Can We Return to Our Normal Life When the Pandemic Is under Control? A Preliminary Study on the Influence of COVID-19 on the Tourism Characteristics of Taiwan

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented destructive impacts and challenges to global industry and has had a wide impact on people’s lives. The threat of the virus has also caused a change in tourist travel consumption behavior. This study preliminarily examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the tourism consumption characteristics of Taiwanese people. The consumption characteristic changes of 393 people regarding their plans for domestic and outbound tourism during the different stages of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as after the pandemic ends were surveyed and collected. This study also examined and attempted to understand the relationship between people’s satisfaction with the government’s revitalization plan, the pandemic prevention policy, and their domestic tourism frequency during the pandemic period, and the results showed that during the pandemic, people’s tourism characteristics have changed and tend to be conservative. Since the pandemic is over, while there were no significant differences between people’s planned travel expenditures in Taiwan and those before the outbreak, their intended travel time was shortened. Regarding the choice of travel equipment, people had reduced the use of public transportation. Regarding outbound tourism, after the pandemic, as people’s planned travel days will be reduced, it is expected that travel expenditures will be significantly higher than before the pandemic, which shows that the COVID-19 pandemic has an impact on people’s outbound tourism consumption characteristics. During the pandemic, compared with the subsidies for tourism, how to make people feel at ease in the process of tourism is of great importance. Therefore, it is suggested that in the short-term, border control and social pandemic prevention policies should be adopted to enhance people’s confidence in government pandemic prevention, and the general public should be supplemented with travel subsidies in order to promote people’s enthusiasm for tourism. The results of this study provide useful suggestions for government units, tour operators, and related research during the pandemic and offer preliminary insights for the recovery of the tourism industry after the pandemic.

1. Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic broke out at the end of 2019 and swept the world at an alarming rate and developed into a global disaster. According to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in the Global Risks Report 2021, the loss of human lives and related economic impact caused by COVID-19 was the biggest threat in the world in the short-term, as it disrupted the economic, financial, and social systems of most countries [1]. As tourism is vulnerable to external disasters [2], the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) noted that tourism is one of the industries that has been the most seriously affected by the COVID-19 pandemic [3]. The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) proposed that the international tourism industry would lose USD 1.3 trillion in 2020 and that the number of global tourists would drop by 74%, compared with 2019, and it is estimated that about 100 million to 120 million jobs directly related to tourism would be threatened [4]. Apart from the impact on the industry, this emerging infectious disease has affected and changed people’s lives. In addition to reducing sightseeing and activities related to day-to-day life while travelling, people also tried their best to turn their activities to online and even used virtual reality tours to replace face-to-face contact [5,6]. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said that in 2020, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the passenger traffic in the global aviation industry decreased by 66%, compared to the previous year [7], indicating that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a great impact on people’s movements.

The number of COVID-19 cases started to increase in mid-January 2020 and then began to break out globally in February and spread all over the world. The first confirmed case appeared in Taiwan on 21 January 2020, and then, confirmed cases began to appear one after another from March to April, 2020; thus, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Taiwan has been rising. In order to cope with the severe pandemic situation, the Central Pandemic Command Center (CECC) for Severe Special Infectious Pneumonia, as established by the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW), recommended upgrading the global tourism pandemic situation in Taiwan to “Level 3 (Warning) (Travel Health Notices. Level 3: Warning: Avoid Nonessential Travel)” [8] at 0:00 on 21 March 2021, which stated that the public needed to avoid unnecessary travel. Moreover, in order to avoid the risk of infection, people were required to reduce their mobility, including their use of public transportation systems. Public transport use in many cities around the world has dropped rapidly [9,10], and the number of public transport travelers in Taiwan also decreased significantly. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC), the number of passengers using Taiwan Railways in April 2020 dropped by 36.01%, compared to that of the same month in 2019, while that of the Taiwan High Speed Rail decreased by 48.09%. Regarding the number of passenger vehicles using the roads and motorways (urban areas and highways), this number also fell by 27.05%, compared to that of the same month in the previous year. The number of passengers at Taiwan’s airports decreased by 93.22% in April, compared to that of the same month in 2019 before the outbreak of the pandemic. Even the number of local tourists visiting Taiwan’s tourist attractions shrank by 55% [11]. Based on the above data, it is obvious that the overall activities of the people were greatly affected, reflecting people’s worries about the risk of being infected with COVID-19, and that they chose to reduce unnecessary activities, thus, directly affecting Taiwan’s tourism industry.

