From resistance to conditional acceptance: how travelers respond to digital travel authorization systems

Prior tourism research has largely treated travelers’ responses to security-oriented travel policies as static, offering limited insight into how such perceptions evolve across policy stages. Using a two-wave panel survey of Chinese leisure travelers in the European Union’s EES and ETIAS systems context, our results show that travelers’ responses evolve across policy stages. At the anticipatory stage, privacy concerns undermine institutional trust, increases perceived procedural barriers, and reduces travel intention. After initial exposure to the system, the negative effects of privacy concerns and procedural barriers weaken but remain significant, suggesting that travelers’ resistance adjusts rather than disappears.