Interaction between psychological ownership and psychological resilience toward the destination

Abstract

The tourism sector was badly affected by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, creating thereby a need to advance knowledge on developing strategies for bringing tourists to back their favourite destinations. Although studies in tourism literature in the last two years addressed several issues relating to the pandemic, ironically not many have explored the role of tourists’ attitude towards a destination. Specifically, there have hardly been any discussions on the tourists’ psychological ownership vis-à-vis destination affinity (DA). It's an irony because they play crucial roles in leading tourists to revisit their favourite destinations. Using the ‘Psychological Resilience Theory’, this study focuses on the Covid-19 crisis and examines the relationship between attitude towards the destination, psychological ownership towards the destination, DA, and desire to revisit the destination post-Covid-19 crisis. Data (N = 274) was collected online from Indian tourists and hypothesis testing was done using PROCESS SPSS macro. The findings of the study indicated the mediating impact of DA and moderating role of psychological resilience. This study offers several important implications for tourism literature and the sector at large.