Due to limited medical treatments and a limited number of vaccines, in order to control the outbreak, travel restrictions, blockades, and social alienation strategies, such as flight restrictions, prohibition of foreigner entry into countries, 14-day entry quarantine, symptom monitoring, and quarantine for passengers from high-risk countries have become the main strategies adopted by many countries. Undoubtedly, these interventions have affected the tourism industry [12,13,14,15]. The overall tourism market was rapidly tightened under the influence of the pandemic [3,16,17,18,19]. The estimated degree of negative impact far exceeded that observed during past disease pandemic (SARS, H1N1) crises [20]. Moreover, ref. [14] suggested that it may take two years or more for the travel industry to recover to pre-crisis levels. Ref. [21] pointed out that in the post-pandemic era, about half of the queried respondents planned to go for a vacation six months or more after the pandemic is controlled, which will have a considerable impact on the tourism industry. However, some studies have held that after the pandemic, some citizens are optimistic about the rapid recovery of tourism and plan to travel within six months after the COVID-19 pandemic has ended [22,23], which indicates that some people still hold a positive attitude towards travel after the pandemic. Due to the fear of infectious diseases, the COVID-19 pandemic may also reshape tourists’ travel behaviors [3,14,24,25]. After the pandemic is over, people are only arranging short holidays [21] and are changing their destinations, choosing more remote and less populated destinations [25] or temporarily engaging in tourism activities in Taiwan and preferring relatively safe and hygienic tourist destinations [4,22,26,27,28]. However, people’s views, preferences, and attitudes towards travel have changed under the context of COVID-19, which may be influenced by various factors, such as travel restrictions, risk perception, news, and social media information [27,29,30,31]. When the pandemic is over, the tourism industry is expected to recover and rebound, and at such time, the risk perception of travelers will become an important factor [32,33]. Regarding the communication and policies of government units, the incentives of relevant units may also affect or change traveler behavior [17,31,34,35]; therefore, when the pandemic slows down or ends, it is expected that these programs and measures will put the tourism industry back on track and revive the tourism industry as soon as possible [14,36,37].

As pandemics will become more common in the future [38,39], in the process of pandemic recovery, it is important to study the changes in tourist attitudes and concepts to understand their needs [25,40]; however, there are few studies that focus on the changes in tourist travel characteristics during the pandemic. The main contribution of this study is to explore the changes in people’s travel consumption characteristics under the influence of COVID-19 and after the pandemic. This study conducted a longitudinal survey in Taiwan before the outbreak of COVID-19 and at the initial stage of the COVID-19 pandemic and collected the data on people’s travel consumption characteristics in different stages. At the same time, people’s consumption behaviors planned for after the pandemic for future travel were investigated to understand the changes in their tourism consumption characteristics under the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on the characteristics of tourism consumption, this study designed four survey stages: in Stage 1, as there was no diagnosis in Taiwan before 21 January 2020, this study defined Stage 1 as being before the first confirmed case of COVID-19. In Stage 2, during the most severe period of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of confirmed cases increased from February 2020, and the Central Pandemic Command Center announced the first death on February 16. Then, cluster infections occurred in March, and the number of confirmed cases in Taiwan reached its peak and slowed down by the end of April 2020 [41]. At that time, the social atmosphere was tense, and people’s sensitivity was increased. During the serious period at the initial stage of the pandemic, government units successively implemented relevant border control and social pandemic prevention measures [42]. Thus, Stage 2 was from February to April 2020. In Stage 3, at the beginning of May 2020, as the pandemic situation in Taiwan slowed down, in order to allow people to gradually return to normal life, the government hoped that people would participate in various outdoor activities, while maintaining personal pandemic prevention measures. In addition to gradually relaxing pandemic prevention measures, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) and the Ministry of Transportation and Communications put forward revitalization plans to stimulate domestic tourism consumption in Taiwan. Therefore, this study defined the period when the pandemic slowed down as Stage 3. In addition to a questionnaire survey and data collection regarding the characteristics of tourism consumption in the above three stages, this study probed into people’s planned tourism behavior in the post-epidemic (Stage 4). While the government’s pandemic prevention and revitalization measures may also affect the tourism industry, it is still unclear how people will respond to governmental intervention measures [43]. Thus, this study attempted to understand the relationship between Taiwanese people’s satisfaction with the revitalization plan and pandemic prevention policy implemented by the government during the pandemic and their domestic travel frequency. This study mainly collected data during the period when the government implemented pandemic prevention and revitalization measures and when people’s sensitivity to the pandemic was enhanced, which facilitated obtaining people’s reactions. The research results of this study can be used as a reference for relevant units to respond to similar emerging infectious diseases in the future, including phased policy developments. This study provides useful reference for the changes in tourism consumption characteristics that may occur in the short-term when life returns to normal after the pandemic is over. The remainder of this paper is structured, as follows: Section 2 introduces the development of the pandemic in Taiwan. Section 3 explains the data collection process, and Section 4 offers the analysis of the results and the summary of the research results. Finally, Section 5 focuses on the conclusions and suggestions.

2. Development and Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic in Taiwan

Since China reported unexplained pneumonia cases to the World Health Organization on 31 December 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic spread to other countries one after another, and it was difficult to curb its spread. On 11 March 2020, the WHO announced that the pandemic would be characterized as a global pandemic. As the pandemic raged all over the world, countries successively implemented travel bans, which greatly impacted and affected their economies. However, compared with the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS), COVID-19 spreads faster and is more contagious [44,45], which is partly due to globalization and the development and convenience of transportation, which highly facilitated the rapid spread of the virus [46]. Moreover, many tourists were travelling the world during the initial outbreak and were intent on returning home, which had a further effect on the rapidly spreading pandemic.

