Abstract

There have been a number of identifiable factors restraining the growth of tourism development for decades. With an outbreak of the COVID-2019 pandemic throughout the world, this situation of travel constraints changes because new obstacles emerge. The aims of the chapter are re-visiting the travel constraints in the pandemic situation. This chapter summarizes and sorts out various travel constraints under the COVID-2019 pandemic. At the same time, from the perspective of the digital economy, considering the role and methods of informatization, this chapter puts forward the solution framework of travel constraints under the epidemic situation through the ways of digitization, networking, and intelligence. Theories on digitization, networking and intelligence make noteworthy contributions to the advancement of travel mobility during the COVID-2019. The main concerns of the chapter include (1) various travel constraints and their changes under the COVID-2019 pandemic; (2) the role of the digital economy to deal with travel constraints.

Keywords

Travel Constraints, Digitization, Networking, Intelligence, COVID-2019

Introduction

Scholars have identified several constraints (Fu & Timothy, 2021), such as time and finances (Carneiro & Crompton, 2010), family (Khoo-Lattimore, del­ Chiappa, & Yang Mona, 2018; Khoo-Lattimore & Jihyun Yang, 2020; Yang, Khoo-Lattimore, & Yang, 2020), overcrowding (Toohey & Taylor, 2008), perceived risks and security concerns (Chew & Jahari, 2014), cultural distance (Ng, Lee, & Soutar, 2007), destination risk (Yang, Sharif, & Khoo-Lattimore, 2015), and risks specifically for women travelers (Yang, Khoo-Lattimore, & Arcodia, 2018a, 2018b). However, these constraints may have changed in the context of the COVID-2019 pandemic. As the COVID-2019 crisis spurred tourism, new travel constraints emerged. Meanwhile, methods to deal with travel constraints have evolved over time, responding to changing environmental conditions. There are some evident studies (Dingil & Esztergar-Kiss, 2021) show that the COVID-2019 crisis exert a significant influence on daily mobility (Anke, Francke, Schaefer, & Petzoldt, 2021). Researchers (Awad-Nunez, Julio, Gomez, Moya-Gomez, & Gonzalez, 2021) found that the epidemic triggered the inconvenience of mobility all over the world. At the same time, it inspires some novel methods of travel constraints. With the changes in perspectives that accompanies the waves of the epidemic, the focus shifted from traditional methods to modern technology, which greatly alters the dilemma of travel mobility as well (Choi, 2020). Powerful tools like digital technologies appear duly to serve people for convenience. But few studies have looked at the connections between this trend and travel constraints. In the meanwhile, tourism market benefits tremendously from updated technology and converts into smart tourism especially in the post-pandemic era. However, the current research on travel constraints has not been well studied systematically under the conditions of digitization, networking and intelligence. An integrated framework on digitization, networking and intelligence will have contributed to advance travel constraints research and practice.

The aims of the chapter are re-visiting the travel constraints in the pandemic situation. We hope to summarize and sort out various travel constraints under the COVID-2019 pandemic. Meanwhile, from the perspective of the digital economy, considering the role and methods of informatization, this chapter puts forward the solution framework of travel constraints under the epidemic situation through the ways of digitization, networking, and intelligence.

Literature Review

Digital Economy and Smart Tourism

According to a study by the international data company (Ibragimovich & Ayubxon, 2021), the global digital economy will grow by 16.8% and revenue will reach $2.1 trillion in 2019. Due to the impact of the epidemic, the world economy is undergoing a reconstruction process based on digital technology. The economic development based on digital technology has led to major structural changes in the tourism system. From 2020 to 2035, the digital economy will grow rapidly and generate $16 trillion in revenue in 2035 (Figure 1).

Figure 3.1. Revenues of the world economy from the digital economy, trillion US dollars

Source: Alabaev Sobithon, I., & Usmanov Ayubxon Ulug’bek, o. g. l. (2021) based on data from The Boston Consulting Group

The outbreak of COVID-19 has caused a great impact on the economy of the world, especially the tourism industry, which suffered the most losses from the epidemic. According to relevant statistics, in 2020, international tourists will decrease by 80% compared with last year, directly reducing the income of the tourism industry by $1 trillion, and the global tourism industry index will fall by 70% in 2020 (Liu Xin, 2021). The international tourism market is gradually recovering after the universal vaccination (Qiu, Liu, Stienmetz, & Yu, 2021). With the background of recovering from the epidemic, the research on tourism development is very timely and meaningful both in theory and practice.

