Understanding Electric Bicycle Users’ Mode Choice Preference under Uncertainty: A Case Study of Shanghai

The electric bicycle is considered as an environmentally friendly mode, the market share of which is growing fast worldwide. Even in metropolitan areas which have a well-developed public transportation system, the usage of electric bicycles continues to grow. Compared with bicycles, the power transferred from the battery enables users to ride faster and have long-distance trips. However, research on electric bicycle travel behavior is inadequate. This paper proposes a cumulative prospect theory (CPT) framework to describe electric bicycle users’ mode choice behavior. Different from the long-standing use of utility theory, CPT considers travelers’ inconsistent risk attitudes. Six socioeconomic characteristics are chosen to discriminate conservative and adventurous electric bicycle users. Then, a CPT model is established which includes two parts: travel time and travel cost. We calculate the comprehensive cumulative prospect value (CPV) for four transportation modes (electric bicycle, bus, subway and private car) to predict electric bicycle users’ mode choice preference under different travel distance ranges. The model is further validated via survey data.

Travel-Related Influencer Content on Instagram: How Social Media Fuels Wanderlust and How to Mitigate the Effect

Tremendous efforts will be required in the coming decades to limit the harmful effects of climate change. This includes travel behavior, which not only has a significant impact on climate but also affects the perceived justice and trust necessary to manage the transition to net zero successfully. Technologies such as social media can promote behavioral change; unfortunately, also for the negative. Drawing on social comparison theory, social identity theory, and the theory of planned behavior, this study uses a PLS-SEM model to investigate if and under which circumstances exposure to travel-related content posted by professional influencers affects their followers’ travel intentions. It extends previous studies by explicitly focusing on influencers that use Instagram to make a living and considers the effect of pro-environmental attitudes. On the one hand, it shows that influencers are not only responsible for their travel behavior. Their content stimulates their audiences’ wanderlust through benign envy. On the other hand, the study suggests that reinforcing pro-environmental attitudes can help mitigate the negative climate effects of imitating influencer travel behavior.

The mediation of perceived risk’s impact on destination image and travel intention: An empirical study of Chengdu, China during COVID-19

Perceived risk clearly impacts travel behavior, including destination selection and satisfaction, but it is unclear how or why its effect is only significant in certain cases. This is because existing studies have undervalued the mediating factors of risk aversion, government initiatives, and media influence as well as the multiple forms or dimensions of risk that can mask its direct effect. This study constructs a structural equation model of perceived risk’s impact on destination image and travel intention for a more nuanced model of the perceived risk mechanism in tourism, based on 413 e-questionnaires regarding travel to Chengdu, China during the COVID-19 pandemic, using the Bootstrap method to analyze suppressing effect. It finds that while perceived risk has a significant negative impact on destination image and travel intention, this is complexly mediated so as to appear insignificant. Furthermore, different mediating factors and dimensions of perceived risk operate differently according to their varied combinations in actual circumstances. This study is significant because it provides a theoretical interpretation of tourism risk, elucidates the mechanisms or paths by which perceived risk affects travel intention, and expands a framework for research on destination image and travel intention into the realms of psychology, political, and communication science. It additionally encourages people to pay greater attention to the negative impact of crises and focuses on the important role of internal and external responses in crisis management, which can help improve the effectiveness of crisis management and promote the sustainable development of the tourism industry.

Understanding Gender, Income and Travel Behavior in Casablanca City – Morocco

Objective: The purpose of this paper is to extend the research on gendered differences in travel behavior in developing countries by analyzing travel behavior variability within as well as across gender and income groups in the case of Casablanca city. Methods: Data from the 2018 Casablanca Travel Survey show that overall, women are less mobile than men, make fewer work-related trips and more household maintenance trips, but these differences are heterogeneously distributed across income groups. With the increase in income, women tend to carry out more trips than men; the inverse is observed for the middle- and low-income categories. Results: While for the lowest income groups, walking is the most predominant mode for both men and women, we notice that the private car has the highest modal share within the highest income groups as with the increase in household income, both genders avoid non-motorized transport modes. The particular status of women in some households as breadwinners and reproducers as well as the socio-cultural context of the city shape their mobility and the choice of their activities. Conclusion: Hence, these findings suggest, from a policy perspective, that the public transit system along with spatial planning strategies need to be improved to help overcome women's mobility constraints, especially when they belong to low-income households so they can fully access the city amenities and opportunities. On the other hand, transport policies need to be not only gender-sensitive but also “vulnerable groups” sensitive as mobility impediments are similarly experienced by males and females in some contexts.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Travelers’ Travel Behavior

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of a global pandemic, Coronavirus (COVID-19), on travel behavior by integrating crisis management with other behavior variables. Online surveys via the Amazon Mechanical Turk website were used for data collection. A total of 1978 responses were collected from 19 countries (September, 2020); 1607 valid cases were undertaken for the data analysis. The results suggest that crisis management intervention was the most influential factor impacting travel behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. Non-pharmaceutical interventions followed as the second most influencing predictor. . Personal traits were the only variable that recorded a negative relationship with travel behavior. This study has significant practical and theoretical implications since it adopted the extended model of goal-directed behavior while including crisis management intervention, which is a unique approach.  Although attitudes generally strongly influence travel behavior, in a pandemic situation, such relationships weaken. In terms of practical implications, it has become apparent that firms and governments should implement integrated risk management and crisis management strategies. Travelers need to be reassured that these tourist destinations have become safe again. This will likely decrease the risk factor, therefore influencing them to travel to this region. This study contributes to understanding how a global pandemic influences travel behavior It will be invaluable in predicting the early reflections of travelers as the pandemic ends.