The Fear of COVID-19 Pandemic in Triggering Tourists' Material Deprivation, Social Rights, Social Participation, and Cultural Integration: The Mediating Role of Bullying

Abstract

The paper investigated the impact of the fear of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourists' social exclusion in terms of material deprivation, social rights, social participation, and cultural/normative integration, through the mediating role of bullying, in the early days of COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on social exclusion theory, we adopted a quantitative approach and an integrative model to collect data from 473 tourists through a web-based survey from 5th March to 17th June 2020. The results demonstrated that the fear of COVID-19 has a significant influence on tourists' social exclusion, and in turn, has led to bullying. Besides, bullying has a significant influence on material deprivation, social rights, social participation, and cultural/normative integration of social participation. In addition, this study determined that the effect of the fear of COVID-19 on tourists' social exclusion is partially mediated by bullying. This study also draws attention to the importance of upholding the values of humanity and positive human transactions in times of crisis and pandemics.