How the COVID-19 Pandemic Impacted Tourism and Tourist Behaviour. A Perspective on Typologies of New Consumers

Research on consumer behaviour revealed that it is susceptible to changes and transformations during periods of crisis, with the magnitude and nature of the changes being influenced by the particularities of the crises. The tourism industry was one of the most severely affected industries during the Covid-19 pandemic crisis. The pandemic caused disruptions in the activity and determined transformations both within the organizations in the field and in the behavior of tourists. However, as in other crisis situations, tourism proved its resilience, adapting to the new conditions and recording a strong return once the pandemic crisis ended. Nonetheless, the behavior of consumers of tourist services has undergone changes, some of them profound and potentially long-lasting. This article aims to highlight the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the behavior of consumers of tourist services and to identify a series of consumer typologies in the post-pandemic era, through the analysis of quantitative data resulting from a direct research. A cluster analysis was applied to the sample that was the object of the research, which allowed the identification of several behavioral typologies of tourist services consumers following the Covid-19 pandemic.