The impact of COVID-19 on European tourists’ attitudes to air travel and the consequences for tourist destination evoked set formation.

Abstract

We study how risk conditions derived from the COVID-19 pandemic may impact on both the desire to travel and intention to visit of tourists and, therefore, on different stages of the destination choice process. We analyse 5134 million flight searches and 379 million flight picks during 2020 for the 17 largest European tourism source markets. An unweighted index number is employed to measure the average variation for searches and picks, for the year 2020, in relation to the reference base period (year 2019). This is done for air travel in general and to Spain specifically. The study then proceeds to conduct an analysis of 17 international travel destinations that are in the evoked sets of the two largest outbound markets in Europe (Germany and UK). We also identify which markets are most favourable to Spain. The research design can inform cost-efficient marketing decisions in a situation of high uncertainty.