicator is a well-known individual – is another influent (Hoffman et al.,
2017), but less investigated, way to spread reliable information.

2.2 WOM and Celebrities: Impact on Tourism

Information sources contribute to the shaping of the perceived image of a desti-
nation (Almeida-Garcı́a et al., 2020), namely in the moment of pre-travel (Xie
et al., 2020). On this matter, scholars and consumers are progressively considering
informal networks as reliable sources (Jeuring & Haartsen, 2017).
WOM is ‘an oral person-to-person communication between a receiver and a
communicator whom the receiver perceives as non-commercial, regarding a
brand, product, or service’ (Arndt, 1967, as cited in Confente, 2015, p. 614).
196 Inês Almeida

According to several authors, WOM is particularly influential in the process of

consumers’ tourism decision-making process (e.g., Confente, 2015; Lopes,
Abrantes, & Kastenholz, 2013).
As the receiver perceives that the messenger gets no direct benefits from the
communication, he considers WOM as a more credible (Williams, Inversini, &
Ferdinand, 2017), sincere (Jalilvand, Samiei, Dini, & Manzari, 2012) and trust-
worthy (Jeuring & Haartsen, 2017) source of information than other means,
including information provided by the destinations or enterprises themselves
(Jalilvand et al., 2012).
Electronic word of mouth (eWOM) is a natural evolution of the traditional
WOM, a transition from recommendations between friends and relatives to online
forums and platforms (Chen, Dwyer, & Firth, 2018). EWOM has several
advantages over the traditional WOM and other sources of information: (1) it can
reach a larger amount of individuals (Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh, &
Gremler, 2004), hence being more accessible (Chen et al., 2018) than other
sources; (2) it allows information to be available for an indefinite period of time
(Hennig-Thurau et al., 2004); (3) the spread of the message is faster (Chen et al.,
2018); (4) it enables the existence of feedback mechanisms (Confente, 2015) and
(5) it allows the potential consumer to have access to information at a low cost
and at any given moment (Lee, Law, & Murphy, 2011).
Nonetheless, previous studies show that familiarity with the source influences
positively its perceived credibility (Hilligoss & Rieh, 2008) and that a source
perceived as reliable has a greater influence on the receiver (Loureiro & Sarmento,
2018). With eWOM, a considerable part of the contributions is anonymous
(Hennig-Thurau et al., 2004), which increases the perceived credibility of mes-
sages coming from known sources, namely those coming from celebrities.
Celebrities – including athletes, entertainment stars, religious leaders, media
personalities, socialites and politicians – ‘can have a tremendous influence on the
knowledge we retain, the attitudes we adopt and the decisions we make’ (Hoff-
man et al., 2017, p. 1). Celebrities are often seen as ‘trusted and informed indi-
viduals’ (Lee et al., 2011, p. 677) who have an important role as carriers of
relevant information and as legitimizers of external agents (Dalrymple, Shaw, &
Brossard, 2013).
Celebrity WOM can be a relevant strategy in the communication of a product
or destination for several reasons. Firstly, psychology studies assert that celebrity
advice generates a conditioned positive reaction on individuals (Hoffman et al.,
2017). It is also empirically proven that, when lacking knowledge about a prod-
uct, consumers are willing to rely on the advice from a celebrity (Kim et al., 2018).
The association of a message or brand to a celebrity also contributes to its
credibility (Tham et al., 2013), as the celebrity transfers its characteristics to the
object (Hoffman et al., 2017). Williams et al. (2017) concluded that, in eWOM,
individuals are more likely to accept and share content previously shared by
celebrities, media or institutions.
The rise of social networks contributes to the influence of these individuals, as
it facilitates the direct communication with the public and the proliferation of
their messages (Hoffman et al., 2017; Nicolau et al., 2020). On this matter, Aleti,
 Celebrity Positive WOM and the Impact on Tourist Perceptions 197

Pallant, Tuan, and van Laer (2019) highlighted Twitter as one of the most used
platforms by celebrities.
Despite the general understanding of celebrity WOM as a credible source,
some elements may optimize its impact (Hilligoss & Rieh, 2008; Kim et al., 2018):

• Credibility, trustworthiness and reliability of the messenger;

• Familiarity of the receiver of the message with the celebrity;
• Level of perceived knowledge/expertise of the individual on the matter.

2.3 COVID-19 and Risk Perception in Tourism: The Role of WOM

Safety is one of the tourists’ main concerns (Seabra et al., 2020) and plays a major
role in travel decisions (Turnšek et al., 2020).
Scholars frequently include health-related risks in the category of physical risks
(Maser & Weiermair, 1998) that refers to ‘impacts on physical and psychological
well-being’ (Seabra et al., 2020, p. 3). Although health-related risks have become
a primordial topic in tourism research since the beginning of the pandemic,
previous research on the topic is scarce (Turnšek et al., 2020).
Bearing in mind the tourist’s decision-making process, Mizrachi and Fuchs (2016)
affirm that risk perception might weight more than the real risk posed by the desti-
nation. According to Chien, Sharifpour, Ritchie, and Watson (2017), risk perception
is ‘the negatively balanced likelihood assessment that an unfavourable event related
to travel health and safety will occur over a specified time period’ (p. 107).
Previous studies concluded that risk perception influences significantly
and negatively destination image (Chew & Jahari, 2014) and travel intentions
(Abubakar, 2016; Jalilvand et al., 2012). That way, prospective tourists can adopt
three attitudes when perceiving risk: to postpone the trip, to change the desti-
nation or to adopt strategies to reduce perceived risk (Mizrachi & Fuchs, 2016).
Looking for information in different sources is one of the risk-reduction
strategies (Almeida-Garcı́a et al., 2020), especially in a pre-travel moment (Xie
et al., 2020).
Since the beginning of the pandemic, national tourism agencies have developed
promotional strategies to mitigate anxieties and to continue to be part of the (pro-
spective) tourists’ fond memories (e.g., Can’t Skip Hope, Portugal; Till We Meet
Again, Dubai). Private tourism actors are also reaching costumers through promo-
tional efforts, personalized communication and safety and hygiene certifications.
Nevertheless, non-commercial and non-institutional information sources must
support and complement these efforts. As individuals perceive social media and
online communities as more trustworthy sources than the destinations/enterprises
themselves (Jeuring & Haartsen, 2017) and because they contribute to spread
information worldwide in real time (Turnšek et al., 2020), they become highly
strategic media during crisis events (Yu et al., 2020).
The few empirical studies that relate WOM to security perception in tourism
show that the former has a positive influence on the latter (e.g., Abubakar, 2016),
198 Inês Almeida

as it creates a sense of guarantee and lowers fears and uncertainties (Martilha,

1971, as cited in Abubakar, 2016).
The impact of celebrity WOM on health crisis is yet to be studied. However,
previous literature established that celebrities can be important resources for the
promotion of public health messages and preventative behaviours among the
population (Hoffman et al., 2017). Besides, empirical studies assert that individ-
uals perceive known resources as more credible than others (Hilligoss & Rieh,
2008; Loureiro & Sarmento, 2018). Therefore, it is possible to assume that
celebrity WOM can have a positive impact on security perception during a health-
related crisis.

3. Methodology
As stated previously, the aim of this research is to analyze the possible impact of
politicians’ WOM on the tourist perceptions of Portugal in the context of
COVID-19, based on the statements shared by international politicians.
The choice of Portugal as the case study is based on its tourist performance
over the past few years and on the positive international feedback received by the
Portuguese response to the pandemic.
Between 2008 and 2018, Portugal had an average annual growth of 12% in
tourists’ arrivals (UNWTO, 2020), and in 2019, there was a 6.8% growth
compared to the previous year (the European average was 3.5% over the same
period) (European Travel Commission, 2020). The Travel & Tourism Competi-
tiveness Index 2019 (World Economic Forum, 2019) showed that Portugal was
the 12th most competitive destination in the world and the country ranked 9th in
the Safety and Security category. Still in terms of safety, the 2020 Global Peace
Index considered Portugal the 3rd safest country in the whole world (Institute for
Economics & Peace, 2020). In the 2019 Global Health Security Index, Portugal
reached the general 20th position and ranked 8th in the Respond category
(Nuclear Threat Initiative, 2019), which is relevant for the current pandemic
situation.
On 2 March 2020, the authorities reported the first confirmed case of COVID-19
in Portugal (Público, 2020). Portugal was the 39th country with the highest number
of confirmed COVID-19 cases by 13 July 2020 and dropped to 47th by 25 August
2020; in terms of deaths caused by COVID-19, Portugal was the 21st country with
the highest death rate worldwide per million population in 13 July 2020 and
dropped to 26th by 25 August 2020. On 23 November 2020, in spite of moving up
to the 34th position in number of cases, Portugal dropped to the 31st in terms of
deaths per million inhabitants (Statista, 2020a, 2020b).
Despite the high impact of COVID-19 in Europe and the number of active
cases and deaths in Portugal, the international media portrayed the country as a
success in dealing with the pandemic during the first wave of COVID-19. Several
prestigious international news media praised the Portuguese case (e.g., El Paı́s,
Spain; The Guardian, UK; CNN, USA) (Sol, 2020).
 Celebrity Positive WOM and the Impact on Tourist Perceptions 199

The characteristics of celebrity WOM previously highlighted (Kim et al., 2018)

support the focus on politicians’ WOM in this study:

• Credibility: As official representatives of nations/international organizations,

politicians are perceived as credible sources.
• Familiarity: The constant presence of politicians in mass media since the
beginning of the pandemic creates familiarity with these individuals (Kim
et al., 2018).
• Level of expertise/knowledge: As the main decision-makers of the response to
the pandemic, it is expected/perceived that these individuals have more insights
about COVID-19 than the regular citizen. The use of perceived valid argu-
ments also affects the influence of the message (Lopes et al., 2013).

Data collection took place between 13 May and 13 July 2020 by crossing
keywords – Portugal, politicians, praise, COVID-19 – in English and Portuguese
in Google. The process allowed the identification of 12 interventions that were
subsequently submitted to a manual and qualitative textual content analysis
following a matrix with predefined elements (Table 11.1). Veal (2018) defines the
method as the ‘analysis and interpretation of the content of published or
unpublished texts’ (p. 143).

4. Results
The process of data collection resulted in 12 cases of celebrity pWOM
(Table 11.1). Eight out of 12 interventions (66.6%) date from April 2020, a time
period in which Europe experienced the highest number of cases.

4.1 Country of Origin

As previously referred, familiarity with the messenger influences the impact of the
messages transmitted (Kim et al., 2018). Therefore, it is to be expected that
politician WOM will have higher impact on a given politician’s country of origin
or on the country where he holds office, as the population is more exposed to his
presence. In this case, it is important to establish a relationship between the
country of origin of the public figure who made the remarks and its importance as
a tourist market for Portugal.
Three of the statements collected were made by Spanish politicians, which is
strategically significant: on the one hand, Spain is one of the strategic markets for
Portugal (Turismo de Portugal, 2017); on the other hand, the academic and public
discourses claim that tourism will bounce back and that this comeback will begin
between proximity markets (Ramagosa, 2020).
The United Kingdom (two statements) and Brazil (one statement) are, also,
strategic markets for Portugal, and the former is traditionally one of the markets
with the greatest quota in terms of overnights in Portugal and the latter has been
continuously gaining quota over the last decade (Turismo de Portugal, 2017).
Table 11.1. Synthesis of Politicians’ pWOM about Portugal during the Pandemic.

200
Celebrity When Origin Primary Channel Theme
Country

Inês Almeida
Ylva Johansson (European March 30 European Social media: Twitter Health care and political positioning:
Commission) scope Facilitation of the access of
immigrants and refugees to National
Health Service.
Felipe VI (King of Spain) April 4 Spain Institutional channel: Political positioning: Portuguese
Presidency of the Republic prime minister vocal positioning
Website against the Dutch minister’s
statements about Spain during a
European Council meeting.
Pedro Sánchez (Prime April 9 Spain Institutional channel: Spanish Political positioning: Cooperation of
Minister of Spain) Parliament the political opposition in Portugal to
deal with the pandemic.
Boris Johnson (Prime April 12 United Social media: Twitter Health care: Highlights of the role of
Minister of United Kingdom a Portuguese nurse during its
Kingdom) recovering from COVID-19.
Michael Ryan (WHO) April 20 Global News networks: Press General: Portugal as a good example
scope Conference of how a country should be dealing
with the pandemic.
Pandemic numbers: Stable number of
cases.
Pablo Casado (Political April 22 Spain Institutional channel: Spanish Pandemic numbers: Comparison
opposition leader in Spain) Parliament between the numbers of Portugal and
Spain.
Lula da Silva (Former April 24 Brazil News networks: TV station General: Portugal as a good example
president of Brazil) of how a country should deal with the
pandemic.

Celebrity Positive WOM and the Impact on Tourist Perceptions

Borut Pahor (President of April 29 Slovenia Social media: Twitter Population attitude: Courage and
Slovenia) determination of Portuguese people.
Donald Trump (President of April 30 USA Institutional channel: General: Portugal as a good example
the United States) Presidency of the Republic of how a country should deal with the
website pandemic.
Chris Sainty (UK Various UK/ Social media: Twitter Population attitude and health care:
ambassador) moments Portugal News media: Newspapers Attitude of Portuguese people,
namely health workers’ attitude.
João Lourenço (President of April 27 Angola Institutional channel: General: Portugal as a good example
Angola) June 10 Presidency of the Republic of how a country should deal with the
website pandemic.
News media: Newspapers Political positioning: Management of
the pandemic.
Population attitude: Courage and
determination of Portuguese people.
Maurizio Barbeschi (WHO July 10 Global News networks: Several Health care: Strong health care
counsellor) scope channels system in Portugal.
General: Portugal as a good example
of how a country should deal with the
pandemic.
Population attitude: Collective spirit
of the country.

201
Source: Own elaboration (2020).
202 Inês Almeida

Brazil, along with Angola (one statement), has a historical and linguistic
connection to Portugal. That represents another level of proximity that is not
geographical but rather socio-cultural and that influences behaviours related to
risk perception (Seabra et al., 2020).
The United States (one statement) is a market that has been growing in
Portugal over the last few years, gaining the status of ‘market we should bet on’
(Turismo de Portugal, 2017). Finally, Slovenia (one statement) represents a
market with little expression in Portugal.
Three of the statements were made by representatives of the European Com-
mission and of WHO. These entities have global or European influence and
considerable media coverage.

4.2 Channels
It was possible to identify three main channels for the transmission of the messages:
social media, news networks and institutional channels.
Four politicians spread their message through Twitter. According to Aleti et al.
(2019), that enables people to ‘reach a broader audience and increase word of
mouth’ (p. 18). Boris Johnson’s declaration had a particularly high impact, which is
explained by the following:

• Number of followers: On 21 August 2020, Boris Johnson had 2,900,000 fol-

lowers on Twitter, which represents 40 times as many followers as Borut
Pahon. Ylva Johansson registered 32,500 followers at that same date and Chris
Sainty 3,608 followers;
• Type of narrative: Aleti et al. (2019) state that an emotional narrative has more
impact than an analytical one. Boris Johnson based his statement on his own
experience of recovering from COVID-19.