In January 2020, COVID-19 spread and expanded on the Chinese Mainland, and Taiwan was not spared; thus, the Ministry of Health and Welfare announced the establishment of the Central Pandemic Command Center for Severe Special Infectious Pneumonia, and the first case of COVID-19 occurring in Taiwan was reported on 21 January 2020. By the end of January, there were 10 confirmed cases, and the Name-Based Mask Distribution System (Due to the shortage of masks, the government would implement such control measures with public power to ensure the stable supply of masks and enable people to enjoy equal opportunities to buy masks) was implemented on 6 February 2020 to address the spread of the virus. Due to the first COVID-19 death occurring in Taiwan on 16 February 2020 and the continuous expansion of the global pandemic, the MOHW took control measures at the border, and in mid-March, stipulated that all non-citizens would be restricted from entering Taiwan and that all entries would be subject to home quarantine for 14 days. In addition, the MOHW raised the global travel warning to Level 3, called for the public to avoid unnecessary trips, and suspended organizing tours abroad and receiving tourist groups to Taiwan. Due to the continuous increase in the number of confirmed cases in March (Figure 1), the [41] announced social distancing measures for public spaces in early April and suggested that 1.5 m of social-distancing should be maintained indoors, 1 m should be maintained outdoors, and masks should be worn when these social distances could not be maintained. Furthermore, people were required to take a comprehensive temperature measurement when taking public transport, and passengers were required to wear masks. In view of the crowded public outdoor areas in Taiwan, such as amusement parks, theme parks, scenic spots, etc., people flow control and pandemic prevention measures were implemented to reduce the risk of infection, which showed the severity of the pandemic in Taiwan during this period. At the beginning of May 2020, as the pandemic slowed down in Taiwan, in order to allow people to gradually return to normal life, the government launched the New Life Movement for Disease Prevention, which was intended to allow people to participate in various outdoor activities while maintaining personal pandemic prevention measures. At the beginning of June 2020, Taiwan gradually lowered the standard of pandemic prevention and relaxed its pandemic prevention measures, including taking public transportation while maintaining social distance, removing masks to eat and drink on the carriages of Taiwan Railways and Taiwan High Speed Rail, and removed restrictions on people flows in scenic spots, sightseeing, and amusement industries. Regarding border control measures, the policy of COVID-19 sampling only when travelers had symptoms was adopted for Taiwanese people returning from overseas. However, at that time, under the impact of the pandemic, various industries were facing business difficulties; thus, in order to reduce the impact of the pandemic on industries, government units put forward an economic relief package, including the Triple Stimulus Voucher Program (the program allowed people to spend TWD 1000 to purchase vouchers worth TWD 3000, with the government making up the TWD 2000 difference. They can be purchased through convenience stores, post offices, credit cards, and mobile payment apps, and may be used for travel, leisure, dining, or shopping expenses) [47], as proposed in July, and the Domestic Tourism Promotion Plan (the scheme will subsidize individual travelers by TWD 1000 for every hotel room they occupy. That will go up to TWD 2000 for a trip to Taiwan’s outlying islands. Alternatively, if peoples travel with a tour group, each person will get TWD 700 off of their bill each day. The scheme will run from July 1 to the end of October 2020) [48], which was launched to stimulate domestic tourism. As the international pandemic situation had not completely eased, this domestic tourism plan was intended to provide subsidy measures that would encourage people to change their original plans for outbound travel into more refined domestic tourism in order to revitalize Taiwan’s tourism industry and boost the overall market economy.

The transnational tourism industry has borne the brunt of the impact of COVID-19 since its outbreak. Countries began to implement border control between February and March 2020 [49], and Taiwan also raised warnings regarding pandemic situation in terms of tourism for various countries one after another, which caused the number of people entering and leaving the country to drop sharply. As countries implemented lockdown policies one after another, the lowest total number of people entering and leaving Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport was recorded to be only 369 people on 27 April 2020. In April, the number of people entering and leaving Taiwan dropped sharply to 35,000, which was in sharp contrast to the scale of 4.128 million people in the same period before the pandemic outbreak [11]. In terms of cruise tourism, the number of people traveling on cruise ships in Taiwan grew continuously for five years, and cruises became one of the most potential emerging markets in Asia in 2015; however, since the outbreak of the pandemic, cruise tourism has been affected to a considerable extent. At the beginning of February 2020, the “Diamond Princess”, owned by Princess Cruises, carried Hong Kong passengers diagnosed with COVID-19, which caused nearly 4000 passengers on the ship to undergo quarantine, and the ship was isolated for 14 days. During its isolation, many people were diagnosed one after another, which caused people to panic about taking cruise ships and seriously affected the cruise industry. In April 2020, when the pandemic was quite serious, the number of cruise passengers in Taiwan decreased by nearly 128,000 in 2020, compared to the same period in 2019 [11]. As the pandemic slowed down in May 2020, Taiwan’s tour operators began to launch unprecedented cruise trips in Taiwan at the end of July, which gradually increased the number of cruise passengers.

