One year later: shifts and endurances in travel intentions of Bulgarian residents in the time of pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic brought significant changes in all spheres of public life. Economically, as well as in terms of behavioural change, tourism has been one of the most affected sectors and nearly two years after the crisis began, the future is still unclear. This paper focuses on changes in tourist behaviour by tracking the shifts and persisting patterns within a one-year period. The study is based on two surveys conducted online in April 2020 and April 2021 and display the trends for a very specific and understudied context – a European country characterized by general distrust to the severity of the virus as well as towards imposed measures against the disease distribution at both national and international levels. Our findings question the wide-spread assumption that health-related concerns are the primary factor affecting tourist behaviour in the pandemic and identify travel restrictions and income as having major significance. Another important observation is the lack of significant changes within the study period, which examines two different situations: the onset of the pandemic that brought a great shock at all levels and a year later, when both objective circumstances and subjective perceptions were not expected to be the same.