Tourist Congestion Perception of Tourist Flow during the COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 has had a large impact on tourism demands, preferences, and behaviors. Understanding tourist congestion perception during normal and abnormal events has become a key to formulate tourist flow control schemes and develop tourism demand management in the post-COVID period. This paper explores the correlation mechanism among tourist congestion perception, tourism information services, and tourists travel behaviors in normal and abnormal conditions. To acquire tourist travel behavior, congestion perception, and tourists' socioeconomic attributes, a stated preference survey was done. The changes in travel information demand during different COVID-19 pandemic levels with different congestion perceptions were analyzed, and the effects of influencing factors such as information obtained from different tourism stages and tourist density were qualitatively analyzed. A tourist congestion perception model was established. The analysis provides basic data for establishment of tourist flow control schemes in tourist attractions and reasonable tourism information dissemination in the postCOVID-19 period.