To avoid the risk of clustering, Taiwanese people reduced going out or taking public transport during the pandemic. Based on the statistics for the passenger traffic volume for Taiwan High Speed Rail, Taiwan Railways, Highway Transport, and local routes, the number of passengers from January to July 2020 fell by 23.29%, 17.81%, 16.05%, and 34.23%, respectively, compared to the same period last year (2019) [11]. In addition to avoiding outbound tourism during the pandemic, travel activities in Taiwan were also reduced or suspended, which led to a sharp drop in the number of passengers, especially in April, when the effects of the pandemic were serious. Although the pandemic in Taiwan began to ease in May 2020, the traffic volume did not return to the volume of the same period before the pandemic, indicating that although the pandemic slowed down, people still reduced their use of public transportation. The hotel industry was also been highly affected; from January to June 2020, the total revenue of tourist hotels in Taiwan decreased by more than TWD 12.863 billion, compared to the same period of the previous year, which was a sharp decrease of 43.39%. Regarding the number of visitors to the Principal Scenic Spots in Taiwan, 149.75 million tourists visited Taiwan’s major sightseeing and recreation bases from January to July 2020, which was down 27% compared with the previous year. According to the trend observations of each month, the number of recreational attractions in Taiwan hit the lowest level of 12.7 million in April, which was a sharp drop of 53.5% compared to the same period of the previous year. However, in June 2020, with the gradual loosening of pandemic prevention standards and the introduction of a number of revitalization measures by the government, Taiwan’s tourism restrictions were gradually eased, which increased the number of tourists month by month [11].

3. Survey and Data Collection

To observe the changes in people’s travel characteristics during the COVID-19 pandemic and to explore whether people’s satisfaction with the government’s pandemic prevention and revitalization policies is related to their changes in travel patterns, a questionnaire survey was conducted during the period when the pandemic in Taiwan slowed down. This study was divided into four stages, and the respondents were asked to fill in the answers according to their own tourism consumption experiences in different stages. According to the changes in the pandemic situations in Taiwan, the four stages are defined as follows (as shown in Figure 1): Stage 1: before the outbreak; Stage 2: the “serious pandemic situation” period (February–April 2020): during this period, the number of COVID-19 confirmed cases increased, the infection rate increased and was severe, and regional border control restrictions and social pandemic prevention measures were adopted by the government to control the spread of the virus; Stage 3: the “pandemic slow down” period (May–July 2020): during this period, the pandemic slowed down slightly and the number of confirmed cases decreased greatly, the government implemented plans and measures to revitalize and stimulate domestic tourism; Stage 4: after the pandemic is over. Respondents were asked to fill in the questionnaire by recalling their own experiences in stages 1 to 3 and answer the items of stage 4 by imagining their travel consumption plans after the pandemic is over.

The questionnaire consisted of three parts. The first part was a basic demographic survey, including gender, age, education level, and personal economic status; the second part was aimed at the respondents travel consumption characteristics and behaviors before the pandemic, when the pandemic was severe, and when the pandemic situation was slowing down as well as on their intended travel consumption characteristics and behaviors when traveling in Taiwan and abroad after the pandemic. In the survey, respondents were asked to fill in their travel consumption characteristics, such as the number of travel days and travel times, travel expenditures, travel transportation, and types of participation in tourism during each period; the third part was to explore people’s satisfaction with government policies. Using a 5-point Likert scale, respondents were asked to check their satisfaction with the pandemic prevention policies and revitalization programs provided by the government based on their feelings, where 1 denoted very dissatisfied and 5 denoted very satisfied. This study used SPSS 22.0 for the descriptive statistics, and paired samples t-test, ANOVA, and multinomial regression analysis.

4. Results

This study adopted a convenience sampling survey and conducted a questionnaire survey at Taipei Main Station in August 2020. Face to face questionnaires were conducted by the interviewers. A total of 400 questionnaires were distributed to people in Taiwan, and a total of 393 questionnaires were screened and recovered as valid questionnaires. The descriptive statistical data on the respondents’ social and demographic attributes are shown in

Table 1. Demographic characteristics of the respondents.

Characteristic		Number of Samples (%)
Gender	Male	233 (59.2)
	Female	160 (40.8)
Age	18–25 (inclusive) years	106 (27.0)
	26–30 (inclusive) years	63 (16.0)
	31–40 (inclusive) years	104 (26.5)
	41–50 (inclusive) years	82 (20.9)
	51–64 (inclusive) years	32 (8.1)
	65 (inclusive) years or older	6 (1.5)
Family size	1	26 (6.6)
	2~3	154 (39.2)
	4 (inclusive) or more	213 (54.2)
Occupation	Student	62 (15.8)
	Housekeeping	22 (5.6)
	Industrial, Commercial	94 (23.9)
	Military, civil servant, teacher, police	43 (10.9)
	Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery	3 (0.8)
	Service industry	122 (31.0)
	Freelancer	19 (4.8)
	Retired	3 (0.8)
	Others	25 (6.4)
Individual annual income (1 USD is approximately TWD 28.2)	TWD 300,000 or less	118 (30.0)
	TWD 300,001–500,000	72 (18.3)
	TWD 500,001–650,000	80 (20.4)
	TWD 650,001–800,000	67 (17.0)
	TWD 800,001–1,200,000	38 (9.7)
	TWD 1,200,001 (inclusive) or more	18 (4.6)

Note: Total number of respondents (n = 393).

. The respondents were mostly male, with a higher proportion of the participants being 18–25-years-old (27%) followed by 31–40-years-old (26.5%). Regarding the number of family members, families with over 4 members accounted for half of the participants; regarding occupation, respondents engaged in the service industry accounted for a relatively high proportion of about 31%; the annual income of most of the respondents was less than TWD 300,000 followed by TWD 500,000–650,000 at about 20.4%.

In order to understand the changes in the tourism consumption characteristics of Taiwanese people during the different periods of the pandemic, the respondents were asked to fill in their travel frequency, the number of tourism days, and the domestic travel expenditures before the pandemic, during the severe period of the pandemic, during the slowdown of the pandemic, and to imagine travel planning when the pandemic is over, and repeated measure ANOVA was adopted for analysis and Greenhouse and Geisser for correction [50].

Table 2. The results of the repeated measures ANOVA (domestic travel expenditures).

Items	Repeated Measures ANOVA	Post Hoc *
Average monthly travel times of individuals in Taiwan	F (2.92, 1144.41) = 99.39, p < 0.001.	1 > 4 > 3 > 2
Average number of days an individual travels in Taiwan each time	F (2.81, 1100.77) = 120.49, p < 0.001.	1 > 4 > 3 > 2
Average personal expenditures per trip in Taiwan	F (2.83, 1110.98) = 125.26, p < 0.001.	1 > 3 > 2 4 > 3 > 2
Proportion of individuals mainly using public transportation when traveling in Taiwan	F (2.85, 1115.97) = 32.23, p < 0.001.	1 > 4 > 2, 3

Notes: * 1: Stage 1, before the pandemic; 2: Stage 2, when the pandemic was severe; 3: Stage 3, when the pandemic slowed down; 4: Stage 4, after the pandemic is over.

shows the verification results. As the results show that the characteristics of Taiwanese people’s domestic travel expenditures have significant differences in different periods of the pandemic, this study further used the LSD method for post-event comparison, and the results show that the characteristics of Taiwanese people’s domestic travel expenditures tended to be conservative during the pandemic period, and the pandemic had an effect on the number and length of domestic trips. Although the number of trips and days will increase after the pandemic compared to that during the outbreak, it will still be significantly reduced compared what it was before the outbreak. In addition, the results of research verification show that during the pandemic, people’s travel expenditures decreased significantly compared to the severe period and that people’s domestic travel expenditures rebounded significantly during the slowing down period but were still significantly lower than before and after the pandemic. This study also found that there was no significant difference in people’s domestic travel expenditures before the outbreak and after the pandemic is over. This study also explored the situation of Taiwanese people using public transportation for domestic travel, and found that after the outbreak, the proportion of people using public transportation obviously decreased, but when the pandemic slowed down, the proportion of people intending to use public transportation was significantly lower than that before the outbreak. Based on the above results, it can be seen that when the pandemic slowed down, people’s domestic travel expenditure, the number of tours/trips, days, and other travel frequencies were significantly higher than those in the severe pandemic period, indicating that when the pandemic slowed down, while people’s tourism consumption frequency (number of times, days) and expenditures increased, it did not return to the state that it was before the pandemic. In addition, when the pandemic is over, people’s planned domestic travel frequency will be significantly lower than it was before the pandemic. Moreover, there was no significant difference in the proportion of people using public transportation during the pandemic, but it was lower than before and after the pandemic slowed down. However, when the pandemic is over, the proportion of people planning to use public transportation for domestic travel will be significantly lower than the proportion of people using it before the pandemic, indicating that the impact of the pandemic may continue to exist.

In March 2020, the government stipulated that Taiwan should suspend organizing groups to travel abroad and asked the public to avoid travelling overseas. Therefore, regarding outbound tourism, this study used paired sample t-testing to analyze and discuss whether there were differences in the consumption characteristics between Taiwanese people before the outbreak (Stage 1) and their plans after the pandemic is over (Stage 4), and the results are shown in

Table 3. The results of the paired samples statistics (outbound travel expenditures).

Items	t-Value	Sig. (2-Tailed)
Average number of times an individual travels abroad every year	−1.216	0.225
Average number of days an individual travels abroad each time	−5.166	<0.001 *
Average personal expenditures per trip abroad	2.203	0.028 *
Proportion of individuals traveling abroad in groups	−0.485	0.628

* p < 0.05 had statistical differences.

. It can be seen that after the pandemic, no matter the number of times people planned to go abroad and the consumption characteristics of participating in group tours, there was no significant difference between them and those before the outbreak. However, there were significant differences in the number of days spent travelling overseas, and the results showed that after the pandemic, the planned travel days were significantly lower than those before the pandemic. In terms of outbound travel expenditures, people’s planned travel expenditures after the pandemic were significantly higher than that before the pandemic, which indicates that some consumption characteristics of people traveling abroad have changed.

This study also asked respondents about their satisfaction with the revitalization plan and pandemic prevention policy put forward by the government during the pandemic as well as the policies implemented by the government, which were divided into three types, revitalization plans, community pandemic prevention, and border control policies. Respondents were asked to evaluate their satisfaction with these policies on a Likert 5-point scale, and the statistical results are shown in

Table 4. The results of regression analysis.

Policy	Items	M(SD)	β (t-Value)
Revitalization Program Policy	Triple Stimulus Vouchers Program	3.845 (0.889)	−0.069 (−1.495)
	Domestic Tourism Promotion Plan	3.931 (0.727)	0.149 (2.954) *
Community pandemic prevention policy	Social distancing regulations	4.069 (0.853)	0.071 (1.357)
	Wear a mask when going out	4.120 (0.383)	0.162 (3.443) *
Border control policy	Avoid going abroad	4.010 (0.440)	0.087 (1.910)
	Restrictions on entry of non-citizens	4.120 (0.986)	0.157 (2.962) *
	14 days of home quarantine for entry	4.079 (0.831)	0.201 (3.704) *
	Citizens returning from overseas should be subject to sample collection only if they have symptoms	3.450 (0.706)	−0.073 (−1.634)
Number of observations		393
R-squared		0.279
Adjusted R-squared		0.264
F-statistic		18.554 *
Durbin-Watson		1.950

* 5% significance level. Notes: 1. Items in policy measured on 5-point Likert-type scale from 1 (very dissatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied). 2. The variance inflation factor (VIF) scores were less than 10. 3. Dependent variable: The change of domestic travel frequency during the periods of slowing down and severe pandemic.

. The results show that the respondents’ satisfaction with “wearing masks when going out” and “restricting entry by non-citizens” was the highest, followed by “avoid going abroad”, “14 days of home quarantine for entry”, and “social distance regulations”, and the degree of satisfaction with these policies all exceeded 4 points, while the satisfaction with “people returning from overseas should be subject to sample collection only if they have symptoms” was relatively low. This study further used multinomial regression analysis to explore the correlation between people’s satisfaction with government policies and their frequency of domestic travel during the pandemic. As shown in Table 4, the model has certain explanatory power, and there is no collinearity between the explanatory variables. The results show that among the revitalization plans proposed by government units, people’s satisfaction with the “Domestic Tourism Promotion Plan” are associated with the frequency of the respondents’ domestic tourism during the pandemic. Regarding the community pandemic prevention policy, the higher the satisfaction with the requirement of “wearing masks when going out”, the higher the domestic travel frequency during the pandemic. Regarding the border control policy, people’s satisfaction with the policies of “restricting entry of non-citizens” and “14 days of home quarantine for entry” are associated with the people’s domestic travel frequency during the pandemic period; that is, when people’s satisfaction with these two policies is high, their domestic travel frequency will also increase.

5. Discussion and Conclusions

5.1. Implications of the Findings and Main Contributions

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has faced an unprecedented global health, social, and economic emergency, and tourism-related industries are one of the most seriously affected industries. Although the impact of the pandemic continues to develop, this study has made some contributions in exploring and studying the impact of the pandemic on the domestic and outbound travel consumption characteristics of the Taiwanese people. This study probed into the travel consumption characteristics of Taiwanese people before and during the pandemic and discussed the planned consumption characteristics of people when the pandemic ends in the future. In addition, this study has important practical management significance and puts forward strategic suggestions to help tourism recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

First, this study found that the COVID-19 pandemic did affect the tourism consumption characteristics of Taiwan, and there was a significant decrease in domestic travel frequency, travel days, and expenditures during the pandemic period. However, there was no significant difference between the domestic travel expenditures of plans made for after the pandemic and those from before the outbreak; the domestic travel frequency (number and length of trips) and the proportion of people using public transportation equipment for domestic tourism are significantly lower than those before the outbreak. Based on the above analysis of the results, this study has inferred that although the respondents’ planned domestic travel expenditures will not increase or decrease after the pandemic, they may still be worried about potential risks or other uncertain factors; thus, they intend to reduce their frequency of domestic travel and their use of public transportation. This conclusion is consistent with relevant studies, meaning that most travelers will shorten their travel time after the pandemic [21,23,51] and will be less willing to use public transport [3,18]. However, sanitation, disinfection, and the reliable health systems of destinations will be important factors for tourist decision-making [22]. Therefore, it is suggested that after the pandemic, tourism providers can control tourism flows and provide real-time and transparent information to reduce tourists’ perceived threat at a destination [52]. Moreover, government units can assist tour operators to jointly strengthen the public health safety and health measures of tourism and risk management and the control of tourism destinations, such as providing safety and cleanliness labels certified by government units, thus reducing people’s uncertainty about the environment and enhancing their willingness to travel. For example, the Turismo de Portugal has created a “Clean & Safe” seal to distinguish tourism activities or fields that meet the hygiene and cleanliness requirements for the prevention and control of COVID-19 and other possible infections, thus enhancing tourists’ confidence in the safety of destinations [53,54]. However, operators can reduce people’s doubts and increase their willingness to use public transportation by increasing the frequency of public transportation services to avoid congestion and by enhancing the cleaning measures of public transportation systems, such as using medical disinfectants, cleaning the interior of carriages more frequently [10], and constantly publicizing the message that the carriages have been intensively disinfected [55].

Regarding outbound tourism, the results of this study show that there is no significant difference between the proportion of people planning to travel in groups after the pandemic and before the pandemic, which is similar to the conclusion of [56] that the SARS outbreak had no effect on the travel tendencies of group travelers. However, some studies have mentioned that after the COVID-19 pandemic, travelers will choose to travel freely and independently within a short time frame [57,58]. Some studies have held that individuals prefer group travel in order to avoid unknown things and to reduce travel-related risk perception [25,59]. Group travel has the characteristics of comfort, safety, and convenience and is of great appeal to some customer groups, such as novice travelers, single female travelers, elderly travelers, or national cultures characterized by higher levels of uncertainty avoidance [60,61,62,63], especially when traveling abroad. Thus, this study speculated that people who used to travel in groups in Taiwan will not significantly change their original travel patterns after the pandemic. However, this study suggests that the tourism industry can provide private tourism by reducing group sizes after the pandemic as a health measure for group tourism [60,64]. In addition, although the frequency of people planning to travel abroad after the pandemic is not significantly different from that before the pandemic, the number of days that people plan to travel abroad will be significantly shortened, compared to that before the pandemic. The results of this study are consistent with the conclusions of some studies, meaning that respondents who perceive COVID-19 risk and anxiety or people with high uncertainty and avoidance tendencies will stay for a short time or choose short-distance travel when traveling abroad [32,62,65]. This study speculated that the possible reason is that although people want to go abroad after the pandemic, there may be a prejudice that Taiwan is safer than foreign countries [66] or that there may still be potential risks and uncertainties in the process of traveling abroad, as travel time in foreign countries is usually longer than that of Taiwan; thus, in order to avoid the unknown, the intended number of days of traveling abroad has been lowered. Since coordination between countries is the key to restarting tourism [31], this study suggests that multilateral cooperation with other countries can be strengthened in the short-term after the end of the pandemic in the future [3], starting with planning tailor-made tourism activities, such as establishing a regional safe travel corridor or travel bubble [40,54,67,68], etc., to reduce uncertainty through international cooperation between governments, thus increasing tourist confidence and security and enhancing their willingness to travel abroad. Regarding outbound travel expenditures, the respondents’ indicated that their plans for travel expenditures after the pandemic will be significantly higher than they were before the pandemic. This study speculated that the possible reason is that due to the impact of the pandemic, the increase in flight costs and accommodation prices (including social distance in the cabin, extra expenses caused by COVID-19, and the cost of improving health and safety, etc.) may increase the cost of outbound tourism [69,70,71]. While people expect that the cost of going abroad may increase, such price increases cannot suppress their strong willingness to travel abroad, and they are willing to pay more; thus, they plan to increase their expenditures for outbound tourism. In addition, when the pandemic comes to an end, some people may use their refunded travel funds for cancelled or restricted plans during the pandemic for travelling [72,73] and may even book luxury trips [74], thus increasing their consumption budget. Therefore, when the border is opened, tour operators in Taiwan can lock in low-risk or medium-low-risk countries or regions for early market layout, keep the pandemic situation abreast, and plan and promote plans in advance.

Since the Taiwanese government put forward a number of revitalization programs and pandemic prevention measures during the pandemic, this study further explored people’s satisfaction with the government’s pandemic prevention policies and revitalization programs and probed into the relationship between people’s satisfaction with policies and their domestic travel frequency. The analysis results show that people returning from overseas should be subject to sample collection only if they have symptoms, which is a policy with relatively low satisfaction of the people. As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) pointed out that patients are still contagious during the asymptomatic period [75], people may worry that although inbound travelers are asymptomatic at the time of entry, they may be asymptomatic infected persons. People are relatively dissatisfied with this policy, and if the government does not screen inbound travelers, they worry that it will cause loopholes in pandemic prevention. Moreover, this policy has no significant impact on people’s travel frequency in this study. Regarding the pandemic prevention policies put forward by the government, “wearing masks when going out”, “restricting entry for non-citizens”, and “14 days of home quarantine for entry” are three policies with high satisfaction, and the improvement of people’s satisfaction with these three policies may have a positive and significant impact on their domestic travel frequency during the pandemic. This study speculated that, because there may be asymptomatic infected persons or unknown sources of infection during the pandemic, people are worried about being infected during tourism. The social pandemic prevention policy stipulated by the government, which requires wearing masks when going out or even imposing penalties for not wearing masks, increases the people’s concept of pandemic prevention and greatly reduces the risk of pandemic spread, which makes people’s satisfaction with this policy higher, thus increasing the frequency of travel within Taiwan. Moreover, when the pandemic was severe, in order to strengthen border control, the government proposed pandemic prevention measures, such as restricting the entry of non-citizens and requiring home quarantine for 14 days, and these two measures may reduce the risk of viruses brought by inbound travelers; thus, people feel more at ease about Taiwan’s safe environment; therefore, the results of this study show that people’s satisfaction with these two policies were associated with the frequency of domestic travel.

