Antecedents of the concept of travel intention during the pandemic: A case study from Turkey

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to reveal the effect of Covid-19 fear on travel intention and to test the mediating effect of reliance on vaccine in the relationship between fear of Covid-19 and travel intention. In this context, a structural model was created to examine these three variables: the relationship among fear of Covid-19, travel intention and trust in the vaccine. The quantitative study was carried out through a structural model in order to verify the behavior of the three variables together using IBM AMOS 24 package. A case study based on data collected from 467 public employees across Turkey supported empirically the study. At the end of the analysis, it was found that the fear of Covid-19 significantly and negatively affected the travel intention, while the fear of covid-19 significantly and negatively affected the trust in the vaccine, and no significant relationship was found between the trust in the vaccine and the travel intention. In the model in which the mediation effect was tested, it was found that trust in vaccine did not have a mediating effect on the relationship between fear of Covid-19 and travel intention. Considering these results, suggestions were made for the decision makers of travel, tourism and hospitality industry to be able to recover after the pandemic to create plan for policy and strategies.