Subjective knowledge and health consciousness influences on health tourism intention after the COVID-19 pandemic: A prospective study
Bo Pu, Fei Du, Lu Zhang, Yanjun Qiu
Abstract
We aimed to predict health tourism intention after the COVID-19 pandemic, which has made people more cautious about their health status. Our study participants comprised 369 people from Chengdu, China, who completed an online survey on health consciousness, subjective knowledge, perceived usefulness of health tourism, perceived behaviour control, and health tourism intention with COVID-19 mitigation measures (females = 218; age range = 18 to more than 65 years). We utilised hierarchical multiple regression and Structure Equation Modelling to predict health tourism intention from perceived usefulness of health tourism and perceived behaviour control. The results revealed that health consciousness and subjective knowledge predicted perceived usefulness of health tourism while perceived usefulness of health tourism predicted health tourism intention. Perceived behaviour control mediated the relationship between perceived usefulness of health tourism and health tourism intention partially. These findings suggest that people's tourism intention under the COVID-19 mitigation appears to be influenced by how they perceive the usefulness of health tourism, based on their subjective knowledge and health consciousness.