COVID-19: TOURISM RECOVERY, RISK AND UNCERTAINTY
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Surrey
Department Name: Tourism
Abstract
Tourism has been severely affected by Covid-19, and it is anticipated that it will be one of the last sectors to recover fully from the effects of the pandemic. It faces enduring tourist unwillingness to take risks when booking holidays in the face of uncertain health hazards and border/containment controls. Official estimates predict that international tourism will decline by 55% and domestic tourism by 24% in 2020, with demand remaining subdued until 2022. This matters because tourism accounts for almost 10% of UK jobs, dominates some local economies and contributes to the quality of life of individuals.
This project will analyze how unprecedented Covid-19 related risks and uncertainties shape tourist intentions in the UK's inbound, outbound and domestic markets: substitution between domestic and outbound (international) tourism will also be analysed. The impacts on different market segments will be examined: on long-haul versus short-haul international tourism, and on urban versus rural versus coastal tourism destinations. Additionally, both attitudes to risk and uncertainty, and vulnerability to Covid-19, also vary by social characteristics: by age, gender, education, income and ethnicity.
The research has two main stages. The first analyses large scale surveys of potential tourists in the UK and its four largest markets: Germany, France, USA, and China. Statistical modelling will provide detailed analyses of attitudes to risks and uncertainties in different elements of the tourism experience: travel versus accommodation versus visiting attractions and places of entertainment. The project will also provide an overall assessment of the determinants of tourism intentions in both the short (3 month) and the long term (to the end of 2021).
The second stage of the research analyses how individual tourist intentions would change when faced with contrasting Covid-19 health and containment scenarios. How would different types of tourists respond to continuing gradual relaxation of border and social controls as the pandemic retreats, versus a second wave leading to selective or widespread imposition of lockdown controls such as quarantine, border testing, strict social distancing rules, and closure of commercial and social venues.
This research will provide a new evidence base on tourist intentions that can underpin more accurate demand forecasts, and more targeted market research and policy measures for UK tourism. The project is undertaken in collaboration with two leading tourism organizations: VisitBritain and the Association of British Travel Agents.
This project will analyze how unprecedented Covid-19 related risks and uncertainties shape tourist intentions in the UK's inbound, outbound and domestic markets: substitution between domestic and outbound (international) tourism will also be analysed. The impacts on different market segments will be examined: on long-haul versus short-haul international tourism, and on urban versus rural versus coastal tourism destinations. Additionally, both attitudes to risk and uncertainty, and vulnerability to Covid-19, also vary by social characteristics: by age, gender, education, income and ethnicity.
The research has two main stages. The first analyses large scale surveys of potential tourists in the UK and its four largest markets: Germany, France, USA, and China. Statistical modelling will provide detailed analyses of attitudes to risks and uncertainties in different elements of the tourism experience: travel versus accommodation versus visiting attractions and places of entertainment. The project will also provide an overall assessment of the determinants of tourism intentions in both the short (3 month) and the long term (to the end of 2021).
The second stage of the research analyses how individual tourist intentions would change when faced with contrasting Covid-19 health and containment scenarios. How would different types of tourists respond to continuing gradual relaxation of border and social controls as the pandemic retreats, versus a second wave leading to selective or widespread imposition of lockdown controls such as quarantine, border testing, strict social distancing rules, and closure of commercial and social venues.
This research will provide a new evidence base on tourist intentions that can underpin more accurate demand forecasts, and more targeted market research and policy measures for UK tourism. The project is undertaken in collaboration with two leading tourism organizations: VisitBritain and the Association of British Travel Agents.
Publications
Williams AM
(2022)
Risk, uncertainty and ambiguity amid Covid-19: A multi-national analysis of international travel intentions.
in Annals of tourism research
| Description | Identification of the role of uncertainty, risk and ambiguity intolerance in shaping tourist intentions in the UK and its four key international markets: the USA, China, France and Germany. Key findings include the contrasting relationships between intolerance of risk versus intolerance of uncertainty/ambiguity with future tourism intentions. Uncertainty and ambiguity intolerance is shown to lead to intentions to take holidays relatively sooner rather than delaying the holiday plans, while intolerance of risk has the opposite effect. The notion of 'willingness to take risk was disaggregated into six components: intolerance of, and competence to manage, risks across three dimensions: life in general, the travel domain, situational (Covid-19): of these, Covid situational risk, tolerance of general risk, and perceived competence to manage Covid situational risk are the most important factors. The experimental research element of the project examined how tourists make destination decisions in response to different types of crises, and how this compares with their preference under non-crisis or business-as-usual conditions. The impact of three types of major external events (heatwaves, epidemics and terrorism) on rankings of destination countries were analyzed. The research found that: (i) the impact of major external events on destination rankings is significant but relatively low, indicating strong preference persistence even in the face of external shocks; (ii) crises have differential impacts with a new infectious disease generating the highest turmoil and a heatwave generating the lowest turmoil in how individual tourists ranked destination countries; (iii) individual responses to intervention scenarios are moderated by personal risk preferences, especially difference in individual tolerance of, and competence to manage, travel risks. . |
| Exploitation Route | To inform policy and marketing activities, and contributing to the national reviews of inbound and domestic tourism statistics. |
| Sectors | Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Transport |
| URL | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2021.103346 |
| Description | Only findings were fed into policy and marketing activities by Visit Britain and ABTA, via two workshops with key policy makers in these organizations. More indirectly they also contributed to two reviews that we were commissioned to undertake for Visit Britain on UK domestic and inbound tourism statistics. The latter included close consultation with ONS. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2021 |
| Sector | Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism |
| Impact Types | Economic |
| Description | Domestic Tourism Data Review |
| Amount | £25,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Visit Britain |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 02/2022 |
| End | 08/2022 |
| Description | Understanding the Landscape of Inbound Tourism Measurement |
| Amount | £24,633 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Visit Britain |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2021 |
| End | 04/2021 |
| Description | Visit Britain |
| Organisation | Visit Britain |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | We work closely with Visit Britain on the design of the research instruments, share findings, and aim to contribute to their policy and marketing activities. To date we have been involved in three main collaborations: on the determinants of tourism productivity, on researching tourism intentions and uncertainty in the context of Covid-19 and on outbound tourism statistics. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Visit Britain contributes via access to their related surveys of tourism intentions and tourism flows, inviting us to join their webinar discussions, contributing to research design, and helping to disseminate our research findings. |
| Impact | Kim, Y R, Lockwood, A and Williams A M (2019) The UK Tourism Productivity Gap: Challenges and Potential for Tourism Productivity, London: Visit Britain |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Webinar for parners: |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Presentation of preliminary findings of first wave survey to ABTA, Visit Britain, Visit Wales, Visit Scotland and Northern Ireland Tourism Office. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Workshop for partners |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Final workshop for industrial partners, presenting main findings from longitudinal surveys and experimental research, including discussion of policy implications. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Workshop for partners |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Final workshop for industrial partners, presenting main findings from longitudinal surveys and experimental research, including discussion of policy implications. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |