key: cord-0744611-xtlw3jk9
authors: Nie, Zhenghu; Xu, Li; Zhang, Honglei; Cao, Yihan; Zhang, Chi; Pan, Jingxian; Zhang, Jie
title: Crowding and vaccination: Tourist's two-sided perception on crowding and the moderating effect of vaccination status during COVID-19 pandemic
date: 2022-04-21
journal: Journal of Destination Marketing & Management
DOI: 10.1016/j.jdmm.2022.100705
sha: e6373f8cc34705fed6885257fddf2ae27ef9dcc8
doc_id: 744611
cord_uid: xtlw3jk9

Crowding used to be a double-edged sword in the tourism industry. However, the COVID-19 pandemic seems to make the disadvantage of crowding more obvious. Here, we investigated the relationship between vaccination status (including vaccination completeness and willingness), crowding perception, popular perception, destination attractiveness, and loyalty based on the Stimulus-Organism-Response model. Empirical research data were collected through a survey of 535 tourists to Nanjing's Confucian Temple, China, which is known for its tremendous travel volume. The results show that both crowding perception and popular perception significantly affect loyalty, but with opposite signs. Moreover, if tourists have been vaccinated, the positive effect of destination attractiveness on loyalty will intensify, meaning that the rarely investigated variable vaccination status indeed plays a moderating role.

However, large-scale vaccination has begun to address this worsening trend. 3 Despite the challenges of vaccine hesitation and low vaccine confidence (Barello, 4 Palamenghi, & Graffigna, 2021; Chou & Budenz, 2020; Larson & Broniatowski, 2021), 5 the benefits of vaccination for tourism remain clear. In the early pandemic, with no 6 vaccine and limited medical capacity, non-pharmacological interventions (NPIs) such 7 as unprecedented global travel bans, social distancing, and stay-at-home policies were 8 the main strategy to contain the pandemic (Gössling et al., 2020). However, it is argued 9 that the hope of restarting international travel is now largely pinned on the COVID-19 10 vaccine. As a proactive and effective recovery strategy (Bernal et al., 2021), increasing 11 vaccination rates could significantly impact the recovery of the hospitality and tourism 26 as its influence on tourists' experience, satisfaction, and loyalty. Undoubtedly, it is 27 crucial to explore the pre-travel vaccination intention and its impact on travel intention. 28 However, when facing challenges like the loyalty shift to mass tourism destinations 29 (Osti & Nava, 2020; Park et al., 2021) , exploring the impact of vaccination on tourists 30 during and after their tours could more directly reflect the effect of vaccination on the 31 destination management. 32 Moreover, while the pandemic has cast a shadow over the high-density tourism 33 environment, its positive effects should not be ignored entirely. Many studies have 34 shown that crowding is a necessary element in urban tourism, mass tourism, and 35 outdoor activities, enhancing tourists' experiences (Neuts & Nijkamp, 2012; Popp, 2012; 36 Wickham & Kerstetter, 2000). Milman, Tasci, and Wei's (2020) research on theme parks 37 indicates that popularity can be shown as the benefit of crowding and, in some 38 environments, a certain degree of crowding is necessary for a positive travel experience. 39 However, because these studies were conducted before the pandemic, it is doubtful 40 whether they will be relevant now. 41 In summary, our research addresses the following two questions. First, the study perception has a significant positive effect on popular perception. However, tourists 7 seem to have become more resistant to crowding after the outbreak of the pandemic 8 (Zenker & Kock, 2020) , which has created uncertainty in this relationship. 9 To verify this, we made the following assumptions: 10 H1: Crowding perception positively affects popular perception. 11 12 13 In recent decades, the concept of destination attractiveness has received Destination loyalty is often interpreted as a tourist's willingness to revisit a 28 destination, provide positive word-of-mouth and recommend it to others (Oppermann, 29 2000) . Although loyalty has been widely explored in tourism literature, research on the 30 role of antecedents in the formation of loyalty is still needed (Sumarjan et al., 2014) . 31 Various factors have been proved to affect tourist loyalty, including experience, Yin et al. 's (2020) study in China found that human crowding has a significant negative 40 effect on loyalty. Therefore, it was assumed that crowding perception could 41 significantly negatively affect loyalty in this study. that emotional experience affects domestic tourists' willingness to recommend 6 destinations. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that popular perception could significantly, 7 positively affect loyalty. Following Tasci's (2011)suggestion, we adopt both behavior 8 and attitudinal methods, and revisit intention and word-of-mouth(WOM) were used to 9 construct destination loyalty. Hence, the following hypotheses were proposed: could mediate the relationship between physical crowding and revisit intention. Hence, 28 it is reasonable to assume that the chain between crowding perception, popular 29 perception, destination attractiveness, and loyalty could be significant. 30 Therefore, we propose the following hypotheses: Therefore, we believe that whether a person is vaccinated or not would be crucial. Based on the above discussion, it is reasonable to assume that vaccine completeness 1 would act on the entire process from external stimuli to actual responses within the SOR 2 framework. The hypothesis will help highlight the importance of completing the entire 3 vaccination process, which is important for destination management but rarely 4 investigated in recent vaccine impact tourism literature. 5 Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed: 16 17 Vaccination willingness has been widely discussed, in particular since vaccine vaccination willingness on tourists' behavior from the post-travel perspective. 5 Therefore, we proposed the following hypotheses: H10c: Vaccination willingness has a moderating effect on the relationship between 11 destination attractiveness and loyalty. 12 Thus, the conceptual framework of this study is shown in Figure 2 . The Nanjing Confucian Temple, an iconic popular tourism attraction in Nanjing, 19 China, was chosen for this study. It used to be a place to worship and consecrate 20 Confucius, ancient philosopher and educator. The original building has been destroyed 21 and rebuilt many times. In 1984, the Chinese government began repairing the damaged 22 monuments and building large-scale pedestrian blocks of ancient buildings around it. 23 In 2010, the Nanjing Confucian Temple was nominated as the first national 5A (top 24 rank) free scenic spot in China. Since then, the temple has become one of the most Workers' Day. 4 5 As mentioned before, another perception of a high-density environment is high 6 popularity, and in fact, Chinese tourists have always loved the bustling, flourishing 7 atmosphere of cultural attractions. During the holiday, the impact of COVID-19 tapered 8 off, and the vaccine began to be administered in large numbers. In this context, tourists 9 have complex psychology of both liking and disliking the high-density environment of 10 the Nanjing Confucian Temple. To this end, Nanjing Confucian Temple is an idea area 11 for understanding the complex mechanism of tourism crowding under the impact of 12 COVID -19 vaccination. 15 Most constructs contained in the study were derived from previously validated and 16 reliable research. The focus was on the following constructs: crowding perception, 17 popular perception, destination attractiveness, loyalty, vaccine injection, crowding 18 experience, travel experience, and crowding preference. All items were scored on a In the analysis of moderating variables, we grouped vaccination according to 1 whether they were vaccinated, had completed the entire vaccination process (i.e., the 2 total dose of vaccination), or were willing to be vaccinated in the next six months. Since we adopted both online and offline survey methods, a nonresponse analysis 5 was needed to examine the sample data for evidence of no-response bias. We used the 23 As shown in Table 1 

