Current Issues in Tourism

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Impact of severe smog on travel demand of

residents in tourist generating places: a case study
of Beijing

Jian Peng, Honglin Xiao, Jian Wang & Jiaojiao Zhang

To cite this article: Jian Peng, Honglin Xiao, Jian Wang & Jiaojiao Zhang (2020) Impact of severe
smog on travel demand of residents in tourist generating places: a case study of Beijing,
Current Issues in Tourism, 23:16, 2009-2026, DOI: 10.1080/13683500.2020.1711713

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CURRENT ISSUES IN TOURISM
2020, VOL. 23, NO. 16, 2009–2026
https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2020.1711713

Impact of severe smog on travel demand of residents in tourist

generating places: a case study of Beijing
Jian Penga, Honglin Xiaob, Jian Wangc and Jiaojiao Zhangd
a
School of Management, Minzu University of China, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; bDepartment of History and
Geography, Elon University, Elon, NC, USA; cBeijing Vocational College of Finance and Commerce, Beijing, People’s
Republic of China; dSchool of Management, Langfang Normal University, Langfang, People’s Republic of China

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

China and some other countries have suffered from severe smog over the Received 16 September 2019
past few years. Impacts of smog pollution on tourism have received Accepted 27 December 2019
attention from the academic community. However, the majority of
KEYWORDS
existing researches have been conducted from the angle of travel Smog; tourism impact; travel
destination places. Little attention is paid to its impact on tourism from demand; tourist generating
the perspective of tourist generating places. In this study, the authors, place; structural equation
by employing Structure Equation Modelling and taking Beijing as the modelling; Beijing
case, have examined severe smog’s impact on tourism. It is found that
(1) Beijing residents have a strong perception of the negative impacts of
smog, and there existed significant group differences in their perception
by demographic attributes; (2) Severe smog plays dual roles in
stimulating more travel demand. On the one hand, it can strengthen the
‘push force’; on the other hand, it makes those clean-air destinations
have stronger ‘pull force’; (3) impacts of severe smog on tourism should
be regarded dialectically. It does bring forth perceivable negative impact
on the image of travel destination. However, from the perspective of
tourist generating place, it can stimulate more travel demand and
therefore can play a positive role in promoting tourism development in
its neighboured places with good air quality.

Introduction
According to the data issued by the Health Effect Institute (2018), severe smog pollution has devas-
tated China and many other countries over the past few years in South Asia, the Middle East, Africa,
and even some big cities such as Paris and Athens in the developed world. The smog problem in
China is unprecedented and typically featured by its extensive geographic scope and high occur-
rence frequency (Mu & Zhang, 2013). Due to the combined influence of some adverse factors,
many big cities in China, such as Beijing, Xian, and Chengdu, used to be the hardest-hit places dev-
astated by smog. Beijing is a world-renown tourist city and also the capital of China, where nearly 22
million people have inhabited. Thanks to its developed economy and huge population, Beijing is also
one of the most influential tourist generating places in China. At the end of 2015 and 2016, Beijing
was repeatedly attacked by horrible smog episodes, and the municipal government of Beijing had to
launch twice a red warning (the top level of a four-level smog warning system adopted by Chinese
governments).
Because of the frequent occurrences of severe smog pollution, its impact on the travel market has
been felt in many big Chinese cities. According to a report issued by Ctrip (the biggest online travel

CONTACT Jian Peng pengkarst75@aliyun.com

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2010 J. PENG ET AL.

agency like Expedia in China), travel products with the theme of ‘escaping from smog’ and ‘cleaning
lung’ are well sold in many mega-cities devastated by smog (Ctrip, 2015). In those urban areas
suffering from severe smog problem, escaping from smog by travel has been becoming a rigid
demand of many residents, particularly in autumn and winter when smog pollution is usually most
severe in a year. Travel destinations with good air quality, such as New Zealand and Canada, are
especially favoured in the outbound travel market of China. To better develop this newly emerged
travel market, Ctrip generated and issued, based on their big data of reservation, a special report
of smog-escaping travel market in 2014 and a guidebook entitled ‘Ranking for Smog-escaping Des-
tinations’ in 2016 subsequently. All these indicate that smog has played active roles in influencing the
travel market change in China. However, convincing scientific studies on this emerging phenomenon
have been scarce at the moment. Besides, many questions with regard to this topic remain either
unanswered or poorly answered. For instance, does severe smog stimulate more travel and
tourism demand in those places where it is rampant? If the answer is yes, then what is the underlying
mechanism and how to better develop the newly emerged travel market?
With smog problem becoming a major public concern across the world, particularly in China over
the past years, the impact of smog on tourism has received a growing attention from international
academic communities. Researchers from China and other countries have conducted numerous
research works in this field (Becken, Jin, Zhang, & Gao, 2016; Cheng, Zhang, & Fu, 2015; Cheng,
Zhou, Wei, & Wu, 2015; Li, Pearce, Morrison, & Wu, 2015; Li, Pearce, Wu, & Morrison, 2015; Lin,
Yang, & Liang, 2015; Peng, Guo, Pei, & Zhang, 2016; Tang, Ma, & Song, 2017; Zhang, Zhong, & Xu,
2015; Zhang, Zhong, & Xu et al., 2015), which greatly enriches our knowledge on smog’s impact
on tourism. Geographically speaking, tourism is a system composed of the travel destination
place, tourist generating place, and the transit route connecting them (Leiper, 1979). However, exist-
ing studies on smog’s impact on tourism have been carried out mostly from the angle of the travel
destination place. The impacts of smog on the travel demand of residents in those tourist generating
places are rarely concerned and examined by researchers. In consideration of this, we quantitatively
examined, by taking Beijing as the case, the influence of severe smog pollution on the travel and
tourism demand of local residents, and then further discussed its practical implications for the devel-
opment of tourism.