It has been proved that during the epidemic, the development process of digital economy has accelerated, and many problems can be solved remotely. This process shows that digital economy is not only the objective need of tourism, but also the objective need of the whole society (Pardayev et al., 2021).

In the face of this development, Liu (2021) showed that smart tourism will become the key point for the innovative development of the tourism industry and the digital economy will be used as an opportunity for development. New opportunities for the development of tourism destinations under the digital economy at present, the development of new tourism modes and new formats such as smart tourism, digital creativity and immersive experience in China is in the ascendant. The application of image gate system, face recognition and other technologies improves the efficiency of tourism spots and optimizes the experience; Through 3D modeling and VR (virtual reality), indoor facilities and services are restored to meet the personalized needs of users (Zhan, 2019). Personalized, customized and quality digital tourism products emerge in endlessly, which brings new opportunities to the development of tourism destinations (Chen & Jia, 2022). In fact, the ways of digitization, networking, and intelligence have been emerging in the smart tourism industry.

Digitization

Although Chinese tourism industry suffers a lot from the COVID-2019 pandemic (Xia Jiechang, Mao Lijuan & Chen Linlin, 2020), experts Liu (Liu Na, 2022) and Wang(Wang Zhaofeng, 2022) are exploring a sustainable way to develop tourism(Shi Peihua & Lu Mingming, 2020) by reconstructing value chains(Zhang Zhenjia,2021) and needs(Tian Li &Ma Yu, 2021). Tourism is going through an innovative transformation (Shen Junbo, Xu Tong,Lu Mingming % Zhai Yanxia, 2020). Smart tourism is advocated on modern digital platform to enrich people’s cultural life(Huang Xiaoting, 2020). Digitization (Zhou Xiang-e, 2022) break through the limitation of travel mobility (Song Jian, 2022) and enable residents who are stuck at home go shopping (Zhao Huawei, Li Tiancai & Dong Xiaoxu, 2022) or do sightseeing (Lv Yuxiang & Fang Gege, 2021) online through the virtual panorama. Taking museum as an example, exhibitions are displayed online to attract audiences all over the world during the epidemic (Zheng Qi, 2020). 

Besides, 3D digitization of selected museum artefact is becoming more and more frequent practice in the era of global COVID-2019 pandemic in oversea countries(Barszcz, Montusiewicz, Pasnikowska-Lukaszuk, & Salamacha, 2021).  When the epidemic crisis spurred the museum, it’s proved to be even more important to utilize digital tools to deliver services online(Mason, Riviezzo, Zamparo, & Napolitano). Especially in the UK and the US, museums and galleries turn towards the digital in order to stay open(Noehrer, Gilmore, Jay, & Yehudi, 2021). As a matter of fact, museums enhance attractiveness through digitization(Palumbo, 2022), which is a great opportunity to develop tourism in an amazing degree. Thus, scholars dig deeply into the level of digitization in museum to examine its effects and role played by the COVID-2019 epidemic(Raimo, De Turi, Ricciardelli, & Vitolla). Apart from the museum, other cultural institutions like opera are seeking the digitization path to survive the global virus crisis(Fissi, Gori, Romolini, & Contri, 2022). There is clear evidence shows that the digital technologies become essential to tourism industry while pandemic accelerate digitization.

Networking

Not only digitization but also networking makes great contributions to tourism when the outbreak of COVID-2019 virus strikes the economy (Wang Xuefeng & Zhang Hui, 2022). For instance, the network of high-speed rail promotes the tourism economy (Kong Lingzhang & Li Jinye, 2021). Besides, a smart traffic management system is explored to create green tourism network and achieve sustainable tourism(Lin, Hsu, Lin, Tung, & Ling, 2022). In Chinese hospitality and tourism industry, one of the studies(Sun, Cao, & Xing, 2021) help government to encourage enterprises to develop technology diffusion network for sustainable development. To understand to spread of this epidemic and the population flow, researchers from both China (Jiang, Wei, Wang, Zhang, & Lu, 2021) and abroad (Tsiotas & Tselios, 2022) use complex network methods to monitor tourism mobility. These methods differ from other non-network counterparts, which conceive interconnectedness, especially the cross-place interaction. Therefore, they allow developing graph models representing interconnected structures at various geographical scales. What’s more, international experts (Nguyen, Johnson, & Young, 2022) consider that networking is a promised and scientific method to sustainability of the tourism. The development of the networking from the visible to the invisible highlights the importance of the invisible networking in the digital age.

Intelligence

Intelligence is conceived to be a revolutionary solution to the tourism dilemma in the post-COVID-2019. Chinese government encourages not only the combination of tourism and culture but also intelligent tourism (Pan Ying, Zheng Jianming & Sun Honglei, 2022). Intelligent tourism service is put forward to be a new development pattern in leisure tourism (Chen Lingling & Lei Shangjun, 2021)，country tourism (He Jianwu, 2021; Zhao Yao, 2022) and leisure agricultural tourism(Wu, Lin, & Chen, 2022). Intelligence is reckoned as a practical way to boost the tourism economy (Pan Suhua, 2021) as well. In sport tourism (Chen Chunping & Zhai Feng, 2021), especially ski trip (Yao Xiaolin & Wang Jun, 2021), intelligent construction is regarded as a capable approach to enhance competitiveness. Moreover, transportation as a vital section of tourism is seeking a way to upgrade to an intelligence level (Ma Congling & Zhang Yajun, 2021). Scientists convince the mass that the adoption of robotic and artificial intelligence assists human being in all sorts of area including tourism(Zeng, Chen, & Lew, 2020). Take hospitality (Chen, Tzeng, Tham, & Chu, 2021) for example, high-tech contactless services are considered as a suitable and safer way served in restaurants (Leung & Loo, 2022) and hotels(Li, Yin, Qiu, & Bai, 2022). Therefore, professional (LI Shanshan, 2021) estimate the value of smart tourism and conclude a positive result.

It’s obvious that oversea countries share the same circumstances in the tourism field. The COVID-2019 pandemic stresses the need for touchless services and smart technology. Equally, an intention of robot usage is demonstrated to play a magnificent role in revival of tourism(Meidute-Kavaliauskiene, Cigdem, Yildiz, & Davidavicius, 2021). Studies prove that the global epidemic improves the acceptance of technology in hotel services, as the robot and artificial intelligence technologies become more prominent in tourism(Kim, Kim, Badu-Baiden, Giroux, & Choi, 2021). Apart from exhibition sector of the events industry(Hradecky, Kennell, Cai, & Davidson, 2022), the cathedrals(Allal-Cherif, 2022) use artificial intelligence to offer tourists vivid cultural experience. As the intelligence technology is well-developed, some scientists are concerned about the hospitality workforce(Baum, Mooney, Robinson, & Solnet, 2020). In addition, the epidemic causes a disaster to the cruise industry, then an application of smart cruise ecosystem emerges timely to attract passengers(Buhalis, Papathanassis, & Vafeidou). In sum, since the COVID-2019 changes the consumption patterns and tourist promotion, intelligence technologies may play an increasingly remarkable role in the future(Toubes, Vila, & Brea, 2021).

Research Methods

This chapter sat within a broader, multimethod qualitative study, which includes three separate methods that could document different aspects of the improvement for the travel constraints in the pandemic situation:

• Method 1: Thematic analysis. For our qualitative investigation, we selected and analyzed papers to seek for solutions to travel constraints during the COVID-2019 crisis. Some keywords named “mobility”, “digital economy”, “smart tourism”, “digitization”, “networking”, and “intelligence” were used to retrieve the relevant paper on the web of science. We then analyzed all the papers carefully to search for the connections between travel constraints and technologies.
• Method 2: There are multiple solutions to overcome the travel constraints under the background of the epidemic. These breakthroughs in smart tourism are sorted out into three clusters: digitization-oriented, networking-oriented, and intelligence-oriented. The classification method is an effective way of allocating complex resources systematically.
• Method 3: Case study. This paper also adopted case study research method for qualitative to investigate the panacea of travel constraints under the circumstance of the epidemic. The case studies focus on the approaches to solving travel constraints by modern technologies. There are some typical cases implying the solvable way of digitization, some excellent examples working out the obstacles by networking, while other classic cases seeking solutions through intelligence.

