Coronavirus-induced self-focused adaptation efforts in tourism: asymmetric modelling approach

This empirical study aims to explore whether tourists have a positive adaptive behaviour response under the impact of COVID-19 from Chinese tourist perspective and if so, which factors in times of crisis can drive or hinder changes in tourists’ adaptive behaviour response. A conceptual model with survey data obtained from 1091 Chinese respondents after COVID-19 outbreak was established mainly based on protection motivation theory (PMT) and examined using structural equation modelling (SEM) technique and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to gain a comprehensive understanding of complex relationships between indicators and outcome variables. SEM results confirmed Chinese present positive adaptive travel behaviour, which is significantly affected by perceived severity of COVID-19, coping appraisal at a social level, perceived support from other people, perceived effectiveness of social media information, and travel intention in times of COVID-19. fsQCA analysis was used to reinforce and supplement SEM results by simulating three and one causal configurational models depicting the conditions of high and low levels of adaptive travel behaviour, which provides effective ways for improving the capacity of destinations to adapt to a dynamic environment and achieve tourism recovery.