Literature review
Fridgen (1984) argued that there is a dialectical relationship between tourism and environment. On
the one hand, all tourist attractions exist in a particular physical environment and all the tourist activi-
ties take place in a given social and natural environment; on the other hand, the environment is one
of the major factors that can either stimulate or restrain travel motivation and travel demand.
Decision-making behaviour of a tourist is greatly influenced by his/her environmental preferences
as well as the perceived image of the destination (Downs & Stea, 1977; Rapoport, 1982). Destination’s
history, culture, climate, and natural environment play important roles in shaping its attractiveness to
tourists (Lim, 1997). So far, discussions regarding the connection between tourism and environment
are mostly conducted under the context of destination. Many researchers have discussed the role of
destination environment extensively in stimulating and maintaining travel motivation. However, little
attention has been paid to the role of environment in the tourist generating area.
Environmental factor plays an active role in stimulating travel motivation and the demand of resi-
dents in a tourist generating place. Many researchers argued that escaping from a mundane environ-
ment is one of the leading motivations that push people to travel (Crompton, 1979; Iso-Ahola, 1982).
According to Clawson and Knetsch (1966), a tour process can be divided into five phrases: expec-
tation, travel, experience, return, and reflection. In all these stages, there often exists an essential
interaction process between the perception of the environmental situation in a tourist generating
place and the perception of the environmental image of the travel destination place. In light of
the Push–Pull theory, both push and pull forces are directly responsible for the happening of
 CURRENT ISSUES IN TOURISM 2011

travel behaviour (Crompton, 1979; Dann, 1981; Zhang Qiu & Lam, 1999). Push forces come mainly
from the needs of escaping (mundane environmental), relaxation, prestige, health, adventure, and
social interaction (Crompton, 1979). Iso-Ahola (1982) argued that both escaping and seeking were
important travel motivations for many tourists. When people attempt to escape from a boring,
mundane environment by travel, they are also hunting for those destinations with the agreeable
environment.
Natural environment is a substantial part of the habitual environment in a tourist generating place.
Although many researchers agreed that escaping from the mundane environment is one of the most
important factors responsible for stimulating travel motivation, empirical studies regarding this still
remained weak (Crompton, 1979; Mannell & Isoahola, 1987). Specifically, it is poorly understood
how the change in environmental quality stimulates travel motivation and how it influences travel
demand in a given tourist generating place. The atmosphere is no doubt one of the essential environ-
mental components in any places on the planet. Atmospheric pollution will inevitably lead to the
deterioration of regional environmental quality. According to the knowledge of Environmental Psy-
chology, environmental change can exert a direct influence on human behaviour (Evans & Jacobs,
1981; Gardner & Stern, 2002; Su, 2016). In many places across the world, smog is a kind of air pollution
and also an indicator of regional environmental deterioration. In this regard, smog may also directly
influence travel consumption behaviour.
The negative impact of air pollution on tourism is not a new scientific topic, and pioneering
research regarding this issue can be dated back to the 1980s (Bell, Malm, Loomis, & Mcglothin,
1985; Latimer, Hogo, & Daniel, 1981; Ross, Haas, Loomis, & Malm, 1984). However, due to the exten-
sive reports of the smog issues in China by Chinese and many leading international media like BBC
and CNN, smog problem has promptly become a public concern over the past few years, and its
impact on tourism has also attracted attention from international academic communities. So far,
existing studies regarding this topic have mainly concentrated on the following aspects: (1) tourists’
perception of and attitude towards smog (Cheng, Zhang, et al., 2015; Cheng, Zhou, et al., 2015; Li,
Pearce, Morrison, et al., 2015; Li, Pearce, Wu, et al., 2015; Peng et al., 2016; Zhang, Zhong, & Xu
et al., 2015; Zhang, Zhong, & Xu, 2015); (2) impact of smog on tourist attraction (Jiang & Zhu,
1996; Liu, 2004; Zhou, 1986); (3) impact of smog on tourist experience (mainly in the USA National
Parks) (Bell et al., 1985; Mace, Bell, & Loomis, 2004; Poudyal, Paudel, & Green, 2013; Ross et al.,
1984); (4) impact of smog on tourist transportation (Li & Wang, 2011); (5) impact of smog on destina-
tion image and tourists’ satisfaction and loyalty to destination (Becken et al., 2016; Chen, Huang, &
Cai, 2014; Peng & Xiao, 2018); and (6) impact of smog on tourism economy in a given tourist destina-
tion (Anaman & Looi, 2000; Cheung & Law, 2001; Poudyal et al., 2013; Sajjad, Noreen, & Zaman, 2014;
Tang et al., 2017).
By and large, although these researches have greatly enriched and sharpened our understanding
of smog’s impact on tourism, most of them focused on the negative impacts of smog on tourism from
the perspective of a travel destination place. Examination concerning smog’s impact on tourism from
the angle of tourist generating place has been paid very little attention. Peng, Zhang, Luo, and Yang
(2016) took Beijing as a case to conduct a pilot study through an online questionnaire survey, which
addressed the general perception of smog by the local residents and their group difference. Although
some knowledge regarding local residents’ perception of the impact of smog has been achieved
through the pilot study, it did not further reveal how severe smog can influence local residents’
travel demand from the angle of a tourist generating place. In consideration of this, we attempt to
further cast lights on the causal relations between local residents’ perceptions of smog and their
travel demand in those places devastated by severe smog.

Research hypotheses
Attitude is one of the most important factors influencing human behaviour (Peng, 2012). It is com-
posed of three interrelated components, i.e. cognition, affect, and behavioural tendency (McLeod,
2012 J. PENG ET AL.

