Abstract
Despite the massive impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on hospitality industry, only limited papers empirically examined consumer reactions to current pandemic in the context of restaurants. To fill this gap, the primary aim of this paper is to reveal how individuals’ intentions to visiting upscale restaurants are affected by dining out motivations under the COVID-19 pandemic. The second aim is to investigate the moderating role of risk perceptions of COVID-19 and trust in government in building relationships. The research was conducted in Istanbul, a city deeply affected by the coronavirus. Data gathered from 681 people living Istanbul were analyzed via structural equation modeling and multi-group analysis. Findings indicated that two motivations—namely, sociability and affect regulation—have positive impacts on visit intention toward an upscale restaurant. Consumers’ COVID-19 risk perception and their trust in government moderate the relationship between some motivational factors and visit intention. The study makes a significant contribution to the literature in terms of both managing the risk perceptions of consumers and building trust in government.
1. Introduction
After emerging in Wuhan, China in December 2019, the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) quickly turned into a pandemic, and was officially declared as such by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020 (WHO, 2020a). The epicenter of the outbreak shifted from China to Europe, then from Europe to America. As of February 13, 2021, over 100 million people worldwide have been infected with the virus, resulting in over two million deaths. The countries currently listed as having the highest number of cases are the United States, India, Brazil, Russia, and UK. The countries currently listed as having the highest number of deaths are United States, Brazil, Mexico, India, and UK (Worldometer, 2021).
6. Limitations and further research directions
One of the greatest limitations employed by the current study is that the research data were only collected in the context of Istanbul, Turkey. Although Istanbul is the number one province where the outbreak has been experienced, comparing the findings in the context of other provinces where the number of cases is not so intense could yield important results. Consumers’ risk perceptions may differ in provinces with lower numbers of cases. The other important limitation in the study is that only six dimensions were analyzed within the scope of consumer dining out motivations. In future research, factors such as price, celebration, and subjective well-being can be included in the research model, thus paving the way for acquiring more comprehensive results. Another limitation is that no control variable was used while testing the model. Factors such as age, family members’ composition, underlying health condition, income level, and type of job may affect consumers’ intention to dine out during the pandemic period. In future research, the moderating effects of these factors on the model could be tested.
