Covid-19 and perceived travel risks: the development of a risk evaluation index using Delphi-based and MCDA applications

• Autor(a) principal: Plank, Pia Antoinette
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.1/18947
• topic: Análise de decisão multicritério (MCDA); Técnica delphi; Risco apercebido pelo turista; COVID-19; Risco; comportamento do turista; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Outras Ciências Sociais

This work addresses the problem of changing travel risk perceptions of travellers following the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Following the unprecedented and global health crisis of COVID-19, without a doubt, there has been a tremendous impact on global tourism for two reasons; 1) the imposed travel restrictions discouraging people to travel; and 2) the increased anxieties of travellers in terms of responding to the new travel landscape. The main goal of this study was to identify and weight the important travel risks that are emerging and to create a risk evaluation index in which destinations and strategic interventions’ performance can be measured. The secondary objectives to this study include to contribute to a better understanding of risk perceptions held by travellers in a pandemic situation and apply a multimethodology to the concept of tourist perceived risk that has, to the knowledge of the author, never been carried out before. Empiric investigation analysed a sample of South African travellers’ travel risk perceptions through the use of the Delphi Technique and Multicriteria Decision Analysis (MCDA). The results equip the tourism industry, practitioners and managers with the information needed to evaluate tourist risk perception following a global pandemic, but can also be further applied to other contexts. This allows for the implementation of response strategies to encourage travel and contribute to the recuperation of the tourism sector following the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings from the Delphi-based survey indicate that tourist perceived risks are multidimensional, with first-level dimensions being categories of Financial, Performance, Planning and Regulation risks, which can be further sub-divided into categories that include additional expenses, exchange rates, refunds-related, destination performance, transportation performance, researching-related, psychological, lockdowns, testing-related and comfort-related criteria. MCDA applications, using MACBETH approaches, found that the risk criteria that are considered to be of highest importance to overall travel risk perception include additional expenses, exchange rates and refunds-related factors – with weightings of 20.60, 16.80 and 12.47 respectively. The risk evaluation index that was constructed as a result of this study was applied to five tourist destinations to evaluate their performance with regards to the perceived travel risks identified. Results suggested that the United Kingdom performs better (i.e., is ‘safer’) in terms of this particular South African traveller sample’s risk perceptions. This kind of research contributes to the literature in two ways: methodologically, by applying MCDA and Delphi techniques to the context of tourist risk perceptions, and by the development of a risk evaluation index.