2015). The formation of attitude usually begins with cognition, which has a further influence on affect
and behaviour tendency (Bond & Forgas, 1984). People living in smog-devastated places usually have
a much stronger perception of smog (Cheng et al., 2015; Peng et al., 2016). Their cognition of smog is
the base for the formation of their attitudes towards it. Smog is caused due to massive fine particle
matters (mainly PM2.5 and PM10) floating in the atmosphere, which can directly result in the decrease
of horizontal visibility. It is well known that smog can cause accumulative health damage when
inhaled, particularly in the respiratory and cardiovascular systems. Due to a combined influence of
media report, on-site experience, and also words of mouth from the surrounding people, the majority
of local residents in Beijing have a very strong perception of smog’s negative impacts on human
health (Peng et al., 2016).
To know more about how and in what aspects Beijing residents perceive smog, we conducted
some in-depth interviews. A semi-structural interview outline was designed in November 2015,
which mainly covered the following questions: (1) do you know what smog is? (2) how do you
feel when severe smog comes? (3) what effects does severe smog bring about on you? (4) is there
anything that you are worried about severe smog? (5) do you have the desire to escape from
Beijing when severe smog comes? (6) what kind of places would you like to travel to if you want
to escape from severe smog? The interviews were carried out between 5 and 13 December 2015.
Altogether, 18 persons (9 males and 9 females) took part in the survey, and each interview lasted
for 20–30 minutes. All the participants had to meet the criteria of having lived in Beijing for at
least 5 years and having experienced severe smog episodes since 2011. Five interviews were done
on the campus of Minzu University of China and all these interviewees are university teachers. The
rest 13 interviews were made on weekend in Zizhuyuan, a city park near Minzu University of
China, where it was easy to meet and approach those eligible respondents.
In the pilot interview survey, most of the respondents mentioned that smog could bring forth
negative influences on their daily lives and physical health. In Beijing, the municipal government’s
Environmental Protection Department has established a four-level warning system to cope with
smog, in which red warning is the highest level. When a red warning is launched, the Beijing munici-
pal government will take measures to reduce the emission of PM2.5 and PM10 from vehicles by
executing a traffic restriction policy. Even now, all odd-number vehicles, except for buses, taxies
and electric vehicles, would not be allowed to run on the road. In other words, nearly half of the
vehicles can’t appear on road when smog is very serious in Beijing. Meanwhile, many respondents
said they would choose to wear a face mask or stay at home to protect them from the harm by
smog, which often made their breathing unsmooth or their daily life inconvenient, respectively. In
addition, many respondents also stated that they would feel anxious, oppressed, or depressed due
to the harmful air and poor visibility caused by severe smog. According to the findings by the inter-
view survey, we classify the perceptions of Beijing residents on smog’s impact into three categories,
i.e. physical health impact, daily life impact, and psychological impact (or mental health impact).
As argued by Iso-Ahola (1982), both escaping and seeking are the two most important motivations
for many people’s travel decision-making. By travelling away, they can escape from their mundane
residing environment on the one hand, and they can also seek the psychological reward on the
other hand (Mannell & Isoahola, 1987). In recent years, travel products with a theme of ‘escaping
from smog’ or ‘cleaning lung’ are becoming popular, especially in those Chinese mega-cities devas-
tated by smog, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Xi’. It seems that there simultaneously exists
a travel demand for escaping from smog and seeking a destination with good air quality. Based on
the aforementioned arguments and the findings by the interview survey, we proposed 7 hypotheses
regarding the causal relationship between Beijing residents’ perception of the impact of smog and
their travel willingness to escape from smog and behavioural tendency to seek a clean-air destina-
tion. They are expressed as follows and mapped in Figure 1:
Hypothesis 1: Beijing residents’ perception of smog’s impact on physical health positively influences their travel
willingness to escape from smog;
 CURRENT ISSUES IN TOURISM 2013

Figure 1. Research hypotheses and structural model.

Hypothesis 2: Beijing residents’ perception of smog’s impact on physical health positively influences their behav-
ioural tendency to seek a clean-air destination;

Hypothesis 3: Beijing residents’ perception of smog’s impact on daily life positively influences their travel willing-
ness to escape from smog;

Hypothesis 4: Beijing residents’ perception of smog’s impact on daily life positively influences their behavioural
tendency to seek a clean-air destination;

Hypothesis 5: Beijing residents’ perception of smog’s negative impact on psychological feeling positively influ-
ences their travel willingness to escape from smog;

Hypothesis 6: Beijing residents’ perception of smog’s negative impact on psychological feeling positively influ-
ences their behavioural tendency to seek a clean-air destination;

Hypothesis 7: Beijing residents’ travel willingness to escape from smog positively influences their behavioural ten-
dency to seek a clean-air destination.

Research design
Methodology
In this study, structural equation modelling (SEM) was employed to analyse the causal relationship
among the latent variables in the research hypotheses. SEM is a comprehensive multivariate statisti-
cal technique, which well integrates the Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Path Analysis, Partial Least
Squares Path Modelling, and Latent Growth Modelling (Kline, 2011). It is proved to be a powerful
and mature research tool, particularly in unveiling the structural relationships among latent variables
that can’t be directly observed and measured (Schumacker & Lomax, 2010). SEM has some apparent
advantages over traditional statistical techniques such as Regression Analysis and Factor Analysis. It
can handle multi-variables in one time and tolerate the measurement errors of the independent and
dependent variables. It can simultaneously estimate the measurement model and structural model,
and also can estimate the fitness of the whole model (Hou et al., 2002). Due to its capability, SEM has
been justified and extensively applied in tourism research studies as well as other social sciences
since the 1990s (Nunkoo, Ramkissoon, & Gursoy, 2013; Reisinger, Turner, Ryan, & Faulkner, 1999).
This study attempts to unveil the causal relationships among Beijing residents’ perceptions of
smog’s impact on their physical heaths, daily lives, psychological feeling, smog-escaping travel will-
ingness, and behavioural tendencies of seeking clean-air destinations. Since all of them are latent
variables and can only be indirectly measured by observable variables, SEM is the most suitable analy-
sis tool for this study.
Generally speaking, a complete SEM process includes two parts or two steps (Anderson & Gerbing,
1988; Hou et al., 2002). One is the measurement model analysis, which aims at examining the
2014 J. PENG ET AL.

loadings of the observable variables to its postulated construct; the other is the structural model
analysis, which casts light on the paths among the latent variables. In early years, many researchers
adopted the one-step approach, i.e. simultaneously analyzing the measurement model and the struc-
tural model in one step. Later, Anderson and Gerbing (1988) argued that a two-step SEM process had
more advantages over the one-step approach. According to the two-step approach, a Confirmative
Factor Analysis (CFA) is firstly conducted to get a satisfactory measurement model, and then assess
the structural model to see if the proposed research hypotheses are supported or not. This study
adopted the two-step approach to examine the relationships among the latent variables aforemen-
tioned (Figure 1). Meanwhile, AMOS 22.0 was utilized to conduct the SEM analysis.

