COVID-19’s impact on tourism: will compensatory travel intention appear?

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has had a major impact on global tourism. We adopted social media data to quantify the change in Chinese consumers’ attitudes toward traveling during the pandemic, as no study has explored whether there is compensatory travel intention under the threat of infectious diseases. Using natural language processing technology and geographic information system technology, our analysis shows that Chinese consumers’ interest in tourism increased during the pandemic. Our results show that travel attitudes can be positively affected by compensatory consumption when travel is restricted by infectious diseases and has implications for tourism scholars, marketing managers, and stakeholders.