2 Common method bias could be a concern, since the same rater answered all the 3 self-administered survey question items. We followed the suggestion proposed by variance. The test results indicate that common method bias is not a serious problem 8 and can be overlooked. 11 The evaluation of the measurement model usually consists of reliability and 12 validity analysis. In this study, we used Smart PLS 3.3.3 to examine the reliability and 13 validity of the measurement model. The results are shown in Table 3 . Table 3 Convergent validity was measured using the average variance extracted (AVE). 8 The AVE was higher than 0.50 for all but one construct (0.467), demonstrating partial 9 support for convergent validity (Nunnally, 1994) . Discriminant validity was first criterion should be less than 0.85 to assess discriminant validity. The results in Table 3   7 show that none of the HTMT criteria was larger than 0.85. 11 We also tested the reliability and validity of the second-order construct crowding 12 perception. The coefficients of its first-order constructs were higher than the criterion 13 of 0.6. The second-order variables' AVE and consistency reliability (CR) meet the 14 corresponding criteria. In conclusion, these results demonstrate that the measurement 15 model fits the data well. 16 17 18 The significance of the path coefficient of the structural equation was tested using Table 4 and Figure 4 show the test results.

R 2 reflects the predictive effect of the structural model. Figure 4 shows that the 22 explanatory power of the entire model for loyalty is 32.3%, which is above the 20% 23 threshold. The results show that H1, H3, H4, H5, H6, H7, and H8 were accepted, while 24 H2 was rejected.

H1 verifies the effect of crowding perception on popular perception, and the results 26 show that crowding perception has a significantly positive impact on popular perception.

H2 predicts the positive relationship between crowding perception and destination 28 attractiveness, and it was rejected because the t value is insignificant.