Data collection
A questionnaire survey was conducted to collect the data needed for the SEM analysis. Based on the
proposed structural model (Figure 1), each of the five latent variables was measured by 3–6 obser-
vable variables. Then, a questionnaire was designed in accordance with the postulated constructs
and observable variables. Since existing research studies regarding the impact of smog on tourism
are very few from the perspective of tourist generating places, all the questionnaire items in this
study were created mainly based on the aforementioned pilot interview survey as well as the pre-
vious studies by Evans and Jacobs (1981) and Peng et al. (2016). The questionnaire was composed
of two parts. The first part included 24 questions designed to measure the respondents’ perceptions
of smog and travel willingness and behavioural tendency. Specifically, it covered all of the five latent
variables in Figure 1, including the physical health impact perception (measured by Q1, Q3, Q4, Q5,
Q6, Q7, Q8), daily life impact perception (measured by Q2, Q9, Q10, Q11, Q12), negative psychological
feeling (measured by Q13, Q14, Q15, Q16), travel willingness to escape from smog (measured by Q17,
Q18, Q19), and behavioural tendency to seek a clean-air destination (measured by Q20, Q21, Q22,
Q23, Q24). The options for each item in this part were designed based on the Liker 5-point scale,
with 1–5, respectively, representing strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, and strongly
agree. The second part included 7 questions to collect respondents’ demographics and other essen-
tial personal information such as gender, age, education, income, occupation, residence place and
time in Beijing.
A pilot survey was conducted to further improve the questionnaire before it was formally circu-
lated, in which 20 Beijing residents were invited to fill it out and then provide their feedback for revi-
sion. At the end, a revised questionnaire was circulated online at ‘wjx.cn’ (a) Chinese online survey
platform, which is also called Wenjuanxing (Questionnaire Star) in Chinese and ‘WeChat’ (a popular
Chinese social media like Facebook). Usually, the sampling method in social research can be classified
into probability sampling and non-probability sampling. The latter includes the convenience
sampling, snowball sampling, purposive sampling and so on. Non-probability sampling has limit-
ations due to its subjective nature in choosing samples and thus can’t have good representation
of the population. Nevertheless, it is still widely used especially when the population is very large
and random sampling is very difficult or even impossible (Etikan, Musa, & Alkassim, 2016). Schreuder,
Gregoire, and Weyer (2001) also argued that non-probability sampling could be employed when
researchers have limited resources, time, and workforce. According to the latest data issued by the
Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics (2017), the resident population of Beijing reached 21.7
million in 2017, and they are scattered in a land of more than 10,000 km2. Thus, it is very difficult
to conduct a strict probability sampling because of the huge population and constraint of time
and workforce. Under this consideration, a mixed method of convenience sampling with snowball
sampling was employed to collect the needed questionnaire data.
The formal survey began on 2 January and ended on 11 January 2016, soon after Beijing was just
attacked by horrible smog episodes in December 2015, and the red level smog warning was launched
twice by the Beijing municipal government. Local residents in Beijing had a very miserable experi-
ence of severe smog episodes. At the end, 2332 questionnaires were collected. Compared to the
 CURRENT ISSUES IN TOURISM 2015

Table 1. Profiles of the respondents.

Frequency Percentage Statistic data of Beijing Sampling bias
Profile (persons) (%) residents in 2016 (%)a (%)
Gender Male 717 40.1 51.6 11.5
Female 1069 59.9 48.4 11.5
Age Under 18 23 1.3 NA NA
18–39 1318 73.8 NA NA
40–59 419 23.5 NA NA
Above 60 26 1.5 12.5 11
Education Elementary school 12 0.7 9.9 9.2
Junior middle 30 1.7 31.4 29.7
school
Senior middle 77 4.3 21.2 16.9
school
Some college 184 10.3 NA NA
undergraduate 696 39.0 NA NA
graduate 787 44.1 NA NA
Occupation Governmental staff 89 5 NA NA
Public institution 486 27.2 NA NA
staff
Company 527 29.5 NA NA
employee
Private business 101 5.7 NA NA
owner
Students 377 21.1 NA NA
Farmers 11 0.6 NA NA
Military personnel 7 0.4 NA NA
Retired people 46 2.6 NA NA
Others 142 8 NA NA
Monthly income (RMB) Under 2500 387 21.7 NA NA
2500–4999 335 18.8 NA NA
5000–9999 638 35.7 NA NA
10,000–14,999 246 13.8 NA NA
15,000–19,999 85 4.8 NA NA
Above 20,000 95 5.3 NA NA
Residence time in Less than 5 500 30.9 NA NA
Beijing (years) 5–10 389 28.0 NA NA
11–20 412 23.1 NA NA
More than 20 485 27.2 NA NA
Note: The statistic data of Beijing residents came from the official yearbook by Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics, it can be found
in http://tjj.beijing.gov.cn/nj/main/2017-tjnj/zk/indexch.htm.

traditional way, online survey using mobile terminals like smartphones was faster and more con-
venient. Since uncompleted questionnaires couldn’t be submitted by the respondents, all question-
naires returned were completely filled with every question answered. More importantly, since the
questionnaire was filled out anonymously through smart phones, the respondents would answer
the questions conveniently and objectively. This contributed a lot to recycling the questionnaire
with good reliability. According to the pilot questionnaire survey, the average time used by the
respondents to complete the questionnaire ranged from two to five minutes. To further improve
the reliability of the sampling data, all questionnaires with an answer time of less than 120
seconds or more than 500 seconds were excluded. At the end, 1786 questionnaires were selected
to conduct the SEM analysis.

Result analysis
Respondents’ profile
Table 1 shows the profile of the respondents participating in the questionnaire survey and part of the
sampling bias problem. It can be seen that female respondents (59.9%) were more than their male
counterparts (40.1%) among the 1786 respondents selected for the SEM analysis. The majority of
2016 J. PENG ET AL.

the respondents were young people in the 18 to 39 age range, followed by those from 40 to 59,
accounting for 73.8% and 23.5%, respectively. Most of them were well educated, more than 90%
were graduates and 44.1% postgraduates. In terms of engaged occupations, most of them worked
for companies and public institutions (accounting for 29.5% and 27.2%, respectively). In addition,
21.1% of them were college students studying in Beijing. More than half of them had a monthly
income of below 10,000 RMB, and only 24% of them earned more than 10,000 RMB per month. All
the respondents reside in Beijing and spread across all districts or counties of the city. Nearly 60%
of them came from the Haidian and Chaoyang districts. About 70% of the respondents had
resided in Beijing for more than 5 years. Thus, most of them had witnessed and experienced
severe smog episodes in Beijing.

Model fitness
The SEM analysis in this study was conducted in two steps. After a satisfying measurement model was
obtained in the first step, the second step was to build a reliable structural model. When conducting
the measurement model analysis, to get the satisfying reliability, validity, and fitness indexes, we
examined through a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) by the loading of each observable variable
to its latent variable in all constructs. The results indicated that the loading (0.372) of item Q1 to
Y1 was too low to meet the basic requirement (usually o.5). Therefore, item Q11 was excluded.
The Maximum Likelihood Method was chosen to estimate the parameters of the structural model,
which requires all observable variables to obey normal distribution. According to the value of Kurtosis
and Skewness for each observable variable, item Q4, Q5, Q6 and Q92 did not pass the normal distri-
bution test either with Skewness higher than 3 or Kurtosis beyond 10. After taking out the 4 items, all
the remaining 19 observable variables well obeyed normal distribution and met the requirement of
SEM. As for the rest 19 items, the value of Cronbach’s α is 0.915 and that of Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO)
is 0.924. It implied that the sample had satisfying reliability and validity by and large. The loadings of
the majority of the observable variables to their constructs were above 0.7, and the AVE of the
majority of the latent variables ranged from 0.4 to 0.8 (Table 2). Although the AVE of an individual
latent variable (Y2) was somewhat low, all other latent variables’ AVEs were higher than the
square of the correlation coefficient between each latent variable and the rest ones. It meant that
the variations among these latent variables are relatively good.
Based on the qualified variables, AMOS was employed to estimate the parameters for the
measurement model. With the help of its Modification Indexes Module, a satisfying measurement
model was obtained with good fitness. It can be seen from Table 3 that, except for χ 2/df, all the par-
ameters describing the fitness of the measurement model, including GFI, AGFI, RMSEA, NFI, CFI, IFI,
RFI, PNFI and PGFI, were higher or lower than their respective required threshold values (Nunkoo
et al., 2013; Schumacker & Lomax, 2010). The χ 2/df value of the measurement model was 8.858
and a little bit higher than the upper threshold of 5. It might result from a large sample of the ques-
tionnaire survey. However, it did not have much negative impact on the overall fitness of the model.