News networks were another channel for the transmission of pWOM about
Portugal: Michael Ryan (WHO) spoke about Portugal on a press conference that
was covered by several news media channels; other declarations were made to
newspapers (e.g., Chris Sainty) and TV and radio stations (e.g., Lula da Silva).
Institutional channels were the original source of some of the statements,
namely the website of the Presidency of Portuguese Republic (e.g., The calls
between Donald Trump and King Felipe VI from Spain and the Portuguese
President) and of the Spanish Parliament (e.g., Pedro Sánchez and Pablo Casado).

4.3 Theme
The content analysis allowed us to identify five main themes: general praise,
pandemic numbers, political positioning, health care and population attitude.
Five statements generally praised of the way Portugal was dealing with the
pandemic. Two politicians described the way Portugal has dealt with the
pandemic as an example. Lula da Silva referred that ‘Portugal has been an
exemplary country in tackling the coronavirus’ (Observador, 2020b) and João
 Celebrity Positive WOM and the Impact on Tourist Perceptions 203

Lourenço highlighted ‘(…) the exemplary and effective way [Portugal] has so far
managed to control and contain the spread of COVID-19’ (Jornal de Notı́cias,
2020). Maurizio Barbeschi (Observador, 2020c) described Portugal as a ‘story on
how to successfully control the epidemic’ and added that Portugal had been chosen
to host the 2020 Champions League final because it was one of the countries that
best handled the pandemic. On more generic notes, Donald Trump praised the
Portuguese performance during the first months of pandemic (Presidency of
the Portuguese Republic, 2020b) and Michael Ryan referred that Portugal faced
the pandemic in a correct way (Observador, 2020a).
Two statements highlighted the pandemic numbers in Portugal, an objective
mean for risk assessment. Michael Ryan emphasized that the stable numbers
related to COVID-19 in Portugal are a positive indicator of the performance of
the country (Observador, 2020a). During a Parliament session, Pablo Casado
questioned the Spanish Prime Minister: ‘How is it possible that Portugal has 700
deaths [from COVID-19] and we have more than 20.000, if we share a common
border?’ (Diário de Notı́cias, 2020).
The comparison between the two destinations might benefit Portugal, as the
substitution effect indicates that, if one destination is perceived as less safe, tourists
will search and opt for a similar but safer destination (Seabra et al., 2020). Since
Portugal and Spain share characteristics as tourist destinations and are geograph-
ically close, Portuguese tourism entities might want to optimize this factor.
Four of the statements praised the political positioning of the Portuguese
government and of the opposition on internal and external matters concerning
the pandemic. Two statements highlighted the solidarity and commitment that
the Portuguese politicians are placing on the resolution of the problems caused
by the pandemic. King Felipe VI recognized the vocal positioning of the Por-
tuguese Prime Minister against the comments of the Dutch Finance Minister
(Presidency of the Portuguese Republic, 2020a), who called for an investigation
of the supposed lack of budgetary control of Spain to deal with the pandemic.
During a Parliament session, Pedro Sánchez praised the attitude of the leader of
the political opposition in Portugal, Rui Rio:

This week (…) we heard the conservative leader of the opposition

in Portugal (…) wishing luck and success to the Prime Minister
António Costa, because his luck and success (…) would also be the
luck and success of Portugal as a whole. (RTP, 2020)

João Lourenço complimented the way the Portuguese political authorities

have been managing the pandemic (Jornal de Notı́cias, 2020). Ylva Johansson
praised the way the Portuguese government made it easy for immigrants and
refugees to be included in the National Health Service (Johansson, 2020). This
initiative demonstrates an inclusive proceeding in the response to COVID-19 that
might suggest that health care services will also be available for tourists.
According to Moreno-González, León, and Fernández-Hernández (2020), the
existence of health care services for visitors at the destination influences health
risk perception and destination image.
204 Inês Almeida

Health care services and the well-being of residents influence the perceived
image of the destination and health risk perception (Hall, Scott, & Gössling,
2020). Besides Ylva Johansson, three other declarations approached the theme of
health care. Maurizio Barbeschi stated that Portugal ‘has a strong health system’
(Observador, 2020c). Boris Johnson and Chris Sainty highlighted the attitude of
Portuguese health workers. In the first case, the UK Prime Minister praised the
role that a Portuguese nurse played in his recovery:

I hope they [the other health workers] don’t mind if I mention two
nurses who stood by my bedside for 48 hours (…). They are Jenny
from New Zealand (…) and Luis from Portugal – near Porto, (…).
(Boris Johnson, 2020)

Chris Sainty shared videos where he was playing the piano as a tribute to the
British and Portuguese health professionals and praised the attitude of those
health providers in an opinion piece (Jornal Económico, 2020):

For me, it has been a lesson in humility to witness the dedication,

courage and resilience of the professionals who work with the
SNS, with the emergency services and who take part in many
other operations on the front line.

Population attitude is the last theme identified. The attitude of the Portuguese
population during the first months of the pandemic reinforced the positive image
of the destination Portugal that gained central relevance in the most recent
national tourism plan (Turismo de Portugal, 2017). Four of the statements
emphasized the importance of the responsibility, solidarity and collective spirit of
Portuguese people in the response and control of COVID-19 in Portugal. Borut
Pahor (2020) expressed ‘a profound admiration for the Portuguese people who (…)
is demonstrating determination, courage and hope’. The title of the opinion piece
by Chris Sainty (Jornal Económico, 2020) is ‘a praise to the Portuguese in this
moment of crisis’, in which the ambassador highlights the solidarity and humanity
showed by the Portuguese, especially towards the most vulnerable among them.
João Lourenço emphasized the respectful way the Portuguese are receiving the
orientations issued by authorities (Jornal de Notı́cias, 2020) and Maurizio Bar-
beschi praised ‘the [Portuguese] collective thinking on combating the disease’
(Observador, 2020c).

5. Final Considerations
Although previous studies have shown that WOM and celebrities influence
positively tourism security perception (e.g., Kim et al., 2018) and destination
image (e.g., Hoffman et al., 2017) and that information sources are strategic tools
for the management of crises (e.g., Kapuscinski & Richards, 2016), the impact of
celebrity WOM on a crisis that directly impacts tourism is yet to be studied. This
 Celebrity Positive WOM and the Impact on Tourist Perceptions 205

study represents an initial attempt to bridge this gap by introducing celebrity

WOM as a possible strategic tool for the destination communication during and
after crises that affect tourism.
In spite of the competitiveness and security associated to Portugal as a desti-
nation, a health crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic can have a serious impact on
destination image and risk perception. This study shows that the positive WOM,
namely politicians’ WOM, the country is receiving internationally can act as a
risk attenuating frame (Kapuscinski & Richards, 2016) and as an opportunity to
distinguish Portugal from other major European destinations that are being
highly impacted by the pandemic.
The chapter analyzes pWOM of 12 international politicians about the way
Portugal is dealing with the pandemic. Five main themes were identified – general
praise, pandemic numbers, politician positioning, health care and population
attitude – and the way they possibly influence the risk perception and destination
image of prospective tourists was discussed. The outputs of the main channels
used for the transmission of the messages – social media, news networks and
institutional channels – and the importance of the countries of origin of the
politicians’ WOM – Spain, UK, Brazil, Angola, USA and Slovenia – for the
market strategy of Portugal as a tourism destination were also discussed.
Although the results of the study are not empirically proven, this chapter con-
tributes with a first insight into the significant impact that celebrity WOM might
have on health risk and/or crisis communication. In terms of managerial implica-
tions, the investigation shows that celebrity WOM can be a relevant marketing tool
and a key mechanism for crisis management when it is optimized by destination
managers. In the case of Portugal, the main themes and countries of origin of the
statements might be incorporated in marketing and strategic efforts that seek the
revitalization of the destination image of Portugal in specific markets.

6. Limitations and Further Research

The main limitations of the study are (1) the focus on only one case study, (2) the
lack of empirical results and (3) the fact that the pandemic is active and the sit-
uation of Portugal can rapidly change.
Future research should focus on quantitative and empirical methodologies and
on extending the analysis to more destinations. Furthermore, it is relevant to
analyze to what extent does the celebrity pWOM related to the first months of
COVID-19 influence tourist perceptions as opposed to the (negative) evolution of
the pandemic in other destinations. Finally, celebrity WOM is a gap in tourism
literature that will benefit from academic interest.

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Chapter 12

Destination Social Responsibility Strategy

and DMOs’ Path to Recovery: The Case of
Portugal
C. Frias, A. Pereira and A. P. Jerónimo

Abstract
Destination marketing strategies are designed to attract visitors, inviting
them to acknowledge and virtually experience the different resources avail-
able on site. Still, their success also depends on the ability of destination
management organizations (DMOs) to develop an effective communication
strategy. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic radically changed the goals set
by the promotional campaigns launched by the Portuguese tourist boards.
This study analyzes the textual content of the innovative promotional video
campaigns released between mid-March and early April 2020 by Portuguese
tourism authorities at national level (Turismo de Portugal), regional level
(Centro, Algarve, Madeira and the Azores) and local level (Cascais) to
promote these destinations during nationwide states of emergency. Since
image is undeniably a key component of destination choice, content analysis
approach was conducted using NVivo to measure the cognitive–affective
image dimensions using a semantic differential scale. The results indicate
that the campaigns conveyed inspiring messages of hope and trust to help
restore tourists’ confidence in their safety and emphasized the planning for
future trips while aiming to reduce risk perception by highlighting that the
destination is safe for travel. That way these campaigns are in close accor-
dance with the literature focusing on corporate social responsibility applied
to DMOs and image recovery strategies.

Keywords: Destination social responsibility strategy; destination image;

DMOs; recovery communication; Portugal; COVID-19

Pandemics and Travel, 211–226

Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
doi:10.1108/978-1-80071-070-220211013
212 C. Frias et al.

1. Introduction
By the end of 2019, international arrivals worldwide hit new records and reached
1.5 billion tourists (UNWTO, 2020). With the prospect of a continuous growth,
many destinations were struggling with overtourism and with their inefficiency in
managing tourism flows. The call for sustainable development model practices
and the urgency of measures to fight climate changes were top critical global
issues. Even so, the World Tourism Organization expected tourism growth to
increase between 4% and 5% in 2020 (UNWTO, 2020). In Portugal, where
tourism is a sector of strategic importance for national economy, the sector was
expected to reach its peak, as the country was elected, for the third time in a row,
the World’s Best Leading Destination at the 2019 World Travel Awards (2019).
However, amidst this expressive growth an unpredictable crisis hit the world
economy. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed everything, especially tourism
which is one of the most vulnerable activities to global hazards (Seabra, Dolnicar,
& Abrantes, 2013).
Portugal declared a nationwide State of Emergency on 18 March 2020, which
imposed ‘a time out’ on tourism recreational activities. To curb the spread of
coronavirus, the Portuguese government imposed tourism travel restrictions
across the land borders, no longer allowed cruise ships to disembark, restricted air
travel to the minimum and implemented strict bans on internal movement
(EstamosOn, 2020). These restrictions affected tourist accommodation, museums,
restaurants, events and other entertainment and leisure activities, which alto-
gether led to a sharp fall in the tourism industry (European Travel Commission,
2020). Travel restrictions, hygienic, health and security measures became the ‘new
reality’, not only in Portugal but also all over the world.
This empirical study explores the communication strategies undertaken by
Portuguese destination management organizations (DMOs) during the current
pandemic situation. It aims to bridge the gap between the literature review on
destination image marketing and corporate social responsibility (CSR), and the
ongoing pandemic crisis in Portugal.

2. Literature Review
2.1 The Role of DMOs in Destination Marketing
Tourism marketing is a key pillar of future and sustainable growth for destina-
tions in a globalized and competitive market (UNWTO, 2011). The role of DMOs
is particularly important. The main goal of these entities is to support destination
branding, so they will do their best to help resume the relationships between
supply and demand to maximize the existing tourist resources. DMOs’ strategies
seek destination competitiveness based on the balance between profitable tourist
businesses, good market positioning, attractive surroundings and the promising
experiences it manages to offer. In addition, this support and recognition is
partially carried out by residents and host communities themselves who are vital
players in the tourism economy (Pike, 2008).
 Destination Social Responsibility Strategy 213

DMOs are also the most important representative body among the stake-
holders that operate in the different segments of the tourist activity. They do not
control the activities of their partners, but represent the sector, managing to reach
a more significant market performance and regain greater objectivity to lead the
way towards a global destination image, aligned with the main global agendas
(UNWTO, 2019). In other words, DMOs are ‘responsible for creating and
maintaining an image that conveys the typology of needs that destination can
satisfy’ (Line & Wang, 2017, p. 87). To achieve this goal, DMOs seek to distin-
guish their destination from those of their competitors, by creating an appropriate
communication marketing strategy that will generate a positive and attractive
perception of their attributes, values and identity, to capitalize interest and
increase tourist demand. However, risks do exist, and they include a combi-
nation of external factors over which DMOs have no control and that can
negatively influence destinations and the way they are perceived. As it happens
in other countries, the Portuguese government’s power and resources allowed
the implementation of measures meant to attenuate negative impacts on
tourism development and promotion since national governments are respon-
sible for supporting destination marketing after a disaster (Carlsen & Hughes,
2008). Tourist boards at national, regional and local levels operate in the public
sector and therefore depend on government policies that will determine the
course of action to be followed during the development of communication and
marketing campaigns whose goal is to help rebuild a positive image of the
destination.