Moreover, among the two revitalization programs proposed by the government, as listed in this study, people’s satisfaction with the Domestic Tourism Promotion Plan are associated with their travel frequency; conversely, satisfaction with the “Triple Stimulus Voucher Program” policy does not significantly reflect the frequency of travel. Since the policy of the Triple Stimulus Voucher Program was intended to boost domestic demand industries, promote consumption, and activate the economy, people can choose to use this subsidy for industries of different natures, and use was not limited to tourism-related industries. According to a survey of financial institutions in Taiwan, only 14.6% of the people will use the Triple Stimulus Voucher Program for travel accommodation, while 62.1% of the people will spend it on travel because of the Domestic Tourism Promotion Plan [76]. Therefore, it is speculated that the Triple Stimulus Voucher Program policy alone cannot significantly and positively enhance people’s willingness to travel. Thus, in the future, if the government units want to enhance the consumption willingness of its people to travel in Taiwan, from the perspective of people’s demand, it is suggested that people’s consumption can be stimulated by providing cash subsidies or coupons directly related to tourism or demand-side policies, such as increasing people’s leisure time, reducing travel costs, or providing consumption discounts, can stimulate potential tourism demand [17,28,34,35],as a short-term measure to revive Taiwan’s tourism industry.

By exploring the coefficient values of these significant policy variables in the regression analysis model in detail, the policy variable coefficient of border control for “14 days of home quarantine for entry” is the highest, and this strategy has a relatively large impact on increasing the frequency of people traveling in Taiwan during the pandemic, followed by the policy of “restricting entry for non-citizens” and “wearing masks when going out”. These policies may be important factors for people to be willing to increase their frequency of travel during the period when the pandemic in Taiwan slows down. Although the revitalization policy of the “Domestic Tourism Promotion Plan”, which stimulates domestic tourism by means of financial subsidies, are also associated with people’s travel, the variable coefficients in the regression model are relatively low, compared to other pandemic prevention policies. This study considered how to reduce people’s doubts about the risk of infection in the process of tourism and make people more feel at ease, which may be a relatively crucial factor to enhance people’s willingness to travel. As people’s views on tourism safety significantly affect their tourism behavior [77], it was noted that people’s perception of travel risk, caused by the threat of COVID-19, is highly correlated with their willingness to avoid or cancel travel [78]. Policies and measures to reduce people’s perceptions of travel risks may be the key to restoring people’s confidence in traveling and tourism activities [31,65,79]. As people’s confidence in travel and travel risk perception is one of the vital factors affecting their tourism intentions and the speed of tourism recovery [3,14,80], it is very important to alleviate people’s fears and perceived threats during travel after the pandemic [52]. Therefore, in order to rebuild confidence in the tourism market, the measures taken by the government or tourism industry must make people feel that COVID-19 prevention measures are effective; thus, this study suggests that the recovery of Taiwan’s tourism market in the future mainly depends on enhancing people’s trust in public health measures. Although vaccinations may help solve the threat of COVID-19, it is unlikely to completely eradicate the spread of the virus in the short term [81]; thus, government units can use border control and social pandemic prevention measures to enhance people’s confidence in the safety of the internal environment. In addition, it is suggested that tour operators can plan, arrange, or provide non-contact tourism experiences [3], environments, activities, and even destinations that make tourists feel safer and that reduce their risk perception [23,82,83,84,85], thereby reducing tourists’ perceived risk, alleviating travel anxiety, and restoring their confidence [14,27]. Since previous studies indicate that VAT increase will not have a negative impact on foreign tourist inflow [86,87], this study recommends that government consider VAT increase for foreign tourists to support policies to improve or maintain safe environment. Although the border control policy is an important factor to enhance people’s willingness to travel within Taiwan during the pandemic, the travel restrictions and the closure of the tourism border have also dealt a considerable blow to the tourism industry [88,89], deeming that the requirement to wear masks seems to be a policy that will not cause heavy economic pressure, compared to other pandemic prevention measures. Therefore, if other respiratory infectious diseases occur in the future, it is suggested that in the absence of effective vaccines and under coexistence with the virus, besides border control policies, the social pandemic prevention strategy of wearing masks when going out seems to be a pandemic prevention policy that can be adopted when promoting tourism in Taiwan.

5.2. Limitations of the Present Study and the Agenda for Future Research

This empirical study has some limitations. When collecting data and writing this study, COVID-19 was still in the continuous occurrence stage. Considering that travelers’ behaviors and attitudes will still change, the suggested strategies and methods put forward in this study were mostly short-term. Moreover, as the pandemic continues to occur, respondents answered part of the survey contents based on their planned tourism consumption behavior after the pandemic. As these are their future plans, it is impossible to evaluate their actual behavior after the pandemic. Therefore, it is suggested that the follow-up study should not only track the changes in travelers’ tourism activities and mobility under the conditions of the pandemic but also further explore the changes and differences of people’s short-term and long-term tourism consumption characteristics in the post-pandemic era. As this study only discussed domestic and outbound tourism without focusing on any specific type of tourism, such as cultural tourism, rural tourism, coastal or island tourism, follow-up research and discussion on specific types of tourism can be conducted in the future. In addition, this study only explored and analyzed Taiwanese people. In the future, it is suggested that the experiences and data of other cities around the world can be collected, and the results of this study can be compared with different cultural and geographical regions in order to formulate development strategies for destinations to cope with the new trends of tourism behavior after the end of the pandemic. Moreover, this study did not focus on the economic impact of tourism subsidy measures in detail; thus, it is suggested that this part be discussed as a research topic in the future.