Hypotheses tested
After obtaining the reliable measurement model, we confirmed the structural model and estimated
the path coefficients among the latent variables. The results are shown in Table 4. Figure 2 presents
the confirmed causal relationships among the latent variables in a more intuitive way, where the dash
line stands for a non-significant path and the solid line for a significant path. The thicker the solid line,
the more significant the path. It can be seen from Table 4 and Figure 2 that 5 out of 7 research
hypotheses were well supported. The respondents’ perception of physical health impact by smog
was significantly positively correlated to their travelling willingness to escape from smog.
However, the causal relationship between the physical health impact perception and the behavioural
tendency to seek a clean-air destination was not significant. In other words, hypothesis 1 was
Table 2. Statistic parameters of the latent and observed variables.
Factor Cronbach’s
Latent variables Observable variables Mean Std. Skewness Kurtosis loading α AVE KMO
Physical health impact perception Q3:Air smells foul in smoggy days. 4.32 .901 −1.437 1.954 0.482 0.754 0.56 0.622
Q7:Severe smog can deteriorate cardio-cerebrovascular disease. 4.37 .829 −1.180 1.076 0.826
Q8:Severe smog can harm human immunity. 4.50 .755 −1.672 3.256 0.883
Daily life impact perception Q2:Air visibility is low in smoggy days. 4.58 .732 −2.550 8.465 0.483 0.694 0.36 0.740
Q10:Severe smog influence my traffic convenience. 4.59 .731 −2.286 6.423 0.712
Q11:It is uncomfortable to put on mask in smoggy days. 4.36 .837 −1.655 3.225 0.532
Q12:I prefer to staying at home in smoggy days. 4.47 .774 −1.876 4.585 0.646
Negative psychological feeling Q13:Severe smog makes me feel depressive. 4.41 .817 −1.622 2.931 0.892 0.944 0.81 0.828
Q14: Severe smog makes me have a low passion. 4.32 .880 −1.322 1.526 0.967
Q15:Severe smog makes me irritable. 4.24 .929 −1.159 .952 0.911
Q16:Severe smog makes me feel anxious 4.18 .922 −1.027 .637 0.813
Travel willingness of escaping smog Q17:I want to escape from Beijing in smoggy days. 4.21 .989 −1.266 1.095 0.732 0.672 0.41 0.661
Q18:I have stronger desire to travel out than usual. 3.60 1.443 -.642 -.979 0.549
Q19:I would like to go to suburban area in smoggy days. 3.85 1.095 -.735 -.203 0.621
Behavioural tendency of seeking a clean Q20:I would like to travel to those places with clean air in 4.49 .782 −2.036 5.230 0.699 0.814 0.45 0.797
destination smoggy days.
Q21:I don’t like to travel to those places being devastated by 4.60 .708 −2.463 8.188 0.715

CURRENT ISSUES IN TOURISM

smog.
Q22:I care about air quality in destination area before travelling 4.24 .844 −1.108 1.268 0.706
out.
Q23:I will change my travel plan if there is severe smog in 4.07 .965 −.880 .290 0.646
destination area.
Q24:I will delay returning home if Beijing is suffering from smog. 3.57 1.109 −.273 −.677 0.561

2017
2018 J. PENG ET AL.

Table 3. Fitness indexes for the measurement model.

χ 2/df GFI AGFI RMSEA NFI CFI IFI RFI PNFI PGFI
Ideal result 1–5 >0.9 >0.90 <0.08 >0.9 >0.9 >0.9 >0.9 >0.5 >0.5
Actual result 8.858 0. 930 0.904 0.066 0.938 0.944 0.944 0.923 0.757 0.676

supported, but the hypothesis 2 denied. The respondents’ perception of daily life impacted by smog
was correlated significantly positively to their travel willingness to escape from smog and their behav-
ioural tendency to seek a clean-air destination, which meant that the hypotheses 3 and 4 were both
supported. It meant that there existed a significantly positive correlation between the respondents’
negative psychological feeling and their travel willingness to escape from smog. Thus, hypothesis 5
was supported. However, the path coefficient between the negative psychological feeling and the
behavioural tendency for seeking a clean-air destination did not pass the significance test. It
meant that hypothesis 6 was denied. Finally, hypothesis 7 was well supported since the respondents’
travel willingness to escape from the smog was significantly correlated to their behavioural tendency
to seek a clean-air destination.

Discussion
Overall and group features of the respondents’ perception of smog
The finding of this study indicated that the residents in Beijing had a strong perception of smog’s
negative impacts. According to the questionnaire survey result, the mean of the 7 items regarding
the respondents’ perception of physical health impact was as high as 4.59, which implies that the
majority of Beijing residents were worried about the physical health damage caused by severe
smog. Indeed, after the smog issue in Beijing became a public concern in 2011, the potential and
actual harm of the smog pollution for human health has been widely reported by media, which
has amplified, to some extent, the negative impacts of smog on physical health (Ma, 2015; Yang,
2016). The mean of the 5 items relating the perception of negative life impact is 4.46, which
means that local residents in Beijing have strongly perceived the negative impacts of severe smog
on their daily lives. In addition, the mean of the 4 items to measure the perception of negative
psychological feeling is 4.24. The questionnaire survey indicates that most of the respondents felt
depressed, anxious, and irritated when smog was severe. In the early 1980s, Evans and Jacobs
(1981) pointed out that there is a need to examine mental health outcomes that may relate to air

Table 4. Path coefficient among the latent variables.