2.2 Destination Image: The Role of Corporate Social Responsibility

Destination image is perhaps one of the most studied constructs in tourism (Pike,
2008). The definitions and applications of this concept are abundant and diver-
sified, mainly because it influences consumer behaviour throughout the process of
travel – pre, during and post tourist experience (Agapito, Valle, & Mendes, 2013).
In the specific case of this study, destination marketing could affect desti-
nation image and future consumer behaviour as demonstrated in several
studies, according to Baloglu (2000). However, destination image gains rele-
vance mainly due to the duality of perspectives it comprises: cognitive image –
related to beliefs and knowledge; and affective image – associated with feelings,
usually created from cognitive image (Baloglu, 2000). The study conducted by
Agapito et al. (2013) demonstrates how important affection is for destination
image, contributing positively to travel intention whenever it brings out positive
feelings. Many other authors agree that affective image, being more personal,
has a greater influence on consumer behaviour compared to cognitive image
(Agapito et al., 2013). Affective image is still crucial for loyalty and, conse-
quently, for the strengthening of the relationship between the tourist and the
destination. In this sense, the evaluation of the affective and cognitive char-
acteristics of the target image can be used as study variables in the prediction of
tourism consumer behaviour (Agapito et al., 2013). Thus, along with the
214 C. Frias et al.

cognitive component, it is extremely important to add an affective dimension

in communication and marketing strategies to generate the most appropriate
and unique images. These factors directly contribute to emphasize the overall
tourist experience and consequently increase the competitiveness of destina-
tions (Agapito et al., 2013). However, the most important thing for a desti-
nation is to preserve its positive image, as this is vital to determine its success
or failure (Deslandes, Goldsmith, Bonn, & Joseph, 2006), an extremely difficult
endeavour during crisis events. Nielsen (2001) clarifies that

…promoting a destination under normal circumstances is a

difficult task but promoting a destination that faces tourism
challenges – either caused by negative press, or problems in
infrastructure caused by natural or human disasters – it is an
even more arduous task. (pp. 207–208)

That way, it is urgent to evoke the role of CSR, which is an important

department in most for-profit or non-profit companies, as it delivers important
benefits to society (Carroll, 1991; Lee, Lee, & Cho, 2018; Li, Liu, & Huan, 2019;
Wong & Kim, 2020). In the case of tourism, it is closely associated with image
improvement and corporate reputation and the traveller’s favourable attitude
towards them (Lee et al., 2018). The pivotal role of CSR in tourism has been
highlighted during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, with its efforts and activ-
ities proving to be essential in managing current circumstances (Han, Lee, Kim, &
Ryu, 2020). Up to the present time, the situation is characterized by limited
medical interventions due to the lack of effective vaccines and antivirals which has
led to the introduction of measures such as mobility and travel restrictions,
borders closure, lockdowns, cancellation of events, and social distancing, among
other constraints (Han et al., 2020). In the tourism sector, CSR is regarded, in a
first stage, as a tool used to help validate governments’ actions whenever they
need to impose security and protection measures. However, CSR can also play an
essential role in revitalizing the sector (Han et al., 2020), as it can trigger
favourable attitudes towards the business, stimulate positive affective responses
and determine the intent to act favourably (Carroll, 1991; Lee et al., 2018; Wong
& Kim, 2020). This has made the concept of CSR even more critical for tourism
research and its association with DMOs is crucial for this study, as early studies
reveal that ‘corporate social responsibility improves travellers’ attitudes and
behavioural intentions’ (Han et al., 2020, p. 1). In their study, the authors refer
essentially that: (1) CSR of the international tourism business was not a signifi-
cant determinant of psychological distress; (2) CSR directly affects the attitude
towards international travelling and (3) CSR affects the behavioural intention for
international tourism products. These results confirm that CSR not only con-
tributes to corporate image and reputation of international destinations but also
induces favourable attitudes and behavioural intentions towards companies and
generates positive emotional reactions (Han et al., 2020). This way, the travellers’
purchase decisions, once the pandemic is over, will depend on the magnitude of
 Destination Social Responsibility Strategy 215

the international tourism companies’ efforts, on their CSR level and on their
proficiency levels (Han et al., 2020). However, it should be noted that genuine and
authentic CSR contributes to the creation of stronger rapports between business
customers and the public, as they have built up strong expectations from leading
brands during the current crisis regarding their efforts in fighting the virus (He &
Harris, 2020). Mayorga Gordillo and Añaños Carrasco (2020) further conclude
that CSR can be a factor that positively changes consumer perceptions about a
brand, or in this case a destination. The role it plays benefits society in general and
will have a significant impact on brand strength and brand value. It is worth
mentioning that tourists generally prefer safe destinations. However, this
concept is rarely addressed in promotional messages (Wang & Lopez, 2020).
Safety appears in communication essentially as a preventive element, especially
because it increases tourist/consumer anxiety (Wang & Lopez, 2020). This is an
important dimension of the cognitive destination image and despite its positive
connotations, in terms of the dissemination of the message, it always ends up
having a negative meaning as it suggests the presence of risk. These aspects
suggest that the same message may have different interpretations depending on
the interlocutor. Therefore, the inclusion of security and safety messages in
tourism communications needs to be carried out with extreme care (Wang &
Lopez, 2020). In other words, the literature indicates that highlighting the safety
of a tourist destination might ultimately show that there is justified risk. How-
ever, in the light of the current pandemic, risk is a worldwide constant and
messages that promote responsibility and safety can have a positive effect on
tourists.

2.3 Destination Marketing during the COVID-19 Pandemic

SARS-CoV-2, commonly known as COVID-19, was initially discovered in
China. However, in January and February 2020 the outbreak had already
spread worldwide. It soon became an epidemic and on 11 March 2020 it was
declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. With the disease
spreading many governments took safety measures. Some common points were
the reinforcement of hygiene and sanitation measures and social distancing. At a
different pace, countries gradually imposed other restrictive measures, such as
temporary layoff, limit to the number of people who are allowed to meet in
public spaces, gradual lockdown, closure of commercial spaces and restrictions
in hotel and restaurant services. Then, many countries called for a state of
emergency, which led to a tightening of all restrictions already imposed to
individual rights and freedoms (Euronews, 2020; Gössling, Scott, & Hall, 2020).
In Europe, border control was reintroduced, even within the Schengen area –
where there is a policy of open borders and free movement of persons and goods
between the 26 signatory European countries since 1997 (European Commis-
sion, 2011). All those measures have had a brutal impact on the economy,
especially in countries such as Portugal where Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is
highly dependent on international tourism revenues (The Guardian, 2020).
216 C. Frias et al.

Here, the harmful impact of the pandemic on tourism is extremely negative for
the development of the country, being one of its core economic activities. A
study carried out by Mamede, Pereira, and Simões (2020) indicates that the
Portuguese economy has quickly deteriorated and foresees that the country’s
GDP will only return to its pre-COVID-19 level after 2022.
Considering the influence of destination positive image on the consumers’
destination choice (Chon, 1990) these changes can affect tourists’ perceptions.
This may determine a breach of confidence and influence tourists’ decision-
making in selecting a given destination when life returns to normal. Given the
current situation, the recovery of the destination’s image and CSR are of vital
importance in DMOs crisis management. For consumers, the ethical dimen-
sion of consumer decision has become evident during the pandemic, which is
also likely to shift consumers towards more responsible and prosocial con-
sumption. Such changes seem likely to be mirrored by firms and organizations.
Taking into account the focus of this study, digital platforms are nowadays one
of the most used tools to access and disseminate information, and their role is
key for this purpose due to the speed with which communication can reach
recipients (Avraham, 2015; Barbe, Pennington-Gray, & Schroeder, 2018; Ketter,
2016).
Regarding promotional campaigns studies procedures, it is essential to consider
the consumer decision-making process to make sure they are based on effective
communication and marketing strategies (Baloglu, 2000). The intent to travel
is determined by a combination of cognitive and affective evaluations, different
information sources and travel. However, cognitive and affective destination
image seems to mediate the relationship between visitation intention and visitation
stimuli (information sources) and consumption factors (socio-psychological travel
motivations) (Baloglu, 2000). Travel intention depends not only on different infor-
mation but also on motivational and image elements (Baloglu, 2000). Nevertheless,
image seems to be a fundamental element, since it also encompasses the information
components and simultaneously constitutes an essential barometer in predicting
the behaviour of the travel consumers and, more specifically, their travel inten-
tions (Baloglu, 2000).

3. Methodology

3.1 Content Analysis Procedures

The methodological process was carried out using a qualitative approach through
content analysis. This technique essentially uses a categorical thematic analysis to
identify frequencies, certain concepts and words in written texts and deals with the
most frequent variables or dimensions, being one of the most accepted qualitative
methodological procedures in speech analyses (Bardin, 1977). Content analysis is
a subjective method; however, it is supported by technical processes of validation
(Bardin, 1977). Even so, it is evident that the choice of criteria for classification
depends entirely on what is sought or expected to be found.
 Destination Social Responsibility Strategy 217

The content analysis procedures were conducted for the advertising cam-
paigns released during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis by
Portuguese tourism authorities at national level (Turismo de Portugal), regional
level (Centro, Algarve, Madeira, and the Azores) and local level (Cascais).
These campaigns were specifically chosen because they were released soon
after the declaration of the state of emergency in Portugal, on 18 March 2020.
For this study, content analysis focusing on textual messages was carried out.
The intention was also to conduct a global assessment of the crisis communi-
cation strategy linking the different approaches to the CSR literature, in the
light of the destination Portugal. This process was conducted using content
analysis to examine the messages and speeches transmitted, which were later
coded using distinct variables from the previously validated Burton and Lich-
tenstein scales of affective image (1988), and the cognitive image scales by
Echtner and Ritchie (1993), Chaudhary (2000), Beerli and Martin (2004), and
Byon and Zhang (2010). Regarding the analyzed message, specific affective and
cognitive image constructs were considered along with the following attributes:
soothing/not soothing; warm-hearted/cold-hearted; uplifting/depressing; pleasant/
unpleasant; attractive/unattractive; affectionate/not affectionate; informative; effec-
tive; persuasive; believable; convincing; culture; history and art; infrastructure; natural
attraction; safety and security; social environment; touristic attraction and value
for money. This qualitative study was conducted using NVivo, version 11, and
was based on the content analysis of the six aforementioned campaigns. The
campaigns were fully transcribed, so that the content could be more easily
analyzed. In the communication dimension, the intention was to provide an
answer to the question: which metalinguistic content was used by Portuguese
DMOs to promote tourist destinations safely and responsibly during a pandemic
crisis? In the case of the image dimension, the categorization was divided into
affective and cognitive attributes and, subsequently, subcategorized according
to the chosen scales to assess the impact of the messages conveyed. Finally, a
word cloud was compiled to aggregate the text of all advertising campaigns and
obtain a graphic view of the promotional content of the different Portuguese
DMOs.

3.2 Data Collection

The content analysis procedures used the campaigns of different DMOs that
were released during national lockdown after the Portuguese State of Emer-
gency had been declared on 18 March 2020. All these videos are part of official
national campaigns released by different Portuguese tourist regions. The
available data were categorized according to the name of the campaign, region
and language:

• There will be Time’: The Centro Regional Tourism Board campaign; released
on 19 March 2020, in Portuguese with English subtitles;
218 C. Frias et al.

• Can’t Skip Hope’: Institutional video from Turismo de Portugal, the Portu-
guese National Tourism Board, released on 20 March 2020, in English with
Portuguese subtitles;
• Stay home now. Dream online. Visit us later’: Video produced by the Madeira
Tourism Board, 20 March 2020, in English. No subtitles were provided;
• Remember me … Algarve!’: Campaign released by The Algarve Regional
Tourism Board, focusing on the southern Portuguese region of the Algarve.
This video was released on 20 March 2020. The video is in Portuguese; no
subtitles were available;
• Azores is taking a break’: Campaign released by the Azores Tourism Board on
2 April 2020 portraying the Azores islands. The video offers English subtitles
but no narration;
• Thank you for staying at home. We’ll still be here, waiting for you’: Campaign
for the Cascais destination, released by the local tourism board on 9 April
2020. It offers English subtitles but no narration.

4. Results
4.1 Interpretation of Content and Destination Image Scale Matrix
The results demonstrate that lexical repetitions are frequent, although there are
only three campaigns that focus on this stylistic resource to transmit the message.
The repetitions are important to emphasize the message. In this case, repetitions
can be found in the ‘Can’t Skip Hope’ campaigns essentially through the reprise
of the phrase ‘It’s time to stop’ and variations of the terms ‘time’, ‘stop’ and
‘think’; in the ‘There will be Time!’ campaign, repetition of the words ‘time’ and
‘believe’ and, finally, in the ‘Azores is taking a break’ campaign repetition focuses
on the use of the words ‘today’ and ‘we/us’.
As for the sound, different musical elements and the voice of a narrator were
added to the video. The video produced by the Cascais Tourism Board was the
only one that did not include voice-over. Sound environment is preserved in four
of the videos: ‘Can’t Skip Hope’, ‘Azores is taking a break’, ‘Thank you for
staying at home. We’ll still be here, waiting for you’ and ‘Remember me…
Algarve!’. In this case, it should be noted that the sounds heard bear a close
relationship to nature, especially to the sea, birds and people’s voices/children’s
laughter. The video released by the Cascais Tourism Board includes different everyday
sounds like the noise made by tinkling glasses, grilling meat, cars passing by, golf
putts or communications in an aeroplane cabin. The use of sounds is very
important to preserve memory because they are elements that naturally belong to
these places (Liu, Wang, Liu, Yao, & Deng, 2017; Waitt & Duffy, 2010).
Regarding the analysis of the affective image, references only reflect the pos-
itive elements of the differential scale, such as soothing, warm-hearted, uplifting,
pleasant, attractive and affectionate. The depressing construct was merely
considered in the following expressions: ‘Sometimes we need to change to wait
and dream about days to come’, and ‘Sometimes things change and you slowly
start remembering the ones that never do, nature you were ready to explore, the
 Destination Social Responsibility Strategy 219

sea you wish you could dive into, the hills you are about to track or even the
mountain you will climb’ (Visit Azores, 2020). This is due to the nostalgic
character of the expressions, underlined by the tone of voice and background
music, which gives the presentation an overall negative note. The same is true for
the Algarve campaign that has favoured a low-spirited and nostalgic tone.
However, both campaigns present positive constructs – attractive, warm-hearted,
pleasant, affectionate and uplifting – that are common to all campaigns.
In the remaining campaigns, there are positive messages of hope and comfort
in a future that will bring better days: ‘Don’t forget to dream […] for now stay at
home and take care’ (Visit Madeira, 2020); ‘There will be time to start over, to
travel, to run, to fly’ (Turismo Centro de Portugal, 2020); ‘For today just as you
are, Azores is taking a break so we can finally be together again tomorrow’ (Visit
Azores, 2020); ‘Time to look humanity in the eye […] We are meant to connect
and we are stronger together. But being apart, we are today more united than
ever’ (Visit Portugal, 2020). With regard to the cognitive image, according to the
constructs included in the Burton and Lichtenstein (1988) scale, it is possible to
evaluate that all campaigns are highly persuasive, credible, effective and infor-
mative, recognizing that destinations are on standby, waiting for a new kind of
normality that will allow them to welcome back tourists: ‘They will still be there
waiting for a better time to be lived’(Visit Portugal, 2020); ‘The Centre of Portugal
is still there, waiting for you’ (Turismo Centro de Portugal, 2020); ‘Postpone
the holidays, but not your heart. After all, there will always be Algarve!’ (Visit
Algarve, 2020); ‘Thank you for staying at home we’ll still be here, waiting for you’
(Visit Cascais, 2020); ‘Madeira will be there waiting for you’ (Visit Madeira, 2020)
and ‘Azores is taking a break so we can finally be together again tomorrow’ (Visit
Azores, 2020). Except for the Algarve campaign, which does not have this pur-
pose, all others try to convince tourists to return or to visit the destination for
the first time.
Finally, the analysis of the cognitive image shows that only two constructs
are present in the six campaigns: natural attraction and safety and security.
Natural attraction is mentioned in ‘The ocean’ (Visit Madeira, 2020), ‘the wind,
the sun, the rain’ (Turismo Centro de Portugal, 2020) and ‘nature, landscapes,
beaches’ (Visit Portugal, 2020). In turn, the safety and security construct is
conveyed by some accurate indications like ‘It’s time to look out for each other
in the distance […] Respect one another’ (Visit Portugal, 2020); ‘Today it’s just
about us, caring for us, protecting each and every one of us’ (Visit Azores, 2020);
‘Until then, we’ll stay at home’ (Turismo Centro de Portugal, 2020) or ‘Take
care’ (Visit Madeira, 2020).
It should be noted that infrastructure and value for money have no references
in any promotional campaigns, which could mean that the DMOs are valuing
health and safety instead of material goods. This information is categorized in
the first column using a list of cognitive and affective attributes of the image
scale, in the second by the number of campaigns where these attributes appear
and in the third column with the number of visual and metalinguistic references,
as shown in Table 12.1.
220 C. Frias et al.

