The impact of COVID-19 on destination visit intention and local food consumption

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the relationships between motivation and intention to consume local food and between intention to consume local food and intention to visit the destination of that food's origin while examining the moderating effect of risk perception associated with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).Design/methodology/approachData were collected from two samples of potential Chinese tourists in the contexts of Italian and Thai food. Data obtained from 264 Chinese respondents for Italian food and 277 Chinese respondents for Thai food were analyzed. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was utilized to test the research model.FindingsThe results indicate that, while motivational factors such as cultural experience, novelty and sensory appeal influence potential Chinese tourists' intention to consume Italian food, motivational factors such as cultural experience, health concern, novelty and sensory appeal influence tourists' intention to consume Thai food. The authors found that intention to consume local food positively influences tourists' intention to visit both destinations (Italy and Thailand). Moreover, tourists' risk perceptions of COVID-19 negatively moderate the effect of cultural experience and novelty on the intention to consume Italian food. Regarding the intention to consume Thai food, the authors found that tourists' risk perceptions have a diminishing effect on all motivational factors.Originality/valueThis pioneering study examines the role of COVID-19-related risk perception on the relationships among motivation of local food consumption, intention of local food consumption and destination visit intention in the context of two destination countries. It reveals cross-country differences of the negative effect pertaining to the risk perceptions of COVID-19, which has important implications for international destination marketing.

ASSESSMENT OF TRIP EXPERIENCE FROM CHINESE TOURISTS’ PERSPECTIVES ON INDONESIA TOURISM

With China's rapid economic growth and improved standard of living, travel and tourism are increasingly becoming the first choices for vacation activities. The purpose of this research is to assess the trip experience on destination loyalty through tourist satisfaction of Chinese tourists who visited Indonesia tourism. The quantitative research method was used and the primary data collected using questionnaire to 158 respondents of Chinese tourists who visited Indonesia analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The study indicates that 6 of the 7 hypotheses are accepted. As a result, accommodation mediated by tourist satisfaction has no significant effect on destination loyalty. The impact of trip experience on destination loyalty mediated by tourist satisfaction accounted for 64.4 percent. This study demonstrates how Chinese tourists evaluate their trip experiences of Indonesia tourism. Transportation was discovered to have the greatest impact, whereas need to be improved in order to create destination loyalty.

Rapid longitudinal SARS-CoV-2 intra-host emergence of novel haplotypes regardless of immune deficiencies

On February 2020, the municipality of Vo’, a small town near Padua (Italy), was quarantined due to the first coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19)-related death detected in Italy. The entire population was swab tested in two sequential surveys. Here we report the analysis of the viral genomes, which revealed that the unique ancestor haplotype introduced in Vo’ belongs to lineage B and, more specifically, to the subtype found at the end of January 2020 in two Chinese tourists visiting Rome and other Italian cities, carrying mutations G11083T and G26144T. The sequences, obtained for 87 samples, allowed us to investigate viral evolution while being transmitted within and across households and the effectiveness of the non-pharmaceutical interventions implemented in Vo’. We report, for the first time, evidence that novel viral haplotypes can naturally arise intra-host within an interval as short as two weeks, in approximately 30% of the infected individuals, regardless of symptoms severity or immune system deficiencies. Moreover, both phylogenetic and minimum spanning network analyses converge on the hypothesis that the viral sequences evolved from a unique common ancestor haplotype, carried by an index case. The lockdown extinguished both viral spread and the emergence of new variants, confirming the efficiency of this containment strategy. The information gathered from household was used to reconstructs possible transmission events.