Standard regression
Latent variables weight Significance C.R.
Y1 (physical health impact → Y4 (travel willingness to escape from 0.188 ** 3.242
perception) smog)
Y1 (physical health impact → Y5 (behavioural tendency to seek a −0.084 0.103 −1.63
perception) clean-air destination)
Y2 (daily life impact perception) → Y4 (travel willingness to escape from 0.205 ** 2.643
smog)
Y2 (daily life impact perception) → Y5 (behavioural tendency to seek a 0.527 *** 6.992
clean-air destination)
Y3 (negative psychological → Y4 (travel willingness to escape from 0.402 *** 9.026
feeling) smog)
Y3 (negative psychological → Y5 (behavioural tendency to seek a −0.072 0.082 −1.74
feeling) clean-air destination)
Y4 (travel willingness to escape → Y5 (behavioural tendency to seek a 0.619 *** 11.378
from smog) clean-air destination)
***p < .001.
**p < 0.01.
 CURRENT ISSUES IN TOURISM 2019

Figure 2. Confirmed structural relationship model for the latent variables.

quality, such as discomfort, irritability, depression, and anxiety. This case study of Beijing confirmed
their argument about the impact of smog on human mental health.
With the help of ANOVA (Analysis of Variance), we made further analysis and found that there
existed significant group differences in terms of the respondents’ perception of the impact of
smog in Beijing and their travel willingness and destination preference. Table 5 shows the mean, stan-
dard deviation, F-test, and significance of the different demographic groups among the respondents.
There was no significant difference between the male respondents and the female respondents with
regard to their perception of smog’s negative impacts and preference for the clean-air destination.
However, it seemed that female respondents have stronger travel willingness than their counterparts
when smog is severe. As far as age is concerned, the respondents aged from 18 to 59 perceived more
negative impacts than those under 18 or above 60. The middle-aged respondents from 40 to 59 have
strongest travel willingness and are most favoured with a clean-air destination, which is followed by
those from 18 to 39 and those above 60. Probably due to the constraints of income, the teenager
respondents have least travel willingness and are relatively not so favoured with a good-air destina-
tion. Another interesting finding in this study is that there existed highly significant difference in their
perception of smog, travel willingness, and preference for a clean-air destination among the respon-
dents with different residence time in Beijing. The longer they reside in Beijing, the stronger percep-
tion of smog’s impact and travel willingness they have, and also they prefer more those destinations
with good air quality.
It also can be seen from Table 5 that the education level of the respondents plays a significant role
in influencing their perception of smog’s negative impact and their travel willingness. Specifically
speaking, the higher education level the respondents own, the stronger perception of smog’s
impact and travel willingness they have. All the respondents in different ages are much favoured
with those clean-air destinations, and there is no significant group difference in their destination pre-
ference. Much significant group difference also existed in terms of the occupation of respondents.
Table 5 shows that company employees, public institution staffs, governmental staffs, and private
business owners perceived more negative impacts of smog on their health, daily life, and psychologi-
cal feeling, and have strong travel willingness. In contrast, farmers are least concerned about smog’s
impact and have least travel willingness. Compared with military personnel, students, and farmers,
public institution staffs, private business owners, company employees, governmental staffs, and
retired people are more favoured with a clean-air destination. In addition, a different group of respon-
dents with different income level have different levels of smog perception, travel willingness, and
preference for a clean-air destination. A general rule is that those respondents with higher income
level have more perception of smog’s negative impact and strong travel willingness. They would
like more to travel to those destinations with good air quality.
 2020
Table 5. Group differences of the respondents in their perception of smog’s negative impacts and behavioural tendency.

J. PENG ET AL.
Items for negative impact (Q1–Q16) Items for travel willingness(Q17, Q18) Items for clean-air destination (Q19–Q24)
Mean Std. F Sig. Mean Std. F Sig. Mean Std. F Sig.
Gender Male 4.40 .49 .514 .473 3.77 1.00 10.35 .001 4.09 .64 .424 .515
Female 4.42 .53 3.93 1.01 4.11 .66
Age Under 18 4.08 .44 6.54 .000 3.30 1.14 5.02 .002 3.92 .76 3.22 .022
18–39 4.42 .50 3.84 1.02 4.09 .66
40–59 4.41 .54 3.99 0.93 4.19 .59
Above 60 4.08 .67 3.85 0.91 3.98 .62
Education Elementary school 4.11 .42 5.027 .000 3.50 1.00 1.919 .088 4.15 .64 .169 .974
Junior middle school 4.16 .46 3.44 1.04 4.16 .55
Senior middle school 4.22 .60 3.71 1.04 4.09 .67
Some college 4.41 .55 3.89 .99 4.14 .67
undergraduate 4.40 .54 3.85 1.03 4.10 .67
graduate 4.45 .47 3.91 .98 4.10 .63
Occupation Governmental staff 4.44 .56 4.904 .000 3.91 1.03 12.992 .000 4.09 .70 9.838 .000
Public institution staff 4.46 .49 4.10 .92 4.21 .59
Company employee 4.47 .47 3.90 .99 4.17 .61
Private business owner 4.37 .66 4.00 .96 4.20 .80
Students 4.31 .49 3.45 1.03 3.86 .67
Farmers 4.14 .39 3.27 1.17 3.92 .75
Military personnel 4.24 .82 3.71 1.41 3.74 .44
Retired people 4.16 .58 3.88 .84 4.07 .53
Others 4.40 .57 4.04 .98 4.18 .68
income Under 2500 yuan 4.30 .48 7.229 .000 3.51 1.01 15.229 .000 3.89 .65 11.331 .000
2500–4999 yuan 4.36 .56 3.82 1.00 4.14 .63
5000–9999 yuan 4.45 .52 3.99 .99 4.18 .64
10,000–14,999 yuan 4.48 .51 4.01 .98 4.16 .65
15,000–19,999 yuan 4.55 .39 4.24 .88 4.21 .64
Above 20,000 yuan 4.48 .49 3.97 .98 4.16 .66
Residence time Less than 5 years 4.36 .45 5.840 .001 3.58 .98 27.487 .000 3.96 .64 14.791 .000
5–10 years 4.38 .58 3.79 1.06 4.10 .71
11–20 years 4.50 .472 4.14 .94 4.23 .59
More than 20 years 4.42 .55 4.01 .98 4.17 .63
 CURRENT ISSUES IN TOURISM 2021

