The COVID-19 Pandemic and Tourists’ Risk Perceptions: Tourism Policies’ Mediating Role in Sustainable and Resilient Recovery in the New Normal

The COVID-19 health crisis has had unprecedented impacts on the global tourism industry, creating a sense of insecurity among tourists about destinations. Thus, rebuilding tourists’ confidence in the tourism industry is the biggest challenge faced by policymakers in the new normal. The tourism industry needs innovative solutions for sustainable recovery, but limited literature is available on the tourism policies necessary for sustainable and resilient recovery in the new normal. This study investigated the impact of COVID-19 and risk perception on the recovery of tourism. Moreover, this study also explored the mediating role of attitudes toward tourism policies between COVID-19, risk perceptions, and tourism recovery. Data collected from 1437 tourists through an online survey were analyzed using PLS-SEM and descriptive statistics. The results showed that a large majority of the tourists still felt unsafe and insecure about tourism destinations. COVID-19 risk perceptions were found to be negatively associated with tourism recovery in the new normal. Risk perceptions had a significant positive impact on transportation selection behavior (β = 0.725, p < 0.01), as did avoiding overcrowded places (β = 0.692, p < 0.01). Transportation selection behaviors also had a statistically significant negative impact on the recovery of tourism (β = −0.220, p < 0.01). The findings showed that attitudes toward tourism policies mediated the effect between COVID-19 and tourism intentions. This study has important policy implications for the sustainable recovery of the tourism industry and for making it resilient against future crises.