Table 12.1. Content Analysis Results and Destination Image Scale Matrix.

Nr. of Campaigns Nr. of References

Destination image 105
AFFECTIVE 40
Affectionate 6 6
Attractive 6 6
Pleasant 6 6
Soothing 5 5
Uplifting 6 7
Warm-hearted 6 7
Not affectionate 0 0
Unattractive 0 0
Unpleasant 0 0
Not soothing 0 0
Depressing 2 3
Cold-hearted 0 0
COGNITIVE 65
Believable 6 6
Convincing 5 5
Effective 6 6
Informative 6 6
Persuasive 6 6
Culture 2 2
History and art 1 1
Infrastructure 0 0
Natural attraction 6 7
Safety and security 6 15
Social environment 4 6
Touristic attraction 5 5
Value for money 0 0
Source: Own production (2020).

4.2 Word Cloud Results

The word cloud was created based on the set of texts collected from the pro-
motional campaigns under analysis. In a cloud, the most repeated words are given
higher relevance and the less repeated words have a smaller representation, as
depicted in Fig. 12.1.
 Destination Social Responsibility Strategy 221

Fig. 12.1. Word Cloud. Source: Own production (2020).

The word ‘time’ is clearly the most highlighted word in the textual analysis
of Portugal’s promotional campaigns. The term ‘stop’ ranks second, followed
by ‘home’, ‘dream’, ‘now’, ‘today’, ‘together’, ‘break’, ‘change’ and ‘remember’.
Words like ‘waiting’, ‘later’, ‘start’, ‘think’, ‘believe’, ‘caring’, ‘distance’, ‘feel’,
‘respect’, ‘tomorrow’, ‘nature’, ‘visit’ and ‘online’ also appear repeatedly. These
words are less frequently referred but they deeply enlighten the content of the
message transmitted.
The words mentioned reveal the informative, effective and convincing content
of the message and its greater appeal to safety and security when it decides to
include words such as ‘caring’, ‘respect’, ‘distance’ and ‘online’. On the other hand,
expressions such as ‘time’, ‘stop’, ‘remember’, ‘break’, ‘feel’, ‘believe’, ‘waiting’,
‘dream’ and ‘home’ refer to the more affective content of the image, which is
associated with items such as warm-hearted, pleasant, attractive and soothing.
The results are consistent with previous literature reviews. Promotional cam-
paigns essentially contribute to the perception of the value and environment of
destinations (Baloglu, 2000). The same study also shows that although the
affective and cognitive image influence travel intention, the cognitive image has a
preponderant role in this decision-making process, especially before visiting a
tourist destination (Baloglu, 2000).

5. Conclusions
Considering the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the entire world population is
subject to a high-impact hazard, which cannot yet be unequivocally controlled,
and negative effects persist across most tourist destinations. The pandemic has had
a devastating impact on national economies, mainly caused by the accentuated
decrease in international travel, with many destinations going from ‘over-tourism’
to ‘non-tourism’ (Han et al., 2020). Regarding the videos released during the state
222 C. Frias et al.

of emergency, Portuguese DMOs did not focus on danger, but on hope and
confidence and on the need to wait to travel again. It becomes clear that trust
factor is stimulated by these messages, either by the positioning of destinations as
places that perceive the urgency of the moment, or by the guarantee that they will
welcome us with open arms when the time is right.
Crisis management in tourism is especially sensitive, and DMOs must be
responsible for maintaining an attractive destination image (Line & Wang,
2017). In tourism, CSR has an important role to revitalize the sector but also to
impose security and protection measures in line with government strategies (Han
et al., 2020). On the one hand, it can be a way to validate the governments’
actions when they decide to impose security and protection measures to protect
destinations and a way to increase the right positive stimuli to trigger positive
affective responses. In this regard, the present study demonstrated that Portu-
guese DMOs have engaged in a CSR strategy in their promotional campaigns,
focusing on a sort of proximity tourist experience by favouring content that
induces well-being and stimulates the various senses, and thus elicit a sense of
security and reliability.
Although it is very difficult to develop promotional measures or campaigns
that can change negative perceived image, especially amidst a pandemic, this crisis
could also be responsible for one of the biggest changes in the history of modern
marketing, with a profound impact in terms of CSR (He & Harris, 2020), or
destination social responsibility. This shift is shown in the results and might help
people realize that businesses need to be more socially responsible (He & Harris,
2020). This finding is reflected in the results of the study on the main promotional
messages that demonstrates the importance of social responsibility in corporate
communication and destination marketing.

5.1 Theoretical Implications

This study contributes to the destinations’ image research, with special focus on
image recovery and CSR applied to destinations. Given the current events and
the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic situation, the study theoretically
establishes the importance of the role played by DMOs in crisis events and
subsequently their importance for the future image recovery of tourist destina-
tions and destination social responsibility. Although destination image is an
extensive topic in tourism research, the study contributes to the literature
focusing on DMOs and on the image management of destinations during crises
events, which is a pertinent topic for the management of tourism destinations
affected by the current public health crisis.

5.2 Managerial Implications

This study is important to assist the different DMOs to verify how other desti-
nations are coping with their own place branding during lockdown times. Since
safety is the new tourism trend, it should continue to be advertised not only by
 Destination Social Responsibility Strategy 223

DMOs but also by public or private organizations related to tourism and by those
which are not. This link between security and tourism activity will be vital for
tourism recovery. To this end, all local and national entities must work together
and put safety first and continue to give high relevance to the adverting and
campaigning of products and services during the ongoing crisis. In addition, this
study demonstrates how DMOs make creative and important use of social
responsibility to promote tourist destinations amidst an unprecedented global
crisis in which the tourism sector has been the most severely affected. The study is
also important to show the valuable work of Portuguese DMOs, revealing that it
is possible to promote a positive destination image during a crisis, through
awareness messages that convey the idea of an optimistic future for tourists and
tourism in Portugal.

5.3 Limitations and Further Research

The main limitations to the study are primarily the main topic, the COVID-19
pandemic. Since this is a new research topic, available data are quite scarce since
we are dealing with a new and unpredictable ongoing crisis. Another limitation is
the fact that this is a qualitative exploratory study, with some level of subjectivity
that can nevertheless be complemented with the use of a quantitative study.
Following the analyzed data and the results obtained, it would be interesting to
use a quantitative study to evaluate tourists’ perceptions of the real impact that
these promotional campaigns may have on future travel intentions. The purpose
would be to confirm the previously validated affective and cognitive image scales
using a structured survey. Also, it would be pertinent to continue the study on
how other international campaigns have impacted travel intentions and/or current
travel in the post-confinement period.

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Chapter 13

Falling in Love Again: Brand Love and

Promotion of Tourist Destinations during
the COVID-19 Pandemic
A. Pereira, C. Frias and A. P. Jerónimo

Abstract
Brand love is a notion where feelings are developed towards a specific brand.
This notion is more than just a preference, it is an emotional attachment with
the consumed product and the brand that represents it. In tourism, destination
marketing will increase the relationship between tourists and places using
certain kind of messages and images whose goal is to stimulate their senses and
feelings. In crisis management situations, it acts as a mediator, by assessing
tourists’ risk and safety perceptions, and helps mitigate lasting negative effects.
However, can destination brand love be promoted during these pandemic
times? To get an in-deep understanding of the connections that exist between
love and safety in tourism, this study explores two concepts through an extended
literature review and a qualitative methodological approach using content
analysis procedures that will focus on international marketing strategies
during the ongoing pandemic crisis.
The qualitative approach was conducted through a survey composed of
a set of open-ended questions (N 5 31) where respondents were asked to
identify their feelings after viewing the promotional tourism campaigns
released after the significant increase in cases of COVID-19 worldwide.
The main results demonstrate the existence of brand love antecedents –
brand trust and a sense of community, and an overall positive reaction to the
images and messages promoted. Also, the existence of brand love antecedents
demonstrates the brands’ capacity to adapt to crisis events and its ability to
outline the kind of paths that have to be defined for tourists to remain
passionate about destinations.

Keywords: Destination brand love; destination marketing; tourism

promotion; safety; perceived risk; COVID-19

Pandemics and Travel, 227–241

Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
doi:10.1108/978-1-80071-070-220211014
228 A. Pereira et al.

1. Introduction
Brands have anthropological characteristics, usually perceived by their consumers,
such as sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication and ruggedness (Aaker,
1997). Individuals develop a connection associating human feelings with brands
‘humanizing’ them. Aaker (1997) suggests that people consecutively develop
emotional bonds with objects and the brand they represent, and that brand love
reflects their own personality traits (Aaker, 1997), or a wide range of feelings that
would eventually amount to love (Shimp & Madden, 1988).
Despite the substantial body of literature focussing on destination brand
management, research conducted on destination brand love is quite limited. Most
of the studies about place’s emotional links usually focus on place attachment
(Davenport & Anderson, 2005; Hidalgo & Hernandez, 2001), sense of place (Hay,
1998), place bonding (Cheng & Kuo, 2015; Hammitt, Backlund, & Bixler, 2006),
place identity (Proshansky, Fabian, & Kaminoff, 1983), among other variables
of destination attachment. Obviously, the love for a brand, or in this case for a
destination, includes components associated with the aforementioned variables,
nevertheless, brand love is a broader concept related to consumers’ brand trust
and that could lead to commitment (Albert & Merunka, 2013) and loyalty (Batra,
Ahuvia, & Bagozzi, 2012).
However, the world is very volatile and unpredictable. Tourism market is highly
affected by crises and harmful events such as security threats or health hazards that
will have an impact on individual choice and on the overall attractiveness of a
destination (Kurež & Prevolšek, 2015).
Europe, for instance, has been the stage of several negative events over the last
decades: terrorist attacks (Teoman, 2017), refugee crisis (Melotti, 2018), political
instability (Perles-Ribes, Ramón-Rodrı́guez, Such-Devesa, & Moreno-Izquierdo,
2019) and natural catastrophes (Kron, Löw, & Kundzewicz, 2019).
Due to the constant exchange of information carried out through traditional
channels or social media platforms, people’s perceptions of risk can change (Choi,
Yoo, Noh, & Park, 2017; Li, 2018), and this may affect consumer behaviour
patterns and consequently the tourism industry (Floyd, Gibson, Pennington-Gray,
& Thapa, 2004). At the same time, destination marketing management attempts
to address global safety guidelines and media coverage, in an effort to establish a
balance between public health, risk perception and tourism.
Considering the vulnerability of tourism and the strong influence of media and
place branding in these pandemic times, how long will it take destinations to be
able to make tourists fall in love again? This study aims to update the state of
art of the connections between destination brand love and destination safety
considering the influence of place branding strategies. The study also seeks to
assess the impact of safety issues on tourism destination, perceive risk and love.
This work draws on Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) (1985) and aims
at expanding the state of art of consumer theories on tourism research. This
theory is an extension of Ajzen and Fishbein’s Theory of Reasoned Action that
offers a consumer behavioural model that brings an in-deep interpretation of the
individual’s attitudes and behaviours and the influence that external factors play
 Falling in Love Again 229

in this relationship. The central constructs of Ajzen’s theory are based on the
attitude, the existence of subjective norms about the behaviour and the perceived
behavioural control (Bray, 2008). Since consumer behaviour theories have a wide
range of applicability, TPB will provide the right framework for this study
considering destination brand love as the perceived behavioural control and risk
perceptions vis-a-vis the loved destination as the consumer subjective norms.
Based on this theory, the author argues that the perceived behavioural control
construct is a chain of affective and cognitive reactions and that positive attitudes
will influence positive behaviour. The same could be applied to destination love
development since love stimulates positive behaviours such as resistance to negative
experiences (Aro, Suomi, & Saraniemi, 2018). The other main subjective norms
construct is associated with social external factors that could influence positive
behaviours (Ajzen, 1985). In this particular case, safety perceptions based on
information acquired through place branding messages can influence destination
trust and brand love, since threats create avoidance and increase risk perception
(Kurež & Prevolšek, 2015).

2. Literature Review
In the spectrum of consumer behaviour research, the relationship between brands
and consumers is clear. Brands represent the consumer’s needs and seek to establish
lasting bonds (Gambetti & Schultz, 2015) and to maintain a favourable perception
about products or services (Aaker & Keller, 1990). It goes beyond mere con-
sumption’s satisfaction (Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006), and previous studies show that
consumers have feelings of love towards brands, commonly known as brand love
(Batra et al., 2012). The concept was introduced by Shimp and Madden (1988),
adapting Sternberg’s (1986) triangular theory of love to study the relationship
between consumers and products. Sternberg (1986) proposes that love is composed
of three distinct but interrelated components: intimacy and feelings of closeness,
passion and physical attraction, and the commitment to maintain that relationship.
In the same line of research, other authors present theoretical approaches that
describe this kind of relationship in the consumers’ connection with the brands
(Albert, Merunka, & Valette-Florence, 2009; Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006; Fournier,
1998). Previous studies show that brand love is a very strong affective feeling
(Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006).
Studies focussing on the formation of the concept of brand love are still quite
scarce (Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006) and are not given that much credit when adapted
to intangible products, such as tourism. However, brand love construction is a
multidimensional process. Previous authors found out that several constructs can
generate romanticized feelings towards a brand. For the purpose of this study,
the antecedents of brand love considered were brand trust (Albert & Merunka,
2013) and sense of community (Bergkvist & Bech-Larsen, 2010). Brand trust is
extremely important to marketing, since consumers perceive brands as honest
(Delgado-Ballester, Munuera-Aleman, & Yague-Guillen, 2003) and safe (Chaudhuri
& Holbrook, 2001). Sense of community is a derivation of social identity and
230 A. Pereira et al.

brand identity and has been regarded as a brand love antecedent (Bergkvist &
Bech-Larsen, 2010). These authors have decided to adopt a terminology used
when addressing sense of community to cover a more general context instead of
favouring an approach that would focus on a single social group. In this sense, the
authors claim that, to reinforce the sense of community, the members of the group
tend to accept the fact that they share some common characteristics. Sense of
community come from a wide range of brand-related behaviours or interests
shared by a group (Burnasheva, Suh, & Villalobos-Moron, 2019), or in this case,
from a number of negative experiences derived from the COVID-19 pandemic
shared by community members that will have an impact on brands or tourist
destinations.
Considering these aspects, destinations are built and rebuilt as brands, since
they have unique characteristics, represent a set of products and services provided
to their consumers, have a plan, a vision and a target. In view of the multidimen-
sional profile of brand love, tourist destinations are also romanticized as brands
(Aro et al., 2018). Tourism is associated with the search for pleasure, new experi-
ences, in a destination other than the tourists’ place of residence (Seabra, Dolnicar,
& Abrantes, 2013). However, tourism is always associated with a certain level of
risk because tourists usually travel to an unfamiliar destination (Williams & Baláž,
2013, 2015). In this context, it will be much more difficult for unsafe destinations, or
at least those which are perceived as such, to attract tourists (Arslan, Boz, Yilmaz,
& Boz, 2017; Avraham & Ketter, 2008; Seabra, Reis, & Abrantes, 2020). This
situation will clearly affect tourism consumption and the economic development
of countries and entire regions. The relationships that one develops with other
people are not static and can change over time and the same will happen with
brands that are subjected to the same volatile emotions (Langner, Bruns, Fischer,
& Rossiter, 2016). Since brand love is closely related to brand trust, the lack of
safety can have a profound impact on destination trust and consequently on one’s
love for the brand.
On the other hand, safety is one of the bases of the tourism economy and one
of the most important destination attributes (Seabra et al., 2020). Given the
holistic dimension of tourism, safety is a critical factor in the decision-making
process because the greater the perceived risk regarding a tourist destination, the
greater the possibility for tourists to avoid travelling to that same place (Sönmez &
Graefe, 1998a, 1998b).