Causal relationships between smog perception and travel behavioural tendency

As aforementioned, there exist close and complex relationships between the environment and
tourism (Fridgen, 1984; Holden, 2008). Tourism development inevitably leads to the environmental
change in travel destination place accordingly, either positively or negatively (Gong & Lu, 2007).
The environmental quality of a tourist destination plays an active role in influencing its image, attrac-
tiveness, competiveness, and also sustainability (Holden, 2008; Mihalič, 2000). Moreover, Mannell and
Isoahola (1987) argued that escaping from the routine environment is one of the main reasons why
people travel. When a tourist generating place like Beijing is suffering from smog problem, its routine
residential environment will inevitably deteriorate.
Influenced by their strong perception of smog’s negative impacts, local residents in Beijing had a
strong desire to escape from the city when smog was rampant. The mean of the items for measuring
the travel willingness to escape from smog is 3.98. It indicates that many Beijing residents, due to the
long-lasting smog pollution and the deteriorated living environment, had a strong perception of the
environmental quality deterioration caused by smog. Most of them wanted to escape from the city,
which was verified by the analysis of the SEM in this study. Further analysis indicates that the path
coefficients between the respondents’ travel willingness to escape from smog and their perception
of smog’s impact on physical health, daily life, and negative psychological feeling are 0.19, 0.20, and
0.53, respectively. All of them pass the significance test, which means the existence of smog pollution
can stimulate more travel demand of Beijing residents to escape from the polluted routine
environment.
Meanwhile, the mean of the items reaches 4.19 for measuring the behavioural tendency to seek a
clean-air destination. Specifically, 92.1% of the respondents agreed that they preferred to travel to
and stay in those places with clean and fresh air. And 94.8% answered that they had no desire of tra-
velling to the destination being devastated by smog pollution and 83.1% stated that they were con-
cerned about the air quality in destination place, and 73.9% expressed that they would like to change
their travel plan if their travel destination was being devastated by severe smog. These results clearly
indicate that local residents would favour travelling to those places with good air quality when Beijing
was attacked by severe smog. In fact, this conclusion has been verified and supported by the newly
emerged change in Beijing’s travel market. Over the past few years, the travel products with the
theme of escaping from smog and washing lung have become a new and hot consumption spot
in the travel markets in some Chinese mega-cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Chongqing,
and Xian, where smog is rampant (Ctrip, 2015).
Furthermore, it can be seen from Table 4 and Figure 2 that the path coefficient between ‘escaping
motivation’ (described by travel willingness to escape from smog) and ‘seeking motivation’
(described by behavioural tendency to seek a clean-air destination) is 0.62, which passed the signifi-
cance test. It implies that there is a significant correlation between the two latent variables. Except for
the perception of daily life impact, there is no significant causal relationship between the respon-
dents’ behavioural tendency to seek a clean-air destination and their perception of smog’s negative
impact on physical health and psychological feelings. Since the respondents’ escaping motivation is
highly significantly related to their seeking motivation, it implied that Beijing residents’ perception of
negative impacts caused by smog indirectly influenced their behavioural tendency to seek a clean-air
destination (Figure 2). In other words, severe smog played dual roles in strengthening the travel
motivation of Beijing residents. On the one hand, due to being constantly beset by severe smog,
Beijing residents had a more desire to escape from the city by travel; on the other hand, Beijing resi-
dents favoured more to travel to those places with clean and fresh air, which has made these desti-
nations be more attractive and have stronger ‘Pull’ force for tourists. From the perspective of the
travel destination place, the impact of smog on tourism is mostly negative. However, examined
from the standpoint of tourist generating place, the existence of smog pollution can stimulate
more travel demands and consumptions. Therefore, the impact of smog on tourism development,
in general, is not necessarily negative. Considering smog can create more travel demand by
2022 J. PENG ET AL.

strengthening both the ‘Pull’ and ‘Push’ forces, it plays to some extent a positive role in promoting
tourism development, particularly, for those destination places with clean and fresh air, since they
are more favoured by residents from those smog-devastated places such as Beijing.

Conclusion
Environment plays an important role in stimulating travel motivation and demand. Existing research
studies on the role of environmental factors have been conducted mainly from the perspective of
the travel destination place. Many researchers agreed that environment can greatly influence and
even determine the attractiveness and competitiveness of travel destination. In most cases, the
environment is on the ‘Pull’ other than ‘Push’ side of travel motivation. The role of the environment
played in stimulating travel motivation is rarely considered and studied, especially from the perspec-
tive of tourist generating place. Smog is a newly emerged environmental problem in China and
proves to be a new challenge confronting the sustainable development of tourism in the
country. The majority of existing researches regarding smog’s impact on tourism have been con-
ducted from the angle of travel destination place. Little attention was paid to the impact of
smog on travel motivation and demand in tourist generating places. On this account, this study,
from the perspective of tourist generating place and taking Beijing as the case, constructed a per-
ception-to-behaviour conceptual model and employed the SEM to examine the impact of smog on
local residents’ travel motivation demand. The following conclusions can be drawn from this
research.
First, smog has deteriorated the living environment in Beijing, and local residents have a strong
perception of smog’s negative impacts, which follows, in a strong-to-weak order, from physical
health impact, daily life impact to negative psychological feeling. There existed significant group
differences in Beijing residents’ perception of smog, travel willingness, and a desire to travel to
clean-air destinations by gender, age, income, education level, occupation, and residence time in
the city.
Second, Beijing residents’ perception of these negative impacts directly stimulates their travel
motivation to escape and meanwhile strengthens their motivation for seeking clean-air destinations.
In this sense, smog plays dual roles in stimulating Beijing residents’ travel demand. On the one hand,
it reinforces the ‘Push’ force which drives the local residents to travel away for the sake of both escap-
ing from deteriorated routine living environment and seeking a clean-air destination; on the other
hand, smog makes those destinations with good air quality more powerful in ‘Pulling’ the travel
demand of Beijing residents.
Third, smog’s impact on tourism development should be dialectically evaluated. Although it is true
that the impact of smog on tourism is usually negative from the standpoint of travel destination place
or even as a huge challenge threatening the sustainable development of tourism, if viewed from the
perspective of tourist generating place, smog can strengthen travel motivation and stimulate more
travel demand in those smog-devastated places like Beijing. In this sense, smog can promote, to
some extent, the development of the whole tourism economy in China and can create new oppor-
tunities for the development of tourism for those cold or warm tourism destinations with good air
quality and close to the smog-devastated tourist market.
Chinese governments have taken a lot of measures to fight against smog pollution over the past
few years. Since 2016, the smog problem has been greatly alleviated and the atmospheric quality and
visibility across the whole of China as well as in Beijing has been remarkably improved. Smog is not so
much concerned by the public as it was. However, the smog problem is not totally eliminated from
the land of China. Some other places like Xian and Chengdu were from time to time attacked by
severe smog. In other words, the smog problem would not bid farewell to China in the foreseeable
future. The research findings presented in this study are still of much practical significance for China.
More importantly, just as stated above, the smog problem extensively exists across the world. India
has taken the place of China to be the No.1 air-polluted country, where smog problem is even more
 CURRENT ISSUES IN TOURISM 2023

severe than it was in China a few years ago. For India and other places devastated by smog on the
planet, how does smog influence the travel demand of local people living there? This study reported
a Chinese answer to the question. However, due to the great differences in cultural, social, and econ-
omic contexts among different countries, local people’s perception of and attitude towards travel as
well as smog are different. One must be cautious when generalizing the findings and conclusions
drawn by this case study of Beijing to other smog-devastated parts of the world. To better understand
the impact of smog on tourism from the perspective of tourist generating place, more case studies
under different regional contexts are needed.

