IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v13y2021i20p11190-d653390.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Tourist and Viral Mobilities Intertwined: Clustering COVID-19-Driven Travel Behaviour of Rural Tourists in South Tyrol, Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Anna Scuttari

    (Center for Advanced Studies, Eurac Research, 39100 Bolzano, Italy
    Department of Tourism, Munich University of Applied Sciences, 80335 München, Germany)

  • Valeria Ferraretto

    (Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Trento, 38122 Trento, Italy)

  • Agnieszka Elzbieta Stawinoga

    (Statistics Office, Eurac Research, 39100 Bolzano, Italy)

  • Maximilian Walder

    (Center for Advanced Studies, Eurac Research, 39100 Bolzano, Italy)

Abstract

Travel patterns have dramatically changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Tourism has been both a vector and a victim of the disease. This paper explores the pandemic’s impact on rural tourism, using the theoretical framework of the “mobilities turn” to investigate issues of corporeal and communicative travel found between the first and second waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. A sample of 874 guests visiting the Italian region of South Tyrol, where rural tourism is the norm, identified different patterns of physical travel and approaches to collecting on-site information on COVID-19. Results from a principal component analysis (PCA) and a cluster analysis highlighted at least two different approaches from visitors to the region: the first is more cautious, mostly practiced by domestic tourists, with limited mobility on-site, coupled with a need for information; the second is instead a more adventurous approach, with higher on-site mobility, more use of sustainable forms of transport and less interest in data evidence on COVID-19. Implications for rural tourism and its future are discussed. The hypothesis of an inverse relationship between corporeal and communicative travel needs further exploration in future research.

Suggested Citation

  • Anna Scuttari & Valeria Ferraretto & Agnieszka Elzbieta Stawinoga & Maximilian Walder, 2021. "Tourist and Viral Mobilities Intertwined: Clustering COVID-19-Driven Travel Behaviour of Rural Tourists in South Tyrol, Italy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-16, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:20:p:11190-:d:653390
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/20/11190/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/20/11190/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tim Cresswell, 2021. "Valuing mobility in a post COVID-19 world," Mobilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(1), pages 51-65, January.
    2. Mimi Sheller, 2016. "Uneven Mobility Futures: A Foucauldian Approach," Mobilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(1), pages 15-31, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Laura Dobusch & Katharina Kreissl, 2020. "Privilege and burden of im‐/mobility governance: On the reinforcement of inequalities during a pandemic lockdown," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(5), pages 709-716, September.
    2. Turner, Sarah, 2020. "Informal motorbike taxi drivers and mobility injustice on Hanoi's streets. Negotiating the curve of a new narrative," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    3. Georgios Glouftsios & Anna Casaglia, 2023. "Epidermal politics: Control, violence and dissent at the biometric border," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 41(3), pages 567-582, May.
    4. Majerčák Jozef & Vakulenko Sergej Petrovich, 2023. "The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Population Mobility in the Czech Republic and Slovakia," LOGI – Scientific Journal on Transport and Logistics, Sciendo, vol. 14(1), pages 158-168, January.
    5. Daile Lynn Rung, 2020. "Processes of Sub-Citizenship: Neoliberal Statecrafting ‘Citizens,’ ‘Non-Citizens,’ and Detainable ‘Others’," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-30, January.
    6. Siqin Wang & Mengxi Zhang & Tao Hu & Xiaokang Fu & Zhe Gao & Briana Halloran & Yan Liu, 2021. "A Bibliometric Analysis and Network Visualisation of Human Mobility Studies from 1990 to 2020: Emerging Trends and Future Research Directions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-22, May.
    7. Silvia Marcu, 2021. "Towards Sustainable Mobility? The Influence of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Romanian Mobile Citizens in Spain," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-18, April.
    8. Shengchen Du & Hongze Tan, 2022. "Location Is Back: The Influence of COVID-19 on Chinese Cities and Urban Governance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-13, March.
    9. Barber, Lachlan B., 2020. "Governing uneven mobilities: Walking and hierarchized circulation in Hong Kong," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:20:p:11190-:d:653390. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.