Wadhar Saba Batool, Shahani Riffat, Zhou Rongting, Siddiquei Ahmad Nabeel, Ye Qing, Asmi Fahad
Department of Science Communication, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.
Bond Business School, Bond University, Gold Coast, QLD 4226, Australia.
Healthcare (Basel). 2023 Jan 20;11(3):315. doi: 10.3390/healthcare11030315.
China used to be the world's leading nation in terms of international (outward) tourism till the COVID-19 outbreak. However, due to the COVID-19 crisis, several new macro and micro-level factors might affect their international (outward) traveling behavior. The purpose of the current research was to examine the avoidance of international traveling for leisure in the Chinese population. The goal of the study was to highlight the importance of information self-efficacy and digital literacy as the key factors influencing tourists' traveling readiness. To achieve the goal, the study adapted the quantitative instruments from existing sources to map media exhaustion, information overload, and perceived health concerns, i.e., perceived effectiveness of health-protective measures, fear of new possible outbreaks, and pandemic crisis at source and destination. Chinese citizens' opinions were collected during the third quarter of the year 2022. Specifically, the quantitative survey from China collected a total number of 1308 respondents. This study used the statistical analysis software SPSS to analyze collected data. The findings conclude that the role of media is pivotal to shaping and predicting future trends in tourism preferences, perception of protective measures against COVID-19, and perceived seriousness of the pandemic crisis in the Chinese population. In addition, technology readiness (as hard self-efficacy) and health-related information literacy (soft self-efficacy) are critical to cope with the dark aspects of information exhaustion, overload, and pandemic seriousness in the post-truth era. The study is unique, as it examines the role of the seriousness of the pandemic at its source and destination and fear of new outbreaks simultaneously, underlining the potential future of immersive tourism (i.e., virtual reality, augmented reality, or mixed reality-based tourism). This study has drawn interesting theoretical and practical implications for researchers, policymakers, and academicians.
在新冠疫情爆发之前，中国在国际（出境）旅游方面曾是世界领先国家。然而，由于新冠疫情危机，一些新的宏观和微观层面因素可能会影响中国人的国际（出境）旅行行为。本研究的目的是调查中国人群中对休闲国际旅行的回避情况。该研究的目标是突出信息自我效能感和数字素养作为影响游客旅行准备就绪的关键因素的重要性。为实现这一目标，该研究采用了现有资料中的定量工具来衡量媒体倦怠、信息过载和感知到的健康担忧，即健康保护措施的感知有效性、对新的可能疫情爆发的恐惧以及源地和目的地的疫情危机。中国公民的意见是在2022年第三季度收集的。具体而言，来自中国的定量调查共收集了1308名受访者的数据。本研究使用统计分析软件SPSS对收集到的数据进行分析。研究结果表明，媒体在塑造和预测中国人群的旅游偏好、对新冠疫情防护措施的认知以及对疫情危机的感知严重性等未来趋势方面起着关键作用。此外，技术准备就绪（作为硬自我效能感）和与健康相关的信息素养（软自我效能感）对于应对后真相时代信息倦怠、过载和疫情严重性的阴暗面至关重要。该研究具有独特性，因为它同时考察了源地和目的地疫情的严重性以及对新疫情爆发的恐惧所起的作用，突显了沉浸式旅游（即虚拟现实、增强现实或混合现实为基础的旅游）的潜在未来。本研究为研究人员、政策制定者和学者带来了有趣的理论和实践启示。
