Coronavirus impacts on post-pandemic planned travel behaviours

Since its outbreak in Wuhan (China) in early January 2020, the COVID-19 strain of the novel coronavirus has spread rapidly across China and around the globe with a major resulting impact on travel and tourism. As a response to this outbreak, China was effectively the first country in the world to impose a mandatory nation-wide self-quarantine between 23rd January and 9th February 2020 (Bloomberg News, 2020). This research note analyses the intra-pandemic (i.e. during the pandemic) perceptions as well as post-pandemic planned behaviours among Chinese residents within the context of the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. For this purpose, the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1991) is adopted to explore planned changes to travel behaviours after the pandemic. The intra-pandemic perceptions towards tourism destinations are added to examine their association with post-pandemic planned travel behaviours, particularly with regards to Attitude and Post-pandemic Travel Intention. This research provides a novel contribution to existing knowledge by providing a prompt understanding of a real-time pandemic, particularly on the impacts of intra-pandemic perceptions on post-epidemic planned travel behaviours.