H3 and H6, which indicate the positive relationship between popular perception, 30 destination attractiveness, and loyalty, were fully supported. 10 Vaccine injection, crowding preference, and crowding experience were analyzed 11 as moderate variables to test the potential moderating effects of the model. 12 First, we analyzed the moderating effect of vaccine injection on loyalty using a presented in Table 5 . The samples were substituted into the original structural model for testing using 4 SmartPLS 3.3.3, and the results are shown in Table 6 . As shown in Table 6 , in comparing the VCC and non-VCC groups, only the path 9 coefficient from destination attractiveness to loyalty was significant. For the VCC- 10 finished and VCC-unfinished groups, the path coefficient from crowding perception to 11 loyalty was significant. Third, for the non-VCC-willing and non-VCC-unwilling groups, 12 the path coefficient from crowding perception to destination was significant. A 13 comparison of the specific path coefficients is shown in Figure 5 . attractiveness on loyalty is positive. Still, it was evident that the VCC group was 7 significantly more substantial than the non-VCC group. 8 Moreover, there was also a significant difference based on whether the entire 9 inoculation process was completed. In the path of crowding perception on loyalty, a 10 significant negative effect was observed for tourists who did not complete the entire 11 vaccination process. In contrast, a slightly positive but not significant effect was 12 observed for those who completed the entire vaccination process. However, since the 13 VCC-finished group failed to pass the t-test, the difference is still meaningless.

14 Further, we find that there were also significant differences in path coefficients for 15 willingness to be vaccinated in the next six months among unvaccinated visitors. There 16 was a significant difference in the impact of crowding perception on destination 17 attractiveness. However, since the path coefficients of the two groups were not 18 significant, although the t-test of the multi-group analysis revealed significant 19 differences between groups of comparison 3, the difference is still meaningless. 20 Therefore, vaccination has a moderating effect on the relationship between 21 crowding perception and loyalty, supporting H8b. reasonably explained using the SOR model proposed by Mehrabian and Russell (1974). 28 As two kinds of environmental stimuli in a high-density environment, both crowding 29 perception and popular perception significantly affect loyalty, but with opposite signs.

The result also shows that crowding perception and destination attractiveness are 

Our study provides several theoretical contributions to the literature. First, we 15 provide empirical evidence of the two-sided effect of tourism crowding by 16 simultaneously testing the impact of crowding perception, and that of popular 11 This study offers several practical and managerial implications. First, tourism 12 destination managers and marketers need to be aware that tourism crowding is still a 13 double-edged sword even under COVID-19. On the one hand, they need to deal with 14 the negative effects of tourism crowding, on the other hand, it is also important to note 15 that the positive effects of crowding still exist and to use them in a prudent manner. 16 Thus, how to provide a popular atmosphere for tourists while prudently controlling the 17 tourist volume will be crucial to achieving a sustainable recovery process (UNWTO, All stakeholders should value the importance of vaccination for the industry's recovery, 1 and actively promote vaccination. Anti-vaccine and vaccine hesitation behaviors need 2 to be countered scientifically to increase vaccination rates and achieve herd immunity 3 as soon as possible, working together to shape a more sustainable tourism industry. 4 5 6 This study has limitations that can help improve future research. First, our study Is there a COVID-19 vaccination effect? A three-wave cross-sectional study. 

Tourist crowding perception and acceptability in cities

Psychological theory

Tourism policy responses to the coronavirus (COVID-19)

Tourism destination loyalty

LOYAL: TO WHAT EXTENT? A shift in destination 13 preference due to the COVID-19 pandemic

Impact of the 16 COVID-19 pandemic on travelers' preference for crowded versus non-crowded 17 options

Travel vaccines throughout history. Travel 19 Medicine and Infectious Disease

A Novel Popular Tourist Attraction Discovering 21 Approach Based on Geo-Tagged Social Media Big Data

Effects of 12 perceived retail crowding: A meta-analytic study

PLS-SEM: Looking back and moving 16 forward

Human crowding and personal control: An 18 integration of the research

An island in a sea of development: 21 An examination of place attachment, activity type, and crowding in an urban 22 national park

Tourism and COVID-19: Impacts and implications for advancing 24 and resetting industry and research

On the distinction between density and crowding: Some 27 implications for future research

Using the Health 29

Belief Model to examine travelers' willingness to vaccinate and support for 30 vaccination requirements prior to travel

Hospitality and tourism

Destination branding and positioning. Destination Marketing and 36 Management: Theories and Applications

Feeling excluded? Join the crowd: How social 38 exclusion affects approach behavior toward consumer-dense retail 39 environments

The expected emotional benefits of

COVID-19 event strength, psychological safety, and avoidance 2 coping behaviors for employees in the tourism industry

Coping with crowded recreation 5 settings: A cross-cultural investigation

Comparison of Internet-based and paper-based 8 questionnaires in Taiwan using multisample invariance approach

The coronavirus pandemic -A critical discussion of a 11 tourism research agenda

Too dark to revisit? The role of 14 past experiences and intrapersonal constraints

Tourism and vaccine hesitancy

• Both crowding perception and popular perception significantly affect loyalty, but with opposite signs • Vaccinated tourists have higher positive effect of destination attractiveness on loyalty • Loyalty of fully vaccinated tourists is independent of crowding perception • Paper addressed the gap that no empirical studies examine COVID-19 vaccination effect in tourist's behaviour from the post-travel perspective • Measure