Determinants of perceived risk of online travel purchase in the wake of COVID-19

Consumer risk perception is again at the forefront of research due to COVID-19, war, terrorism, and radical technological development. Our research explores travelers’ attitudes toward perceived risk in the travel purchasing process in the wake of COVID-19. To gain a deeper understanding of the dimensions and interrelationships, we investigate three groups of perceived risks – traditional perceived risk factors related to travel purchase, perceived health risks related to COVID-19, and the risk of the online space related to travel purchase. In Study 1, we interviewed 38 participants in depth to explore the risk factors. In Study 2, we tested our hypotheses with 539 participants using CB-SEM-based quantitative modeling. Results reveal distinct, interacting constructs in the risk perception process. The research shows that a traveler may not perceive something as risky in general, but as soon as specific issues, problems, mistakes, and dangers arise, they perceive the whole travel as risky. Results further indicate that perceived risk often remains latent at a general level and becomes salient only through context-specific triggers, with distinct risk domains reinforcing one another in shaping overall travel purchase risk. This research tries to make a relevant contribution to the literature on what was experienced during the coronavirus pandemic, but beyond that, with a deep and structured analysis.