Practical implication
Due to the extensive influence of severe smog pollution, clean air is becoming an increasingly attrac-
tive part of tourism resource in China. Some travel destination places, featured with outstanding
environmental quality, are actively using their good air quality as a new selling point to attract
more tourists. Those destinations, endowed with more tourist attractions and clean air, are getting
the favour of local residents in Beijing and other smog-devastated mega-cities in China. Some
travel products such as smog-escaping travel, lung-washing travel, and good-air travel, are greatly
favoured by many Chinese tourists. According to the data issued by Ctrip in 2015, Chinese cities,
such as Sanya, Xiamen, Lijiang, Guilin, Kunming, Changbaishan, Xishuangbanna, Guiyang, Dali, and
Huangshan, were the top 10 most popular smog-escaping domestic destinations in China. At the
end of 2015, Beijing was frequently attacked by severe smog, data released by Qunaer and Ctrip indi-
cated that there was a big increase in the consumption of tourist products themed with smog-escap-
ing in Beijing in comparison with the previous year, even the sale of those expensive outbound smog-
escaping travel products had a 100% increase. Meanwhile, in some tourist destinations well known
for their clean air, local tourism authorities are intentionally taking the opportunity to develop various
kinds of smog-escaping travel products, which can promote the development of tourism in these
places.
For instance, Fujian Province in south-eastern China is less devastated by smog and well known in
China for its outstanding coastal and ecological environment. In 2013, the Fujian Tourism Adminis-
tration began to vigorously market travel products themed with ‘Qinxin (Fresh) Fujian’. More than
80 fresh-air-themed tourist events were developed and promoted. More than 1500 travel agencies
from northern China were actively involved with marketing these travel products. Practice indicated
that this strategy had contributed greatly to the development of tourism in Fujian. Both the number
of visitors received and the tourism avenue generated increased enormously.
Generally speaking, a polluted environment will threaten the sustainable development of tourism
in many circumstances. However, for those big cities playing the double roles of travel destination
place and tourist generating place, although smog apparently brings forth negative impact on
tourism development, it also does stimulate more travel motivation/demand to some extent and con-
tributes considerably to the growth of smog-escaping tourism market. How to meet this growing
travel demand is practically significant in providing more well-being for those residents living in
tourist generating places devastated by smog as well as promoting more growth of tourism in
those travel destinations with clean air.
There are some perceivable problems in the development of the smog-escaping travel market in
China. Firstly, the supply of the clean-air destinations falls short of the smog-escaping travel demand
and concentrate geographically in a few places, which result in the over-carrying problems in some
tourist attractions. Secondly, the supply, as far as the development of smog-themed travel product is
concerned, fails to meet the demand, and many of them are usually too expensive. Thirdly, there
exists a structural shortage problem concerning the supply of smog-escaping travel products. Cur-
rently, the market is dominated by those long-distance products, mainly targeting the travel
demand during festivals and holidays, which can’t meet the smog-escaping travel demand on the
weekend.
2024 J. PENG ET AL.

The following suggestions are proposed to better develop the smog-escaping travel market.
Firstly, tourism authorities and other tourism-related governmental departments should work
together and take measures to guide the rational development of this new market. For instance,
by authorizing a reliable third-party consulting body to make and issue travel guide for the smog-
escaping travel market, it helps solve the problem of temporal and spatial overconcentration of
smog-escaping travel destinations. Secondly, tour operators should increase the supplies of the
smog-escaping travel products and provide more destination options, particularly in the autumn
and winter seasons, in which smog is particularly severe in many places of China. Besides, for
those places which are close to smog-devastated mega-cities but are still warm or even cold in
terms of tourism development, local tourism authorities, together with tour operators, should take
this advantage to develop more short-to-middle-distance smog-escaping travel product to meet
the smog-escaping demand on the weekend.

Limitation
Compared with previous studies, this research has made a contribution from the perspective of
tourist generating place to examine the impact of smog on tourism. It has enriched and sharpened
the understanding of this phenomenon and has drawn some insightful conclusions. However, it also
has some limitations, particularly the problem of sampling bias. Beijing had nearly 21 million resi-
dents, and they are scattered in a land of 16,410 km2. This made it very difficult to take a strict
random sampling when conducting the questionnaire survey. Under such circumstance, we
adopted a mixed sampling method of convenience and snowball and collected the needed question-
naire data by an online survey. The process of spreading and recycling questionnaire went fast and
smooth. Since it was uncontrollable that what respondents would be involved with the survey, there
inevitably existed sampling bias problem, which affected to some degree the reliability of the data
collected. In addition, the questionnaire used to collect the needed data for SEM was not produced
through a rigid process but created independently by the present authors mainly based on the pilot
interview survey. As a result, reliability of the items might not be very convincing. This is another limit-
ation of this study.

Notes
1. Q1 is ‘I know well about smog’.
2. Q4 is ‘Smog problem is very severe in Beijing’, Q5 is ‘There are lots of harmful pollutants floating in air when severe
smog comes’, Q6 is ‘Severe smog can cause respiratory disease’, and Q9 is ‘Severe smog can lower the quality of
your life’.

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the students from Minzu University of China, including Siyuan Guo, Song Zang, Yanan Pei, and Lu
Yang, for their kind involvement with the questionnaire survey. We also would like to thank the anonymous peer
reviewers for their kind and critical comments of the manuscript and insightful revision suggestions.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding
This study was funded by the Beijing Social Science Fund [grant number 15JGB073] and China Postdoctoral Science
Foundation [grant number 2016M590154].
 CURRENT ISSUES IN TOURISM 2025

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