Foreign tourists’ experiences under air pollution: Evidence from big data

Abstract

Air pollution has become a major hurdle to tourists’ experiences in many destinations. This study uses a large sample of TripAdvisor reviews for Chinese attractions and applies a five-way fixed-effects model to estimate the impact of air pollution on attraction ratings. Results show that an increase in the PM2.5 concentration led to a decline in foreign tourists’ 5-point ratings of their experiences. Several factors appear to moderate this effect, such as tourists’ past travel experience, year of travel, attraction types, tourists’ national cultural traits, and air pollution in tourists’ home countries. Tourists are more vulnerable to air pollution when coming from countries with more feminine and collectivist cultures and countries with lower air pollution. Across six air pollutants, only PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations are found to significantly influence foreign tourists’ experiences. Lastly, practical implications are provided.