Research on Smart Tourism under the Background of Epidemic

During the epidemic, smart tourism plays a great role. Du (2020) mentioned in the study that in order to minimize the risk of virus infection and reduce passenger travel, a large number of visa change and refund procedures have been produced in various modes of transportation and accommodation facilities. Meanwhile, the hotel occupancy rate in China has declined significantly. Relying on ICT technology and man-machine dialogue, the workload and losses of these large-scale visa change and refund businesses have been greatly reduced. In this anti-epidemic process, it is very important to improve the emergency response capacity of tourism industry. This requires strengthening the construction of new infrastructure such as 5G base station, big data center and industrial Internet; Open up the data platforms of tourism, transportation and other systems; Strengthen the dynamic grasp of tourism big data; Promote infrared temperature measurement and early warning system, contactless catering and contactless retail services to improve the anti-risk ability of tourism system. (Wu, Dong, 2021) Epidemic prevention and control put forward new requirements for enterprise services and equipment. Ma and Zhang (2021) pointed out that after the normalization of COVID-19 prevention and control, the future development direction of passenger transport, contactless and other disinfection and sterilization and payment may be remote. Tourism passenger transport enterprises need to adapt to the changes in the current environment. The acceleration of intelligent process has become the future trend of tourism travel. At the same time, they (2021) pointed out that many automobile manufacturing enterprises have also added new technical means such as remote control, electronic payment, face brushing recognition and infrared temperature measurement, which has made a beneficial exploration for the future intelligent transformation and upgrading of the tourism passenger transport industry.

Hou (2022) showed that the functionality of smart tourism applications is needed. He (2022) further pointed out that some new functions can be introduced in combination with the epidemic situation. For example, with the help of geographic information technology, the travel risk of tourism destinations can be analyzed and evaluated through flow of people and space. So, low-risk areas can be automatically selected for tourists to help them make travel planning and decision-making.

Early studies have pointed out that from the perspective of development, scenic spots can be divided into three levels: informatization, digitization and intelligence. The informatization of scenic spots is the primary process of applying information technology and products and the basis of tourism digitization. Digitization is the comprehensive use of information technology with the help of computer hardware equipment to realize the digitization of resource protection, intellectualization of management and networking of industrial integration If digitization is based on the Internet to form preliminary business collaboration, then intellectualization is to upgrade the infrastructure of the digital scenic spot on the basis of the engineering and social infrastructure of the digital scenic spot, and increase the ability of perception, interaction, intelligent judgment, collaborative operation and so on (Li, 2014).

The Role of the Digital Economy to Deal with Travel Constraints in Mobilities

Improve and Break through Travel Constraints through Digitization

Digitization transformation specifically refers to the comprehensive upgrading of traditional industries by using modern information technology (Lin, 2021). She (2021) also summarized the advantages of tourism economic development in the digital context into five points, three of which can explain and solve the problem of travel constraints, so as to further reflect the relevant advantages of digitization can be seen as follow: 1) It can make an effective breakthrough in information asymmetry and realize data sharing among relevant enterprises. 2) It can effectively promote the transformation and upgrading of enterprises and effectively improve the information integration ability and resource matching ability of the tourism industry. 3) It can make its tourism industry scientifically build an innovative management model.

Huang Xiaoting (2022) showed in the research on the change and reconstruction of tourism decision logic under the digital economy that the digital reconstruction of tourism experience, the intelligent isomorphism of behavior products and the interactive heterogeneity of decision logic under the digitization of subject object interaction need to focus in the future. She pointed out that spatio-temporal behavior trajectory data (including mobile phone signaling data, location data generated based on location services, etc.) and increasingly refined individual tourist behavior data are generated automatically as tourists experience the whole process of digital tourism products, which has generated digital tourism subjects in a large amount of big data (Huang,2022). Although tourism situation has become an important topic in the field of tourism experience research, it has not been discussed under the background of the rapid development of digital technology. Xia and Chen (2022) put forward the conceptual model of tourism scene as the conceptual integration of tourism situation in the digital era and the tourism experience situation model in the intelligent tourism environment. “Scene” is a key word in the digital era. The concept of tourism scene and its value is put forward, which connects the cross-border discourse and integrated application of previous tourism context and other related concepts with other industries and fields. Based on the multi-level network structure of service ecosystem value, this chapter constructs the tourism scene value creation model, which reveals the main line of value co creation composed of digital ecology, fit platform, service landscape and value proposition, as well as the direct creation of experience value by tourists, so as to open up the tourism scene in the digital era.

Improve and Break through Travel Constraints through Networking

China’s tourism management system has experienced the evolution from bureaucratic governance and market governance to diversified network governance. The leading body also changes from the government, enterprises to the government, enterprises and civil society. With the increasing proportion of social investment in tourism development and its position in tourism management, the role of social forces in tourism decision-making has been paid more and more attention. Especially under the promotion of digital technology, industrial integration and borderless have become an important manifestation of the innovation and development of tourism supply system. In this context, intergovernmental coordination and joint governance between the government and enterprises, industry associations, local residents and tourists (among stakeholders) are becoming more and more important. From the perspective of historical analysis and logical deduction, it has become a consensus to establish a “multi-agent network” tourism governance model. It is necessary to organically integrate the governance methods of bureaucracy, market system and networking to form the so-called “meta governance model”(Song, 2021).

