Impact of Altered Holiday Plans Due to COVID-19 on Tourist Satisfaction: Evidence from Costa Daurada
The COVID-19 pandemic altered the holiday plans of many people. Whether it was due to travel bans or the fear of contracting the infection, people modified, among other aspects, their chosen destination, travel transport, accommodations, length of stay, and activities to be undertaken during the sta...
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2025 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universitat Rovira i virgili (URV) |
| Repositorio: | Repositori Institucional de la Universitat Rovira i Virgili |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:urv.cat:imarina:9463093 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/imarina9463093 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Economics, Econometrics and Finance (Miscellaneous),Social Sciences (Miscellaneous),Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Management Covid-19 Holiday plans Risk perception Tourism adaptation Tourist satisfaction Ciencias sociales Economics, econometrics and finance (miscellaneous) Social sciences (miscellaneous) Tourism, leisure and hospitality management |
| Sumario: | The COVID-19 pandemic altered the holiday plans of many people. Whether it was due to travel bans or the fear of contracting the infection, people modified, among other aspects, their chosen destination, travel transport, accommodations, length of stay, and activities to be undertaken during the stay. In this context, we aim to disentangle the effect of these changes on tourist satisfaction. Previous research on the effects of COVID-19 on the tourism sector has studied the shrinkage of tourism demand, changes in tourist behaviour and adaptation processes on the supply side. Nonetheless, few works have analysed changes in tourists’ plans. Two main hypotheses have been put forward. First, tourists might be dissatisfied given that they could not attain their holiday expectations. In contrast, the second hypothesis suggests that those individuals who changed their holiday plans might be more satisfied because they diminished their perceived risk of contagion. We have used data drawn from a survey of tourists (N = 2009) who visited Costa Daurada, a very popular Mediterranean coastal destination just after the end of the Spanish lockdown. Then, statistically significant differences in satisfaction levels between the groups that altered their plans and those who did not are assessed by means of Kruskal–Wallis and Wilcoxon Rank Sum tests. Results signal that tourists were not more dissatisfied when they had modified their initial holiday plans. Indeed, the overall satisfaction of those visitors who switched their initial destination to travel to Costa Daurada was slightly lower, and the difference was significant, compared to the ones who were planning to travel there from the very beginning. Satisfaction was not significantly lower for those who changed their holiday plans in |
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