2.1 Tourism Promotion during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The tourist activity reacts strongly to negative events. The need for safety and
well-being is an elementary concern of the traveller (Seabra et al., 2013). War
situations and political instability (Gartner & Shen, 1992; Seddighi, Nuttall, &
Theocharous, 2001), crime (Brunt, Mawby, & Hambly, 2000), terrorism (Sönmez,
1998), natural disasters (Faulkner, 2001) and health hazards outbreaks (Miller &
Ritchie, 2003) are issues that can threaten tourist’s physical integrity (Hall,
Timothy, & Duval, 2004).
 Falling in Love Again 231

In recent years, the study of risk and safety perceptions has been a hot topic
in tourism research, justified not only by its conceptual relevance but also due to
the recent events. In fact, past research has concluded that there is a greater
probability for a tourist to suffer from a travel-related health problem than to be
harmed by any type of crime or attack (Peattie, Clarke, & Peattie, 2005). Health
hazards and physical risks are crucial and urgent topics of research in tourism
because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Several health crises have affected
the tourism industry over the past few years. The world has witnessed various
types of infectious and bacterial diseases that have affected many endemic areas,
and has previously struggled with epidemic and pandemic situations that have
caused great economic and social setbacks, such as Middle East respiratory syn-
drome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus
(SARS-CoV-1), yellow fever, Ebola, measles, dengue, poliomyelitis, cholera, human
immunodeficiency virus (HIV), chikungunya fever, influenza, meningitis, malaria,
Zika, among others, that can be easily disseminated, thanks to the globalization
process (WHO, 2020). Infectious diseases such as those mentioned above
directly alter travel behaviour, as well as the relationships that tourists establish
with the destinations affected by said health issues (Hall, Scott, & Gössling,
2020).
Because of the ongoing health hazard crisis, the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD) forecasts a 60% drop in international
tourism. Tourist behaviour changes, not only due to the offers they are provided
with but also due to the perception of risk situations. Following institutional
warnings, and with the imminence of danger, tourists do not prioritize leisure but
security. This obviously causes variations in tourism consumption that reflect the
need to adopt preventive behaviours that can affect tourist patterns concerning
the length of their stay and their choice of destination and triggers a tendency to
avoid places with a large concentration of people (Marques Santos, Madrid,
Haegeman, & Rainoldi, 2020). Amid this struggle, destination marketing plays a
decisive role in maintaining a strong relationship with its consumers. In the light
of the current situation, the communication had to be adapted, not only to help
mitigate the effects of the pandemic but also to keep in touch with tourists’
emotions. Destination marketing should be aligned with crisis management
strategies to define several national measures regarding private or public orga-
nizations but will also have to focus specifically on branding the new strategies to
create news images, new platforms to build brand equity (Ndlovu, Nyakunu, &
Heath, 2009). Branding a destination using a resilient and restoration strategy is
not something new, and in the specific case of the current COVID-19, pandemic
destination marketers must be able to implement their branding strategies during
the ongoing crisis. Despite the contrasting approaches among tourist destinations,
there are common key points in marketing communication strategies such as the
need to promote safety and social responsibility and at the same time keep the
engagement with the destinations (Martı́nez, Clement, & Bergman, 2020) making
use of images highlighting the attributes of the places that cannot be visited
at the moment, and thus maintaining the interest and involvement of tourists
232 A. Pereira et al.

(CrowdRiff, 2020), and keeping them enthusiastic about the activities they will be
able to do in a post-pandemic future (Condé Naste Traveller, 2020).

3. Methodology
The research method used was based on textual content analysis drawn from
the literature on destination brand love. This qualitative textual approach
allowed exploring the information provided in the responses given to the ques-
tionnaires. The survey comprised the reproduction of 13 videos from different
tourist destinations: Abu Dhabi, Portugal, South Africa, Germany, Kenya,
Dubai, Australia, Spain, Greece, Ireland, Mexico, Scotland and Switzerland. For
each video, an open-ended question was asked: ‘How does this video make you
feel?’
The qualitative content analysis was conducted through the collection of various
textual data. This methodological approach allows analyzing textual content,
identifying central ideas and concepts of greater relevance. This is a content
analysis methodology widely accepted in qualitative research (Bardin, 1977). To
summarize all the information collected, a word cloud was created as a graphic
strategy to provide a better overview of the different statements. In the cloud, the
most frequently used words appear with greater representation.

3.1 Data Collection

The data collection was carried out between 1 August 2020 and 1 September 2020.
Respondents were asked to describe the feelings triggered by the different tourist
campaigns. For this purpose, a compilation of videos was made. The videos were
selected according to their release date, between March and April, coinciding with
the period when COVID-19 was declared a pandemic and began to spread rapidly
worldwide. Respondents were asked to provide their answers in a free-flow format,
so that we could collect as much information as possible regarding the feelings
triggered by each campaign. The videos were shared on YouTube by the different
destination brand managers. The data were published between 21 March 2020
and 23 April 2020. The video campaigns used are showed on Table 13.1 where the
information about tourist destinations is organized by title, release date of the
videos on YouTube and length of each video:

3.2 Samples Description

31 questionnaires were validated. Most of the respondents were Portuguese (97%),
77% were female and 23% were male. The age group includes people aged
between 30 and 64 years (84%), and 16% of the respondents were aged between 18
and 29 years. As for the participants’ education background, 87% of the sample
had a higher education degree or more than 12 years of schooling, and 13% were
secondary education graduates. 97% of the sample was employed.
 Falling in Love Again 233

Table 13.1. Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) Promotional

Campaigns.

DMO Title Date Duration

Abu Dhabi Stay Home, Stay Safe, Stay Curious 27/03/2020 0:59
South Don’t travel now so that you can 26/03/2020 1:30
Africa travel later
Germany Dream Now – Visit Later 23/04/2020 3:00
#DiscoverGermanyFromHome
Dubai Till We Meet Again 01/04/2020 0:54
Australia With Love from (A)US 06/04/2020 1:20
Spain Spain will wait 13/04/2020 0:46
Greece Until the time is right to travel again, 13/04/2020 2:08
dream away!
Ireland I will return/Fill your heart with Ireland 22/04/2020 0:50
Mexico Mexico: Love you soon 15/04/2020 1:07
Portugal Can’t Skip Hope 21/03/2020 2:18
Kenya Magical Kenya #LiveTheMagic 28/03/2020 1:18
#TheMagicAwaits #TravelTomorrow
Scotland Absence makes the heart grow fonder 03/04/2020 1:51
Switzerland Dream now – travel later 30/03/2020 0:30
Source: Own production (2020).

4. Results
4.1 Content Analysis Procedures
To carry out textual analysis, each respondent was assigned a code (R) and the
number of the survey in which he/she had taken part. The results were categorized
into four dimensions, to demonstrate, in a simplified format, the main concepts
highlighted in the textual analysis: (a) Willingness to Travel, (b) Sense of Security
and Peacefulness, (c) Sadness and Uncertainty and (d) Sense of Community.
Regarding clusters a and b, previous literature states that trust is undoubtedly
one of the pillars upon which brand love is built (Albert & Merunka, 2013) since
consumers, in this case tourists, value the brands they trust and that this trust
reinforces latent emotional ties (Albert & Merunka, 2013) and their sense of security
(Elliott & Yannopoulou, 2007). Thus, the greater the feeling of security, the greater
the trust in the brand, which is a strong antecedent for brand love (Albert &
Merunka, 2013).
According to the results, the promotional campaigns under study managed to
positively bring out these feelings in the viewers. Most respondents expressed a
234 A. Pereira et al.

desire to travel after watching the videos (R2, R4, R19, R21, R22, R23, R26,
R28) or to visit the specific destination depicted in the promotional campaign
(R5, R8, R20). The desire to relive moments and return to these tourist desti-
nations is also identified (R8, R10). Many also described how the campaigns
made them feel safe (R4, R9, R11, R26), calm (R4, R6) and at peace (R7, R15,
R21, R26, R28).

• Willingness to travel:
‘Willingness to discover and live moments with my family and friends’ (R1);
‘It increased my desire to travel’ (R2, R4, R19, R22, R23, R26, R28);
‘Willingness to know this destination’ (R5, R8);
‘Willingness to visit the country and the culture’ (R20);
‘I want to get on a plane and go there as soon as possible’ (R8);
‘Desire to travel with family’ (R20);
‘Desire to go’ (R21);
‘Tremendous desire to go back and see the beaches, monuments, culture and
food’ (R8);
‘I am dreaming of coming back to all these places’ (R10).
• Sense of security and peacefulness
‘It increased my sense of security and willingness to visit’ (R9);
‘Security, resiliency, starting to explore new moments, hospitality, joy, adven-
ture, pleasure’ (R11);
‘The narrator’s images and voice are very soothing’ (R6);
‘Calm, peace, tranquillity, safety’ (R4);
‘Hope, safety, relive, happy moments’ (R11);
‘At peace and safe’ (R4, R26);
‘Peace’ (R7, R15, R21, R26, R28).
The following cluster (c) focuses on Sadness and Uncertainty. This cluster is less
relevant, nevertheless the results show that the videos brought out feelings of uncer-
tainty in some viewers (R4, R29), as well as feelings such as melancholy (R4, R20),
sadness (R4, R19, R20), indifference or resignation (R2, R9, R16, R17, R22, R29,
R31) and fear (R21). These aspects may hinder the tourism consumers’ wish to travel.

• Sadness and Uncertainty

‘Sadness, melancholy, uncertainty and some sort of distress’ (R4);
‘Expectant about an uncertain future. I don’t feel like travelling!’ (R29);
‘Do not feel anything’ (R22);
‘Indifferent’ (R2, R9, R17, R29, R31);
‘The world is standing still’ (R13);
‘Resigned’ (R16);
‘Loneliness, Sadness’ (R19);
‘Melancholy, sadness for this pause in our lives’ (R20);
‘Fear’ (R21).
 Falling in Love Again 235

These reactions to promotional videos provide insight into the effects that the
pandemic crisis has on consumer behaviour. In some cases, tourism is not seen as
a relevant activity in a context of uncertainty (R4, R19). This is because brands
are not perceived in the same way (Ghosh, Chakraborty, & Ghosh, 1995), and
neither is risk (Reisinger & Mavondo, 2006). In fact, risk and uncertainty are
decisive factors in brand choice (Lee, Workman, & Jung, 2016).
According to the existing literature, sense of community has a positive impact
on the construction of brand love (Bergkvist & Bech-Larsen, 2010). Sense of
community in this case is associated with the crisis everyone is going through
right now, i.e., the global community that is being affected by the COVID-19
virus. Clearly, the current public health crisis triggers feelings regarding destinations
that are shared among community members. The promotional campaigns
instilled a general sense of community. Respondents reveal the importance
of protecting themselves and others (R1, R24, R27) and refer to notions and
feelings such as a moment for proximity and connection (R10, R11), respect (R5,
R11, R24, R27), opportunity for self-improvement (R25, R29) and togetherness
(R10, R11, R27).

• Sense of Community
‘The power for a better future is in our hands. It’s up to us to make a brighter
future’ (R1);
‘Compassion, the will to respect’ (R5);
‘Proximity, unity, respect, protecting bonds, peace’ (R11);
‘Connection, hope, peace, break, improvement, light, share, love. An opportunity
to reconnect with each other’ (R10);
‘We must protect ourselves and avoid spreading the virus as much as possible (…)
I have to respect and preserve my health and the others’ so that later we can
overcome isolation and loneliness’ (R24);
‘As a social being, I need to have environmental responsibility’ (R25);
‘Together we will overcome the pandemic’ (R27).

4.2 Word Cloud Analysis

Considering the results included in the word cloud shown in Fig. 13.1, it seems
that the advertising campaigns had a positive impact on respondents. The most
prominent word is Desire, which is positively associated with the wish to travel,
visit, live and go. Thus, it seems that the campaigns were successful in mitigating
the impact that the pandemic had on the mind of tourism consumers and were
able to increase the desire to travel. Hope and Peace are also prominent words,
closely associated with the content of the advertising messages presented. The
word Stop also appears over and over and is related to the time of the pandemic
and to the confinement period.
236 A. Pereira et al.

Fig. 13.1. Word Cloud. Source: Own Production.

5. Conclusions and Implications

5.1 Conclusions
Safety is a central issue in the tourism industry due to the constant growth of
international travel and the dynamics of the globalization process. Considering
that branding is an evolutive and adaptative process, destination marketing is not a
fixed process but an evolving method (Hankinson, 2007). The current crisis makes
rebranding a requirement, as it has happened several times in the past with tourist
destinations who faced hazards and crisis events (Amujo & Otubanjo, 2012).
According to the results gathered, humanization strategies have been the main
tactics used by several affected destinations. From the textual analysis, four clus-
ters and their respective categorized responses were considered: (a) Willingness to
Travel, (b) Sense of Security and Peacefulness, related to the improvement in brand
trust, (c) Sadness and Uncertainty, related to the negative effect of the campaigns,
and (d) Sense of Community, which denote a willingness to overcome this
pandemic and to protect each other.
The campaigns show their proximity to tourists through the dissemination of
support messages with educational, entertainment and well-being content, in order
to stimulate the various senses and create a sensation of safety and confidence that
will inspire tourists to keep on travelling. The results indicate that the communi-
cation strategies adopted were effective in promoting travel in a time when people
have to stay at home. In other words, they feed the consumers’ need to travel, and
their expectation that travel will be a reality once again in a possible and safe future.
In view of destination’s brand love formation, it appears that the antecedents
of the construct used for the purpose of this study are present in the testimonies
analyzed qualitatively. On the one hand, it appears that respondents felt safe, which
resulted in an increase in brand trust and in the desire to travel to these destinations.
The sense of community variable was also an evidence. Respondents valued the
 Falling in Love Again 237

well-being of the community, global security and also the need to get together and
share experiences, feelings of peace and hope. Most of these feelings are shared
by the group members that identify with the message conveyed.
Surprisingly, the analysis of the word cloud showed that the words ‘Pandemic’
and ‘Virus’ do not appear as often as one would expect, which reinforces the
capacity of promotional campaigns to develop positive feelings towards the tourist
destinations brands. Given the situation and the size of the crisis, it can be assumed
that fear and the tourism risk perceptions have clearly increased, but from a
marketing perspective, the adopted strategies were able to preserve existing ties,
sense of belonging, trust and to pave the way for the tourists to fall in love again
with tourist destinations.
The COVID-19 pandemic is not the only threat that the future of tourism has
to face. The risks involving tourism are constant due to the mobility capacity
provided by the easy access to international communication and transport net-
works and to the unpredictability of natural and man-made events. Since tourism
is a leisure and relaxation activity, any event that could jeopardize the physical
integrity of the tourist generates a potentially overwhelming wave of mistrust over
the destination.

