Exploring Travel Intentions in Post-COVID-19 China: A Weibo Case Study

This study aims to investigate how relaxed COVID-19 control policies affect Chinese travel intentions. The study uses data from Sina Weibo, a social media platform in China. We use Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) analysis to identify eight topics related to travel intentions. Furthermore, we analyze the frequency and distribution of keywords associated with these topics across different regions of China. The survey reveals that Chinese citizens, especially those residing in the eastern coastal areas, are highly interested in engaging in diverse leisure and tourism activities. Moreover, emerging tourist destinations such as Zibo have garnered increased attention after the epidemic. This study’s insights can be very useful in developing effective strategies to revive and advance the tourism industry after the COVID-19 pandemic.