Should I Travel? Moral Motivation During Crises

While our travel decisions involve many decisions related to the right or wrong way to behave, our understanding of morality in tourism is largely underdeveloped. Currently, we are hoping for a more responsible and sustainable future after the pandemic. However, we still lack understanding of how moral motivations influence people's travel behavior during a crisis for better crisis management. Against the background of COVID-19, this study develops the moral motivation of travel amid public health crisis (MMTPHC) scale and tests its influence on travel behavior to advance our understanding of morality in tourism. Specifically, two moral motivations (compliance with anti-epidemic policy related to traveling and shame) discourage people's travel intentions. However, concern about public denunciations and empathy toward others encourage travel intention. We also found shame and concern for public denunciations mediate the relationships between face concerns and travel intentions. Practical implications are suggested.