5.2 Theoretical Implications

The present work is grounded on Ajzen’s TPB adapted to this study, considering
attitude as the idea of travelling in the future, the destination brand love as the
perceived behavioural control and the consumer subjective norm as risk perceptions
towards the loved destination. The theory constructs and the variables under research
regard the perceived behavioural control construct as a chain of affective and
cognitive reactions and advocate that positive attitudes will influence positive
behaviour. The same could be applied to destination love development since love
stimulates positive behaviours. The subjective norm constructed is related to
the influence of positive behaviours (Ajzen, 1991). In this particular case, destina-
tion risk perceptions can be influenced by place branding messages mediating trust
and brand love. This work represents a theoretical contribution to the study
of brand love and particularly to the study of destination brand love, a field of
research still limited in tourism studies.

5.3 Managerial Implications

Public organizations directly linked to the tourism sector need to reinforce trust
and safety measures. Safety is the new core product of tourism and requires special
attention from all the players in the tourism activity: residents, tourist operators
and tourists. The results of this study show how emotions play a fundamental role
in connecting people to places. In the particular case of the current pandemic
situation, these bonds can be strengthened, since this crisis is shared by everyone.
The promotional campaigns under analysis were effective in promoting destina-
tions, at a time when tourists were asked to stay at home. These results can be
238 A. Pereira et al.

important for public organizations, parishes, councils and municipalities to help

improve the objectives already outlined in the different strategic plans and rein-
force the need for safety. They will also play an important role in helping achieve
tourism sustainable growth even during the expected recession caused by the
pandemic crisis and will remind people that the efforts previously made cannot
be neglected. Private organizations linked to the tourism sector have to maintain
the connection with their main markets, increase the tourists’ desire to return as
soon as possible and stimulate emotional connections to the places, services and
brands that represent them.

6. Limitations and Further Research

The present study was developed using a literature review on risk perceptions,
destination marketing and destination brand trust to explain the fluctuations of
destination brand love throughout crisis situations. This study was applied to the
current COVID-19 pandemic crisis from the point of view of destination mar-
keting. The lack of literature focussing on destination brand love was partially
responsible for the exploratory nature of this study. Another limitation is the size
of the sample. Although this is a quantitative research study, a wider sample could
bring important assets to the results. These difficulties were due to time constraints
and to the urgency to conduct a study focussing on the impact of the pandemic on
destination branding in a time where tourism is struggling with the negative
outcomes of this global crisis.
As future lines of research, it would be pertinent to validate this study through
a quantitative approach using a brand love and brand trust scale and also to
conduct qualitative analysis using semi-structured interviews where other variables
of the relationship between risk perceptions and destination brand love could be
identified.

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Chapter 14

Crisis Management and Resilient

Destinations During Covid-19 in the
Southern European Countries
Dina Amaro

Abstract
2020 was a year marked by unprecedented health, social and economic
global challenges caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, and understandably
travel and tourism were among the most affected sectors.
In a world where disease outbreaks and pandemics are expected to
become increasingly common, negative consequences related to other epi-
demics may be mitigated in the future by knowing how tourist destinations
have handled a crisis of a much greater magnitude than those faced before.
Based on the long tradition of southern European tourist destinations,
secondary sources are used for data processing and analysis that will help
piece together an accurate picture of the tourist government policies and the
alternative measures taken by those countries during the first months of the
pandemic that may be useful to build resilient tourist destinations.
The aim of this chapter is to analyze how these countries managed this
pandemic crisis, in order to mitigate future negative impacts from other
pandemic crises and further potential Covid-19 waves and to reflect on how
they may become better resilient destinations.

Keywords: Crisis and disaster management; tourism resilience; tourism

Covid-19; southern European countries; tourism public policies; resilient
destinations

1. Introduction
Globally, the tourism sector started 2020 surrounded by very optimistic pro-
jections that indicated an increase in tourist arrivals and a sustained growth based
on the performance of 2019 (UNWTO, 2020c). According to this organization,

Pandemics and Travel, 243–258

Copyright © 2021 by Emerald Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
doi:10.1108/978-1-80071-070-220211015
244 Dina Amaro

1.5 billion international tourist arrivals were recorded in 2019 (a 4% increase

compared to the previous year) confirming tourism as a leading and highly
resilient economic sector, especially in the light of current uncertainties.
The initial forecasts, however, changed entirely with the emergence of the
pandemic crisis caused by the global scale spread of the Covid-19 disease. Within
months, the framing of the global tourism system moved from overtourism to
non-tourism (Gössling, Scott, & Hall, 2020) once the strategic orientation of most
countries focused on the need to slow down the spread of the virus and imple-
mented several preventive policies.
Tourism is one of the world’s most affected sectors (UNWTO, 2020b).
Nevertheless, since the beginning of this unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic
crisis, resilience has been one of the most commonly used words. Indeed, global
tourism has been exposed to a wide range of crises in the past, proving that the
tourism resilience and its ability to recover from economic, social and health
volatilities triggered by crises after crises is indisputable (Gössling et al., 2020).
However, there is much evidence that Covid-19 will be different and trans-
formative for the tourism sector (Gössling et al., 2020) and of a magnitude never
seen before, not only due to its global scale but also because of the widespread
restrictions on travel, business and day-to-day activities (Higgins-Desbiolles,
2020).
In a world where disease outbreaks and pandemics are expected to become
increasingly common due to increased travel and ease of access to destinations
worldwide (Jamal & Budke, 2020), some very careful reflection will be needed to
understand how tourist destinations have managed this Covid-19 crisis, so they
can become even more resilient.
There have been several key research contributions to disaster management
processes and procedures related to tourism and the resilience process (Cartier &
Taylor, 2020). However, there is a need for additional research on destination
development and management from a resilience perspective (Luthe & Wyss,
2014), as well as on the effectiveness and efficiency of government policies and
alternative policy measures that may help build resilience (Ritchie & Jiang, 2019).
Based on the long tradition of the southern European tourist destination
countries (Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain), the purpose of this chapter is to
analyze which tourist government policies and alternative measures were taken
during the first months of the pandemic. Understanding how those countries were
able to manage this crisis can help build resilient destinations and mitigate
negative consequences in upcoming pandemic crises.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Tourism Crisis and Disaster Management

The tourism industry and especially international tourism demand are known to
be vulnerable to crises or disasters (Cró & Martins, 2017; De Sausmarez, 2007). In
this context, a tourism crisis means
 Crisis Management and Resilient Destinations During Covid-19 245

…any occurrence which can threaten the normal operation and

conduct of tourism-related businesses; damage a tourist destination’s
overall reputation for safety, attractiveness and comfort by
negatively affecting visitors’ perceptions of that destination;
and, in turn, cause a downturn in the local travel and tourism
economy and interrupt the continuity of business operations for
the local travel and tourism industry by reducing tourist arrivals
and expenditures. (Sönmez, Backman, & Allen, 1994, p. 22)

In turn, some researchers distinguish between crises and disasters depending on

whether the cause is due to some internal organizational failure to act (a crisis) or
an external event over which the organization has no control (a disaster)
(Faulkner & Russell, 2001; Ritchie & Jiang, 2019).
De Sausmarez (2007) classifies crises according to their trigger. If the trigger
comes from within the sector, the crisis might be called an endocrisis and be the
result of a gradual change in the status quo. In contrast, if the crisis is triggered by
an event from outside the sector, it might be called an exocrisis and is unlikely to
have been anticipated by the tourism industry. In fact, the problem for crisis
managers working with a given destination is that, because the trigger originates
outside the tourism sector, there may be very little warning signs. If this trigger is
a natural disaster, it almost always comes as a complete shock; if it is an unfolding
market crisis, disease outbreak or ecological crisis, it is the direction in which the
situation develops and the extent of the impact of the crisis on the destination that
is so unexpected.
Another classification is made according to the nature of disaster: it can be
natural disasters (e.g., earthquakes, flooding or epidemics) and socio-political/
human-made disasters (e.g., wars, terrorist attacks, political or economic crises)
(Zenker & Kock, 2020).
According to the definitions commonly used in the tourism disaster literature
(Faulkner, 2001), the Covid-19 pandemic can be considered a triggering event (a
disease with no immediately known origin or cure), which was potentially so
significant that it challenged the existing structure, routine operations and survival
of tourism businesses and the whole global tourism network; it presented busi-
nesses and governments with a high threat situation, involving a short decision
time and an element of surprise and urgency; there were signs of an inability to
cope among the health services directly affected, and it represented a turning
point in the evolution of the tourism destinations of all destinations worldwide
(Faulkner, 2001). The Covid-19 pandemic is unique in scale and constitutes a
blend of several disasters and crisis typologies (Zenker & Kock, 2020). It is a
combination of a natural disaster, a socio-political crisis, an economic crisis and
a tourism demand crisis (Zenker & Kock, 2020).
Concerning its management, the tourism crisis is currently studied as a holistic
process involving prevention, planning, response, recovery and learning.
Although these phases are not static and clearly identifiable as implied (Boin &
McConnell, 2007), they are usually divided into ‘preparedness and planning’,
246 Dina Amaro

‘response and recovery’ and ‘resolution and reflection’ (Ritchie & Jiang, 2019). In
an increasingly crisis and disaster-prone world, a focus on these stages is essential
in order to help businesses and destinations reduce vulnerability and build resil-
ience in advance of crises and disasters (Ritchie & Jiang, 2019).
As for the response and recovery phase, the focus phase in which the impact
is studied and the way Covid-19 is being dealt with, Ritchie and Jiang (2019) in
their literature review on tourism risk, crisis and disaster management, point
out different topic areas for tourism recovery: government policy response
actions; physical and financial recovery; tourism reconstruction; crisis/disaster
communication/public relationships; post-crisis/disaster marketing strategies
and campaign; tourism market recovery; tourists’ misperception/destination
image/(re)-positioning; press response/media and marketing; marketing message;
new market segmentation; resource management; community collaboration; small
business recovery/business resilience.
In turn, key strategies for effective tourism recovery identified in the literature
are: crisis communication, recovery marketing and stakeholder collaboration
(Campiranon & Scott, 2014).
At government level, which plays an important role in this stage, three main
categories of government policy response after crisis are considered: (1) infrastruc-
ture and reconstruction, (2) provision of financial assistance and human resources
for tourism enterprises and (3) development of communication and marketing
campaigns to promote tourism in current and new markets (Cooper, 2005).
Thus, according to Ritchie and Jiang (2019), during crises, the government
can: (a) implement economic, financial and administrative measures or pro-
grammes directed at the tourism industry to alleviate negative impacts (Blake &
Sinclair, 2003; Gu & Wall, 2006); (b) change policies to help attract more inbound
tourism (Henderson, 1999); (c) provide up-to-date information on the crisis to the
various stakeholders (Cooper, 2005); (d) keep direct contact with the travel trade
and media representatives to ensure correct information is sent out, and negotiate
with scheduled and charter airlines to maintain service and rebuild tourist con-
fidence (Carlsen & Hughes, 2008); (e) build cooperative relationships with over-
seas embassies, large tourism companies and commercial sectors to enhance
recovery marketing (Henderson, 1999); (f) work closely with tourism organiza-
tions to develop communication and promotion activities, such as the use of
travel intermediaries, large-scale promotional activities, and strengthen adver-
tising in the main target markets (Gu & Wall, 2006).

2.2 Resilience in Tourism

The etymological origins of the resilience concept date back to the late sixteenth
and early seventeenth centuries and stem from the Latin term resilio, which means
‘to spring back’ (Klein, Nicholls, &Thomalla, 2003).
Only in the 1970s did the term ‘resilience’ start to be developed in ecological
sciences to describe the ability of a system to respond to and recover from a
perturbation (Holling, 1973), and it has been used in a wide variety of fields since
the late 1980s (Hall, Malinen, Vosslamber, & Wordsworth, 2016).
 Crisis Management and Resilient Destinations During Covid-19 247

Currently, resilience has become a core term in natural and social sciences and
is increasingly adopted to describe the capacity of a ‘thing’ to respond to or
withstand change, especially rapid change such as that which occurs in a crisis
event like an economic or financial crisis, or a disaster such as the impact of an
earthquake or flooding (Hall, Prayag, & Amore, 2018).
Within the scope of tourism, resilience has recently emerged as a key concept
with significant relevance for this sector (Cheer & Lew, 2017; Luthe & Wyss,
2014). Bearing in mind that the world is increasingly facing regional and global
crises, resilience is significant to understand how tourism organizations, destina-
tions, communities and tourists as individuals can survive, adapt, respond and
change in the face of increasing global and local change and disturbances (Hall,
et al., 2018). However, theoretical work conceptualizing resilience in tourism-
related contexts is still in its infancy (Becken, 2013; Bui, Jones, Weaver, & Le,
2020), and within the large, growing and increasingly multi-disciplinary body of
research on resilience, there is little agreement on a single concept or definition for
resilience (Butler, 2017).
Thus, according to Butler (2017), in a tourism context, resilience is concep-
tualized as a quality for withstanding undesired change caused by tourism activity
and the ability of the tourism system or a destination to recover from external
shocks such as economic crises, political instability or natural disasters.
Alternatively, Hall et al. (2018) address resilience from different perspectives:
‘individual resilience’, considered as the trait or capacity that allows individuals to
deal with and adjust positively to adversity (Jackson, Firtko, & Edenborough,
2007); ‘organizational resilience’, defined as the ability of an organization to
develop competencies that will allow it to keep up with changing dynamics, thus
implicitly assuming that an organization bounces back from disturbances and
rebuilds itself (Lengnick-Hall, Beck, & Lengnick-Hall, 2011); and ‘destination
resilience’, described as the persistence of systems and their ability to absorb
change and disturbance and still maintain the same relationships between pop-
ulations or state variables (Holling, 1973, p. 14).
As far as destination resilience is concerned, a destination is viewed as resilient
if it fulfils at least five necessary conditions. Firstly, a destination is resilient when
it is conscious of the vulnerability of its resources, attractions and amenities to
chronic stressors and potential hazards. Secondly, it should not seek development
paths that deliberately advantage some of the stakeholders while hindering the
most vulnerable. Thirdly, a resilient destination develops a long-term strategy that
gives scope to adaptive countermeasures that are rooted in the principles of
communicative and community planning. Fourthly, it adaptively reframes its
metagovernance to favour cross-institutional and multi-stakeholder engagement
and to overcome the fragmentation of traditional destination governance. A final
condition for a destination to be resilient is that it operates at appropriate regional
and local scales (Hall et al., 2018, p. 132).
Cochrane (2010) also argues that there are three main components of a resil-
ient tourism system: an awareness of market forces and the ability to harness
them; stakeholder cohesion and associative working, where different groups,
according to their roles and strengths, work in a coordinated way to use resources
248 Dina Amaro

sustainably; and strong and consistent leadership expressed through clear vision
and good management, either from individuals or institutions.
In turn, Dahles and Susilowati (2015) found that survival, adaptation and
innovation are key attributes of resilience, and Orchiston, Prayag, and Brown
(2016) suggested two broad indicators of resilience success: planning and culture,
and collaboration and innovation.
Understanding resilience and destination resilience requires, as such, a
different approach in the management, policymaking and environmental aware-
ness thus far conducted in tourism policy and planning practices (Hall et al.,
2018).

