Purpose

Cruising is one of the industries most susceptible to the current COVID-19 health crisis, due to the closed environment and the contacts between cruisers and crewmembers. This study aims to understand if the perceived crowding and the health risk perception related to the pandemic situation might threaten passengers’ intentions to cruise. The study also examines corporate reputation and trust, as well as social motivation and self-confidence, as possible predictors of consumers’ intention to cruise.

Design/methodology/approach

The study is based on the development of a structured questionnaire submitted online via social media. Overall, 553 individuals’ responses were used for understanding the factors that can affect consumers’ intention to cruise by performing several regression models.

Findings

The results show that the perceived crowding related to the pandemic does not seem to influence people’s intention to cruise. On the contrary, trust in the cruise company, corporate reputation, cruisers’ self-confidence and research of social motivation are positive predictors of intention to cruise, thus reducing the perceived risk’s deterring impact. The importance of such factors differs in respect of repeat and not repeat cruisers.

Practical implications

The study presents several managerial implications as it analyses the variables that could help cruise management cope better with COVID-19’s negative impact.

Originality/value

Despite the severity of COVID-19’s impact on the cruise industry, no studies have yet focussed on how the current pandemic situation may influence customers’ intention to cruise in the future.

中文翻译：

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在 COVID-19 大流行时代巡航：感知到的拥挤真的很重要吗？

目的

由于封闭的环境以及巡洋舰与船员之间的接触，巡航是最容易受到当前 COVID-19 健康危机影响的行业之一。本研究旨在了解与大流行情况相关的拥挤感知和健康风险感知是否可能威胁乘客的巡航意图。该研究还考察了企业声誉和信任，以及社会动机和自信心，作为消费者巡航意图的可能预测因素。

设计/方法/方法

该研究基于通过社交媒体在线提交的结构化问卷的开发。总体而言，通过执行多个回归模型，使用 553 个人的回答来了解可能影响消费者巡航意图的因素。

发现

结果表明，与大流行相关的感知拥挤似乎并没有影响人们的巡航意图。相反，对邮轮公司的信任、企业声誉、邮轮的自信心和对社会动机的研究是邮轮意愿的正向预测因子，从而降低了感知风险的威慑作用。这些因素的重要性在重复巡洋舰和非重复巡洋舰方面有所不同。

实际影响

该研究提出了几个管理意义，因为它分析了可以帮助邮轮管理更好地应对 COVID-19 负面影响的变量。

原创性/价值

尽管 COVID-19 对邮轮行业的影响非常严重，但尚未有研究关注当前的大流行情况可能会如何影响客户未来的邮轮意图。