Personal mobilities during and after the COVID-19 pandemic

In this chapter, we will attempt to speculate on possible future post-COVID-19 scenarios for personal mobilities, daily as well as touristic mobilities, following the wide availability of vaccinations against the virus. Post-COVID-19 mobilities reflect people’s basic needs or triggers for mobilities, their pre-pandemic, and their pandemic mobility experiences, as well as some societal-economic forces pushing for mobility changes. We will speculate that habit formations by individuals for extensive uses of virtual mobilities, which have emerged during the COVID-19 crisis as a rather imposed sole mobility option, might continue also under more voluntary mobility conditions post-pandemic. These continued habitual changes will be relatively minor, in line with pre-pandemic trends, as far as mobility habits for shopping and social contacts are concerned. However, it is assumed that home-based work, which was selected only by small numbers of employers and employees during pre-pandemic times, may become widely adopted post-pandemic. Continued day-long stays at home for both work and domestic activities will turn homes for teleworkers into their only sites for daily activities, thus possibly bringing about demands for daily leisure activities to be pursued in local daily refreshment centers, alongside demands for more frequent periodical, international as well as domestic, touristic mobilities.