3. Southern European Countries Experience

3.1 Methodology
Southern European countries (Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain) have a long
tradition as a tourist destination. Spain and Italy are actually the second and fifth
most visited countries in the world (UNWTO, 2019), and Portugal has great
international recognition and holds several tourism awards. The most important
is the award for ‘world’s best tourist destination’, in 2019 (for the third year in a
row), granted by the World Travel Awards. The country is also the third safest
country in the world (Institute for Economics Peace, 2020).
Tourism plays a pivotal role in the economies of these countries, having pre-
sented a double-digit growth in 2018 (UNWTO, 2019), and is a major driver of
economic activities in Greece (6.8% of gross domestic product (GDP)), Portugal
(8.0%) and Spain (11.8%) (OECD, 2020c). Italy and Spain rely heavily on travel
and tourism and were already struggling with low economic growth even before
the outbreak (WEF, 2020).
In order to piece together an accurate picture of the tourist government policies
and the alternative measures taken by these countries during the first months of
the pandemic, a qualitative methodology based on secondary sources was used for
data processing and analysis. In line with the literature on crisis management, a
table is included to provide a better perception of the comparison between the
different countries.

3.2 The Covid-19 Tourism Crisis Management in Southern European Countries

The first cases of Covid-19 were confirmed on January 15 in Italy, on February 1
in Spain, on February 26 in Greece and on March 2 in Portugal (OECD, 2020a).
According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD (2020a)), Italy was the first country in the European Union (EU) to be
affected by the pandemic, having responded quickly to the outbreak. Greece has
successfully limited the number of infections and avoided overwhelming its
health-care system, having managed to contain most of the outbreak to the
Athens area and to refugee camps (OECD, 2020a). In order to contain the spread
of the virus, Portugal adopted prompt precautionary measures. Compulsory
 Crisis Management and Resilient Destinations During Covid-19 249

confinement was implemented on March 19 when the country had around 400
confirmed cases (Turismo de Portugal, 2020). Spain has been one of the countries
most affected by the pandemic in the EU. Containment measures were taken and
included a nationwide lockdown on March 14 (OECD, 2020a).
In all these countries, and in the first phase of the crisis, Government support
focused on providing immediate responses and mitigation efforts to protect vis-
itors and workers and on ensuring business continuity following the imposition of
containment measures (OECD, 2020a).
After national lockdowns and the wide implementation of travel restrictions
and border closure that began in mid-May 2020, a growing number of countries
have announced measures to help restart tourism, particularly safety protocols,
and promote domestic tourism (UNWTO, 2020a). This was particularly notice-
able in countries where tourism is a significant contributor to the national
economy, such as the southern European countries.
Thus, and according to OECD (2020b, 2020c) and the United Nations World
Tourism Organization (UNWTO) (2020a), the southern European countries have
drawn up the following strategies in order to respond and boost the recovery of
tourism:
As an immediate response, Greece established an Open Communication Line
to enable direct contact between tourism operators, businesses and market rep-
resentatives and the Ministry of Tourism to address emerging issues. The
Regional Tourism Council provided a communication instrument for the coor-
dination of tourism development and promotion, including crisis management,
and the Ministry of Tourism, the Greek Tourism Organization, and Marketing
Greece, with the support of Google, launched an online platform called ‘Greece
from Home’, aimed at providing tourism professionals with training in digital
tools and the opportunity to enhance their digital skills via certified online courses
and webinars (OECD, 2020b, 2020c).
With respect to tourism recovery, Greece created a governmental coordination
committee that includes representatives from all ministries. The strategic aim of
the committee was to reopen businesses, preserve destinations’ safety in terms of
public health and support the entire value chain of the tourism industry. This
Crisis Management Committee was responsible for: (1) providing up-to-date
information to the tourism market for developments; (2) drawing up a continu-
ity plan for the Ministry; (3) elaborating a package of measures to stimulate the
market in the short run and the long run; (4) setting up a programme to promote
the country as a safe destination when conditions are deemed appropriate; (5)
planning interventions that help recover a leading position in the international
market; (6) participating in initiatives to provide a coordinated effort to confront
the effects of Covid-19. Regarding marketing campaigns, Greece launched a new
tourism national campaign named ‘Greece. More than a destination’ (OECD,
2020b; UNWTO, 2020b).
Italy offered refund and vouchers for trips and tourist packages cancelled as a
result of the Covid-19 pandemic; extraordinary allowances for tourism and cul-
ture workers; extension of the social safety net also to seasonal workers in tourism
and entertainment; support for culture, entertainment and tourism businesses;
250 Dina Amaro

suspension of withholding tax payments, social security and welfare contributions

and compulsory insurance premiums. It also introduced measures and announced
a grant of 200 million Euros to support the troubled airlines, Alitalia and Air Italy
(OECD, 2020b; UNWTO, 2020a).
From June 3, Italy opened its borders to all the countries of the EU and
relaunched its image through a campaign to promote Italy around the world.
Regarding domestic tourism, Italy announced a holiday bonus for families, under
certain conditions, that would allow them to travel within the country (OECD,
2020b).
In the first stage, Portugal provided useful and up-to-date information and
protection advice to tourists, as well as information related to the restriction
measures in force in the country and useful contacts for those who were visiting or
living in the country. Portugal also worked very closely with marketing depart-
ments and delegations abroad in order to collect more information on the markets
and developed digital content to provide national operators from each market
with the appropriate e-training. To preserve the productive capacity of the
tourism business, the Portuguese Government announced 900 million Euros that
were used to help hotels and accommodations, EUR 200 million for travel
agencies, recreational services and event organizers, and EUR 600 million for
restaurants. Portugal also provided a Support Line for Tourism Microenterprises
Liquidity, with an allocation of 60 million Euros, developed online training
programmes, workshops, webinars and networking meetups online, with special
attention to digital transformation and the need to upgrade digital skills (OECD,
2020b; UNWTO, 2020a).
To support business resumption and adaptation plans, Portugal implemented
the ADAPTAR programme for tourism businesses, providing grants that were
used to acquire personal protective equipment, install contactless payment devices
and physically readjust workspaces (OECD, 2020c).
In a second phase, and in order to promote Portugal as a safe destination, a
‘Clean and Safe’ seal was created to provide companies with information about
the cleaning and health safety measures to be observed and the ‘Clean and Safe’
platform was launched to identify tourist companies and related sectors that
adhered to the ‘Clean and Safe’ seal. Portugal also launched a travel insurance for
foreign tourists visiting Portugal that includes medical and cancellation expenses
(OECD, 2020b; UNWTO, 2020a).
Related to marketing campaigns, Portugal transformed its destination commu-
nication from #CantSkipPortugal to #CantSkipHope, a message of hope for
all and that is perfectly adjusted to the moment of uncertainty we are living. In
June, another promotional video was launched – #CantSkipOpening – with the
purpose of welcoming back tourists. To promote domestic tourism, a campaign
#TuPodes was also launched, highlighting the fact Portuguese residents are
fortunate enough to visit one of the world’s best tourist destination (according to the
World Travel Awards).
Spain announced a 400 million Euro allowance to support tourism and
transport and published a set of sectoral guidelines: (1) guidelines on how to
operate in labour-related aspects in the context of coronavirus and (2) guidelines
 Crisis Management and Resilient Destinations During Covid-19 251

on good practices for businesses and workers in the tourism sector. It also sus-
pended interest and loan payments for tourism industry entrepreneurs for a one-
year period, postponed the payment of interests and/or loan principal of com-
panies and self-employed workers affected by the crisis, eased the conditions for
temporary collective lay-offs (known as Expediente de Regulación Temporal de
Empleo (ERTEs)) and introduced measures to support the extension of the period
of activity of workers with discontinuous permanent contracts in the tourism,
commerce and hospitality sectors linked to tourism. A Smart Tourism Destina-
tion Network bulletin Covid-19 was also set up in order to provide a collection of
information related to the impact and management of the health-related crisis
caused by Covid-19, aimed at tourism managers and professionals who are part of
the network (OECD, 2020c; UNWTO, 2020b).
After that, Spain prepared a Tourist Recovery Plan, based on four pillars: (1)
Health – undertaken in cooperation with the private sector to develop socio-
sanitary specifications to ensure that tourist destinations are safe and perceived as
safe; (2) Support – a new package of measures developed with other government
ministerial departments to provide financial, economic and social support for
tourism companies and workers, as well as for destinations particularly affected
by this crisis; (3) Knowledge – with a focus on improving the tourism knowledge
model, data processing and designing new observation mechanisms; and (4)
Promotion – national and international promotion campaigns to activate
demand. The Secretary of State of Tourism of Spain also created in collaboration
with the Spanish Tourist Quality Institute (ICTE) the Safe Tourism Certified seal,
a guarantee mark and certification certifying the implementation of the Health
Risk Prevention System against Covid-19. Within this framework, the Ministry
issued a series of guidelines meant to reduce the spread of the Covid-19 virus in
various industry areas of the tourism sector (OECD, 2020b; UNWTO, 2020a).
At a promotional level, Spain launched a video to keep the destination in the
travellers’ minds during the Covid-19 lockdown entitled #SpainWillWait and in
June launched another video called #Never stop dreaming – Spain Will Wait
(OECD, 2020b).
In line with the crisis management literature, the Table 14.1 compares the
measures taken by the aforementioned countries.

3.3 Building Resilience in the Southern European Countries

A resilient destination is a destination aware of its market forces, capable of
working with all the stakeholders in a coordinated and innovative way, making a
sustainable use of its resources, with strong and consistent leadership (Cochrane,
2010; Dahles & Susilowati, 2015; Hall et al., 2018; Orchiston, Prayag, & Brown,
2016) that operates at appropriate regional and local scales and develops a long-
term strategy that gives scope to adaptive countermeasures (Hall et al., 2018).
The immediate response and mitigation efforts to protect visitors and workers
and ensure business continuity undertaken by the southern European countries
were appropriate to the context of the crisis and crucial to the tourism recovery
Table 14.1. Response and Recovery Measures Taken by the Southern European Countries.
Response and Recovery Greece Italy Portugal Spain

252
phase
Implementation of Crisis Management Extraordinary Financial support for Publication of sectoral

Dina Amaro
economic, financial Committee responsible allowances for tourism accommodations, travel guidelines: (1) How to
and administrative for opening businesses, and culture workers. agencies, recreational operate in labour-
measures to alleviate preserve destinations’ Extension of the services and restaurants. related aspects in the
negative impacts safety in terms of public social safety net also to context of coronavirus;
health and support the seasonal workers in (2) good practices for
entire value chain of the tourism and businesses and workers
tourism industry. entertainment. in the tourism sector.
Support for culture, Suspension of interest
entertainment and and loan payments for
tourism businesses. entrepreneurs in the
tourism industry for one
year.
Suspension of Support Line for Postponement of
withholding tax Tourism payment of interest and/
payments, social Microenterprises or loan principal by
security and welfare Liquidity. regions to companies
contributions. and self-employed
Refunds with vouchers workers affected by the
for tourist packages crisis.
cancelled.
Provision of up-to-date Up-to-date information Up-to-date information Smart Tourism
information on the crisis on tourism market. on protection to Destination Network
to various stakeholders tourists, restriction bulletin Covid-19.
measures in force in the
country.
Direct contact with Open Communication Measures to support Specialized online
travel trade and media Line between tourism airlines like Alitalia and support to companies.
representatives and operators, businesses and Air Italy that are Training to support and
negotiation with market representatives experiencing severe

Crisis Management and Resilient Destinations During Covid-19

develop human capital.
scheduled and charter and the Ministry of difficulties.
airlines Tourism.
Reinforcement of Direct work with
cooperative marketing departments
relationships with abroad to collect
overseas embassies, information on the
large tourism markets.
companies and
commercial sectors
Close collaboration Online platform Campaign to promote Clean and Safe label Spanish Tourist Quality
with tourism ‘Greece from Home’. Italy across the world. and platform. Institute.
organizations to ADAPTAR Tourist Recovery Plan.
develop communication programme.
and promotion activities Campaign Holiday bonus for Destination’s Marketing campaigns
‘Greece. More than families. communication #SpainWillWait and
a destination’. changing from #Never stop
#CantSkipPortugal to dreaming – Spain
#CantSkipHope and will Wait.
#CantSkipOpening.
Marketing campaigns
#TuPodes for domestic
tourists.

253
Sources: Own elaboration based on OECD (2020b, 2020c) and UNWTO (2020a).
254 Dina Amaro

phase. The measures announced to restart and rebuild tourism were, in turn,
important to build resilient tourist destinations.
Thus, by creating a government coordination committee with representatives
from all ministries, Greece was capable of working with all the stakeholders in a
coordinated way. Spain also prepared a Tourist Recovery Plan based on the four
pillars undertaken by the public and private sector.
Given the particular circumstances of this crisis, all these countries refocused
on the promotion of domestic tourism: Italy announced a holiday bonus for
families and Portugal launched a national campaign ‘#TuPodes’, making refer-
ence to the fact that Portuguese are fortunate to be allowed to visit the world’s
best tourist destination.
Finally, all countries took innovative and pioneering measures (most of them
related to safety), involving all tourism stakeholders. Greece, for example, set up a
programme to promote the country as a safe destination. Italy relaunched its
image through a campaign to promote the country across the world. Portugal
created the ‘Clean and Safe’ seal and the ‘Clean and Safe’ platform. It also
launched a travel insurance for foreign tourists visiting the country. Spain created
the Safe Tourism Certified Seal.
The challenging times we are going through require an appropriate capacity to
adapt to the ‘new normal’, to be capable of meeting tourists’ new motivations and
expectations and the new demands imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Building
resilience is, therefore, an important condition for all these tourist destinations
that struggle to regain their condition of most visited countries in the world (Spain
or Italy) or best world destination with high levels of safety (Portugal). Even
Greece that has limited the number of infections can become a competitive health
safety country.