Shi and Wen (2021) discussed the differentiation characteristics of social capital of tourism networking in China’s urban agglomeration with the help of social network analysis. Strengthening the development of heterogeneous tourism resources, paying attention to the construction of tourism industry in marginal areas and improving the tourism network development mechanism of urban agglomeration are important ways to optimize and accumulate social capital and promote the tourism network development of China’s urban agglomeration. In the era of networking, high-speed rail is constantly impacting people’s cognition of traditional transportation. Due to the characteristics of high speed, high safety and comfort, high-speed rail has become the first choice for tourists. With the continuous advancement of China’s high-speed rail network, China has also ushered in the “high-speed rail era”, and the new traffic pattern brought by it has an increasingly prominent impact on the economic development of China’s tourism industry (Zhu, 2021).

Improve and Break through Travel Constraints through Intelligence

Wang Guoyin believes that the future development trend of smart tourism is integration, intelligence and immersion (Han, 2021). Intellectualization is the application of artificial intelligence technology to the tourism industry. Chen (2019) showed the importance of building a smart tourism service platform in the study of Liangjiang New Area in Chongqing. The platform can regulate the flow of people, traffic and information; Enterprise services can be a combination of online and online tourism; Provide customized and intelligent characteristic services to meet the more and more accurate tourism needs of tourists.

Liu (2021) pointed out that smart tourism needs to realize the intellectualization of tourism services in terms of studying the design of smart tourism service mode under the background of digital economy. The establishment of intelligent service system takes innovation as the development principle. When constructing the service system in the tourism area, designers need to make perfect research and Analysis on the service functions in the tourism area, and set multiple modules according to the survey results to build the overall scientific system framework of tourism.

Xu and Jiang (2020) took rural tourist destinations in Hainan Province as the object to carry out traffic intelligent research on rural transportation system and rural tourist spots and villages. Aiming at the problems existing in rural tourism traffic intelligent travel, they proposed to build a regional public transportation system based on the regionalization characteristics of rural tourist spots; Relying on the coconut level rural tourism evaluation system (a regulation implemented in 2014 divided Hainan rural tourist spots into five levels, so as to standardize the management of rural tourist spots), formulate the intelligent assessment standard of rural tourism transportation; Relying on big data and Internet of things technology to improve the traffic intelligent quality of rural tourism spots and other countermeasures, build an intelligent system of rural tourism traffic in Hainan Province. The intelligent level of rural transportation system is high, and tourists are satisfied with the intelligent transportation system of tourist points, which can promote the improvement of rural tourism quality and sustainable development. This has reference significance for reducing the constraints of tourism.

Conclusions

In the pandemic situation, travel constraints like the inconvenience of mobility and inaccessibility of tourist attractions exacerbated pressures in the tourism economy. The barriers to tourism caused by the stagnation of mobility under the pandemic are different from previous ones, which leads to the important role of the digital economy. Digital technology is a brand new solution of travel constraints under the COVID-2019 pandemic situation. To sum up, the tourism mobility still remains an unsolved problem for various tourists owing to different obstacles. Nevertheless, the COVID-2019 epidemic aggravates the mobility situation on one hand. On the other hand, the chapter comes up with practical solutions to deal with social mobility, which are digitization, networking and intelligence. With the networking connecting to tourism information in every aspect, digitization provides high-tech support while intelligence offers sustainable approaches to coping with tourism constraints. In this chapter, some cases are included in order to show the role of digital economy within tourism mobility. Actually, more cases of China can be mentioned in the future to differ from the Eurocentric one. This chapter proposes a research framework to solve the travel restriction problem under the epidemic situation by means of digitalization, networking and intelligence. Through digitalization, networking and intelligence, practitioners and policymakers can have a more systematic method to determine the path to solve the problem when facing the travel restriction problem in the mobility. Future tests will be conducted using more case studies and empirical research methods to examine this framework.

Acknowledgment

This work was supported by Hainan University Education and Teaching Research Project, [hdjy1828]; Hainan Provincial Higher Education Educational Reform Research Funding Project [Hnjg2018ZD-3]; National Social Science Fund of China [19BGL1376].