Emotional State, Psychological Resilience, and Travel Intention to National Forest Park during COVID-19

Abstract

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the tourism industry worldwide. This study examines the relationships among potential tourists’ emotional states, psychological resilience, and their travel intention to a national forest park in the context of COVID-19. It also investigates the moderating effect of gender. Kanas National Forest Park on the northwestern border of China was chosen as the research case. The survey questionnaires were administered both online and offline to collect data. A total of 492 valid questionnaires were collected (263 from online and 229 from offline) and analyzed in this study. Results demonstrate that visitors’ positive emotions have significant positive effects on their psychological resilience and travel intention. Yet, visitors’ negative emotions have significant negative effects on psychological resilience and travel intention. Moreover, psychological resilience partially mediates the relationship between emotional state and travel intention, indicating that visitors’ positive emotion and negative emotion can not only directly affect travel intention, but also indirectly affect travel intention through psychological resilience. The results of moderating effect analysis indicate that men and women are found to have differences in the experience of emotion, and women are more advised to foster positive emotions and psychological resilience. Visitors are advised to advocate more mutual encouragement, and tourism practitioners are recommended to provide tailored services to reduce travel anxiety. Findings provide implications on emotional regulation for tourists and crisis management strategies for nature-based tourism destinations.