4. Conclusions
The Covid-19 pandemic is one of the most impactful events of the last decades,
having great impact on the travel and tourism sectors. Considered unique in scale,
it is defined as an ‘exocrisis’ (De Sausmarez, 2007) and a combination between a
natural disaster, a socio-political crisis, an economic crisis and a tourism demand
crisis (Zenker & Kock, 2020).
Following the need for more research on destination development and man-
agement from a resilience perspective (Luthe & Wyss, 2014), as well as on the
effectiveness and efficiency of government policies and alternative policy mea-
sures that may help build resilience (Ritchie & Jiang, 2019), this chapter focused
on the analysis of how four traditional tourist destinations from southern Europe
(Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain) handled this crisis during the first months and
on the measures that were taken to help build resilience.
As a result of globalization, several crises (economic and financial, disasters,
terrorism and pandemics) have been experienced over the last years, and all had
considerable impact on tourist destinations. The preparedness and planning of
these crises, as well as a swift response to deal with them are crucial for the tourism
recovery phase.
 Crisis Management and Resilient Destinations During Covid-19 255

With respect to preparedness and planning, the current crisis was difficult to
anticipate because it originated outside the tourism sector. However, during the
first months, these tourism destinations responded quickly and strongly to protect
workers and visitors and support touristic business survival (OECD, 2020b).
Thus, and in line with the literature on crisis management, the governments of
these countries not only focused on the management of the crisis and the miti-
gation of its impact but also took important measures related to the establishment
of health and sanitary protocols, certifications and seals for clean and safe
practices as well as to the promotion of domestic tourism.
All these measures taken by the southern European countries attest that all
made their best to show that they have done what it takes to manage this crisis.
However, due to their low infection rate compared to other EU nations, Greece
and Portugal seem to have an edge over competing markets, including Spain and
Italy. Greece has strengthened its brand in terms of hospitality and safety, and
Portugal has made additional efforts to continue to be the third safest country in
the world and one of the world’s best destinations.
Furthermore, the ability of these destinations to manage and recover from this
crisis demonstrates how resilient they are (Prayag, 2018).
In fact, the southern European countries implemented government policies and
alternative measures on different scales that can help build up resilient destina-
tions. Most of these measures involved all the public and private stakeholders in a
coordinated and innovative way and favoured a sustainable use of the countries’
resources.
The efforts made should, however, be reinforced in the medium and long term,
considering the high probability of substantial changes, especially regarding
mobility, socialization and consumption patterns, leisure and work, and many
other dimensions of our social lives (Romagosa, 2020) which will have a very
significant impact on tourism as we know it.
To this end, these countries are expected to continue: (1) to work to be safe
destinations; (2) to promote themselves internally and externally, through omni-
channel and segmented communication strategies; (3) to encourage the digitali-
zation of the sector, aiming not only to allow better management of tourist flows
(with a view to avoiding large crowds of tourists and ensuring social distancing)
but also to offer alternative destinations and tourism offers; (4) to involve all
tourism stakeholders in collaborative networks to develop, in an integrated way,
new products, services, tourist experiences, attractions and tourist destinations;
(5) to operate on an appropriate local, regional and national scale; (6) to focus on
quality, diversified and differentiating offer; (7) to safeguard companies through
financial support policies; and (8) to preserve and qualify their human resources.
Summing up, considering the vital role that the tourism sector plays in the
southern European countries, resilience is essential for tourism to grow in a
sustainable way in the coming years. This can even be a golden opportunity to: (1)
promote less massified destinations with low population density (thus combating
regional asymmetries, depopulation and desertification or an ageing population in
the interior of the countries); (2) reduce the seasonality index; (3) encourage the
256 Dina Amaro

digital transformation already underway; and (4) find innovative solutions that
can provide more authentic, diverse and exclusive experiences to tourists.
This requires, however, a flexible medium- and long-term strategy based on
solidarity, sustainability, innovation and the capacity for collaborative work with
different public and private stakeholders, so that these countries can continue to
provide authenticity, diversity, safety and, above all, confidence to all those who
visit them.
Finally, it should be noted that even though the tourism recovery is still taking
its first steps, future research should focus on evaluating the total impact of this
pandemic and the resilience capacity of tourist destinations, as well as the
opportunities created under the redefinition and implementation of measures in
favour of a safer, more sustainable and more resilient tourism.

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tional tourism. Retrieved from https://www.unwto.org/impact-assessment-of-the-
covid-19-outbreak-on-international-tourism. Accessed on June 13, 2020.
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global economy. Retrieved from https://www.unwto.org/international-tourism-
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2020.104164
Index

Acceptance of restrictions and safety economic and financial measures,

measures, 95, 97–99 75–77
ADAPTAR programme, 250 map, 68
Adaptive capacity, 55 methodological procedures, 71–72
Adventure tourism, 52 mobility of people, 74
Air transport strategy, 161 normative acts, 72–78
Ajzen’s theory, 228–229 public policies in tourism,
Akaike information criterion, intergovernmental
149 coordination and
Armação dos Búzios, 68–69 government functions,
Artificial intelligence (AI), 144 69–71
Asset pricing risk, 122 Brazilian Tourism Institute, 77
literature review, 123–125
method, 126–131 Celebrities, 195–197
results, 132–136 Celebrity WOM, 194–195, 199
Association of Turkish Travel Chikungunya fever, 231
Agencies (TURSAB), 39 China–Pakistan Economic Corridor
Avian influenza, 13–22 (CPEC), 54
Aviation sector in Turkey, 40 Cholera, 231
‘Clean and Safe’ seal, 250
Banco do Brasil, National Bank for Climate change, 37
Economic and Social Community resilience, 55
Development (BNDES), Conditional volatility, 130
75–76 Conscious Tourism Seal, 77
Biases, 125 Content analysis procedures, 216–217,
Brand love, 228 233, 235
limitations, 238 Coordination, 70
literature review, 229–231 Corporate bond portfolio ETF, 135
methodology, 232 Corporate social responsibility (CSR),
results, 233–235 212–213, 215
Brands, 228 COVID-19, 107–108, 142, 158,
Brazil, 68, 70–72 174–175, 193
Brazilian tourism destination marketing during,
access, services and tourist 215–216
attractions restrictions, destination strategies for recovery
74–75 and resilience in, 4–5
analysis, 78–79 impacts in economy and finance, 4
campaign support to minimize and importance of communication
sector losses, 77–78 during crisis, 194–195
260 Index

outbreak, 122 Earthquakes, 38

pandemic, 2–3, 11–12, 30–31, Ebola virus disease, 13, 22, 231
50–51, 72, 84, 212, 245 Economic collapse, 143
and risk perception in tourism, Economic Commission for Latin
197–198 America and the Caribbean
in Russian Federation, 109 (ECLAC), 177
tourism crisis management in Economic policy, 143
Southern European Economic policy uncertainty (EPU),
countries, 248–251 142
and tourism industry management, indexes calculation and studies,
57–60 144–146
tourism promotion during, 230–231 Economic recession, 29–30
tourists and residents perceptions Ecotourism, 37–38, 52
regarding, 3 Ecuador, 158
Credibility, 199 characterization of sector, 162–163
Crisis, 29–30, 158–159 literature review, 159–162
and disaster management, 246 methodology, 163–165
in Turkey, 31–33 results, 165–168
Cultural heritage, 38 Ehsas programme, 58
Cultural tourism, 51 Electronic word of mouth (eWoM), 56,
196
Daily life and travelling, 117–118 Environmental crises, 37–38
Dengue, 13, 22, 231 Environmental disasters, 29–30, 175
Destination brand love, 228 Epidemic preparedness index (EPI
Destination image, 193–194, 213, index), 145, 148
215 Epidemics, 8
interpretation of content and impacting tourism in twenty-first
destination image scale century, 12–13, 22–23
matrix, 218–219 Estimation methods, 178–179
Destination management/marketing European equity portfolio ETF, 135
organizations (DMOs), 212 European Union (EU), 30, 87, 248–249
in destination marketing, 212–213 Expertise/knowledge, level of, 199
promotional campaigns, 233
Destination marketing, 212–213, 228 Factor analysis, 130
during COVID-19 pandemic, Familiarity, 199
215–216 Federal, 70
DMOs in, 212–213 Federalism, 70
Destination(s), 230 Federation, 70
resilience, 247 Filtered probabilities, 147
social responsibility strategy, 222 Flightradar24 website, 173–174
strategies for recovery and resilience Floods, 38
in COVID-19 context, 4–5
Dexamethasone, 12 Gandhara Civilization, 51
Disease outbreak, 10 Generalized autoregressive conditional
Droughts, 38 heteroskedasticity
(GARCH), 130, 142–143
 Index 261

Geopolitical disasters, 175 Influenza, 231

Geopolitical instabilities, 35–37 Institutional investors, 124–125,
Geopolitical uncertainty (GEOU), 143 135–136
Global crisis, 30 Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e
Global economic crisis, 34–35 Estatı́stı́ca (IBGE), 68
Global EPU index (GEPU index), 145 Intangible heritage, 51
Globalization of tourism industry, 1 Interaction effect, 122
Government functions, 69–71 Intergovernmental coordination, 69, 71
Government intervention, 135 International migration, 36
Government response, 122 International travel, 23
Government Response Tracker
(GRT), 124, 126, 130 Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure, 131
‘Greece from Home’ platform, 249 Karakoram 2 (K-2), 52
Green stimulus project, 54 Katherine Flood in Australia, 38
Gross domestic product (GDP), 87,
145, 174–175, 248 Leisure and recreation stocks, 143
Guarantor function, 71 data processing and high volatility
Gurdwaras, 51–52 regime smoothed probability
estimation, 146–148
H1N1 virus, 11 economic policy uncertainty indexes
H1N2 flu pandemic, 10 calculation and studies,
H2N2 virus, 11 144–146
H3N2 virus, 11 methodology, 146–150
Hannan–Quinn information criteria, results, 148–150
149–150
Harappan Civilization, 51 Malaria, 231
Health risks, 8, 85, 197 Markov-switching models, 143
in tourism, 8–9 Marmara (İzmit) earthquake (1999), 38
Health-related crises, 23, 38, 40 Mean-variance concept, 123
Health-related outbreaks, 108 Measles, 231
Herding behaviour, 125 Meningitis, 231
Heritage tourism, 51 Mexican tourist income, 174–175
Heritage tourists, 51 Mexico, 174–175
Higher Education Commission (HEC), data and variable transformation,
54–55 178
Home bias, 125 estimation methods, 178–179
Horizontal coordination, 79 implications, 182–185
‘Host destinations’ residents, 159 literature review, 175–177
Hotel Association of Turkey methodology, 177–179
(TUROB), 39 model specification by economic
Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), activity, 178
231 results, 179–182
Middle East respiratory syndrome
Individual investors, 125, 135–136 coronavirus (MERS-CoV),
Individual resilience, 247 13, 22, 231
Indus Valley Civilization, 51 Ministério do Turismo (MTur), 69, 78
262 Index

Mobility, 161 Physical risks, 9

Mughal Empire, 51 Poliomyelitis, 231
Political conflicts, 29–30
National Confederation of Commerce, Portugal, 194, 212
Services, Goods and channels, 202
Tourism (CNC), 68 country of origin, 199–202
National Institute of Statistics and limitations, 205
Geography (INEGI), 178 methodology, 198–199
Natural disasters, 38 results, 199–204
News media, 195 theme, 202–204
News sentiment, 142 theoretical background, 194–198
No-Objection Certificates (NOCs), 56 Positive Word of Mouth (pWOM), 4,
Non-believers, 51 193–194
North American Industrial Product Input Matrix (PIM), 164
Classification System Prospects, 173–174
(NAICS), 177, 185 Public policy, 70–71
in tourism, 69–71
Option volatility risk, 135 Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), 145
Ordinary least squares (OLS), 148
Organisation for Economic Quintana Roo, 182
Co-operation and
Development (OECD), 177, Recovery communication, 216
231–232 Refinitiv global leisure and recreation
Organizational resilience, 247 stock index (RGLR), 143
Outbreaks impacting tourism in Regional Economic Analysis
twenty-first century, 12–13, Laboratory of the National
22–23 Autonomous University of
Mexico (LabREG-UNAM),
Pakistan Hotels and Restaurants Act 177, 179
(1976), The, 54–55 Religious tourism, 51
Pakistan Tourism Development Residents, 88
Corporation (PTDC), 56 Resilience, 49–50, 55
Pakistan Tourist Guides Act (1976), building resilience in Southern
The, 54–55 European countries,
Pakistan’s tourism industry, 50 251–254
categories and forms, 51–52 in tourism, 246–248
COVID-19 and tourism industry Resilient destination, 251
management, 57–60 Restart project, 76–77
rise of, 55–57 Rio de Janeiro, 68–69
struggling, 52–55 Risk perception, 85, 108–109, 197
Pandemic(s), 2–3, 8–10, 29–30, 85, 99 in tourism, 197–198
in history, 10–11 in travel, 1
impacting tourism in twenty-first Risk(s), 211, 8–9, 122
century, 12–13, 22–23 risk-reduction strategy, 193–194
Paraty, 76–77 Russia, 109
Perceived risk, 230 Russian Federation
 Index 263

basic results, 110–112 Spanish Tourist Quality Institute

COVID-19 in, 109 (ICTE), 251
findings, 110–113 Spatial weights matrix, 178
key results, 112–113 Stock markets, 123
methodology, 109–110 Surprise effect, 122, 131–132
Russian residents, 3 COVID-19, 131
sensitivity, 135–136
Safety, 215, 85, 197, 230, 237–238 Sustainability of tourism, 55
communication, 195 Swine influenza, 13–22
on vacation and leisure, 108–109
Safety perceptions Tangible heritage, 51
in daily life and future plans, 93, Technological incidents or failures, 32
95–97 Territorial and Urban Property Tax
data analysis, 89–90 (IPTU), 76–77
data collection, 88–89 Terrorism, 29–30
literature review, 85–86 Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB),
methodology, 87–90
228–229
research setting, 87–88
Three-factor model, 123
results, 90–97
Tourism, 1, 68, 84–85, 108, 159–160,
survey instrument design, 88
230, 244
in tourism activities practicing,
challenges for future in, 23–24
91–93
health risks in, 8–9
to travel inside and outside country,
industry, 8, 30, 122
90–91
industry, 161
Scenario method, 158–159
market, 228
Seasonal autoregressive integrated
marketing, 212
moving average models
in Mexico, 174, 182
(SARIMA models), 177
promotion during COVID-19
Sense of community, 229–230
Severe acute respiratory syndrome pandemic, 230–231
(SARS), 1–2, 31–32, 38–39, resilience, 244
sector in Turkey, 29–32
84, 108
tourism-dependent communities, 55
Severe acute respiratory syndrome
vulnerability, 50
coronavirus (SARS-COV),
Tourism Coordination Board, 56
11–13, 22
Tourism crises
SARS-CoV-1, 231
and disaster management,
SARS-COV-2, 11–12, 68, 142, 158,
173–174, 215–216 244–246
Social disasters, 175 and governments policies and
Social distancing measures, 158 measures in COVID-19
Social media, 195 context, 3
Social resilience, 55 Tourism-led growth hypothesis
Southern European countries, 244 (TLGH), 174
literature review, 244–248 Tourist Assistance Centre, 77
methodology, 248 Tourists, 8–9
Spanish flu, 10 destinations, 159
264 Index

and residents perceptions regarding US economic policy uncertainty index,

COVID-19 pandemic, 3 4
Trade policy uncertainty (TPU), 144 US markets, 143
Travel Agencies Act (1976), The, US stock market volatility index
54–55 (USVI), 145
Travel and Tourism Competitiveness
Index (T&TC Index), 56–57 Value-at-risk concept, 123
Travel risk perception, 90 Vertical coordination, 79
Travelling and coronavirus, 118–119 Virus outbreaks, 8, 85
#TuPodes national campaign, 254 VIX, 142–143, 149–150
Turkey, 30 Volatility, 124
crises and tourism sector in, 31–33 spillovers, 143
findings, 33–40 Vstoxx, 130–131
limitations and future research, 42 Vulnerability, 49–50, 55
literature review, 31–32
purpose and method of study, 32 Word cloud analysis, 220–221, 235
tourism sector in, 30–31 Word of Mouth (WOM), 194–195,
197–198
Uncertainty, 142 World Economic Forum, 175
United Nations Conference on Trade World Health Organization (WHO),
and Development 11–13, 22, 59–60, 84, 158,
(UNCTAD), 176–177 193
United Nations World Tourism
Organization (UNWTO), Yellow fever, 231
57–58
US dollars (USD), 145 Zika virus, 1–2, 13, 22, 231