Impact of COVID-19 Vaccines on Tourism Demand and Culture

Abstract

The low supply of vaccines for COVID-19 has disrupted tourism development in Asia. The question is if the vaccine may change cultural divergence into cultural convergence at the tourist destination. The purpose of this study is to examine the culture and price elasticity of hotel demand to find the cultural convergence. The study has conducted autoregressive distributed lag model to test whether the vaccine would change the price and income elasticities of hotel demand to find the cultural transformation from divergence to convergence through tourism. Findings indicate that the impact of the vaccine on transferring culture from divergence to convergence was confirmed. Tourists from the divergent cultures specified by less levels of Hofstede's cultural dimensions will visit the country destination with high levels of Hofstede's cultural dimensions after COVID vaccination. Japan and the US that possess divergent levels of power will visit Vietnam for power convergence. China, Korea, and Russia that possess divergent levels of indulgence will visit Vietnam for indulgence convergence.