Influence Of Covid-19 Risk Perception And Travel Anxiety On Travel Intention In Border Areas:Moderating Effect Of Media Use

The border region has been relying on a unique geographical location,rich tourism resources,attracting a lot of domestic and foreign tourists to play,supporting the development of border tourism.The outbreak of COVID-19 has brought great impact on border tourism.The COVID-19 pandemic has led countries to take policies to close their borders and restrict tourism.The suspension of flights,strict traffic control and the cancellation of clustered group activities have blocked population mobility and trade exchanges in border areas,and the tourism industry that relies heavily on population mobility has been seriously damaged.And the COVID-19 pandemic has also caused direct economic losses to many tourism enterprises and related tourism industry practitioners in the border tourism industry,which makes the border areas with border tourism as an important source of income face great challenges.Due to the uncertainty of the epidemic,people began to perceive the possible risks of tourism.How to effectively reduce tourists’ perception of COVID-19 risk in border areas,alleviate tourists’ anxiety about traveling to border areas,and stimulate more tourists’ intention to travel to border areas has become an urgent problem to be solved to promote the development of border tourism.This study constructs a theoretical model by combing the relevant literature at home and abroad on COVID-19 risk perception,tourism anxiety,tourism intention and media use,and puts forward the hypothesis of the relationship between the four variables to explore the relationship between variables.An online questionnaire survey was conducted to investigate potential tourists who are interested in taking Chinese border areas as tourist destinations.By using SPSS21.0 statistical analysis software,the collected data were analyzed.The results show that:(1)COVID-19 risk perception has a significantly positive impact on travel anxiety;(2)COVID-19 risk perception has a significantly negative impact on travel intention;(3)Travel anxiety has a significantly negative impact on travel intention;(4)Media use positively moderates the relationship between COVID-19 risk perception and travel anxiety,negatively moderates the relationship between COVID-19 risk perception and travel intention,and negatively moderates the relationship between travel anxiety and travel intention.Finally,according to the analysis results of empirical research,this study puts forward some suggestions on how to promote the development of border tourism under the background of COVID-19 pandemic: First,respond to the national epidemic prevention policy,pay attention to the risk perception of border areas.Second,strengthen the guidance of media public opinion,reduce the travel anxiety of potential tourists.Third,open up new ideas of tourism,improve tourist intention.