The Impact of Millennium Floods on Vacation Decisions in a Coastal Tourism Destination: The Case of South Carolina, Usa

Would tourists travel to disaster stricken areas? Proposing a holistic model, this study aims to examine the impact of tourists' cognitive images, emotions, motivations, and familiarity with the disaster on tourists' future visit and recommendation intentions after the catastrophic floods in South Carolina. The Pleasure–Arousal–Dominance (PAD) model is advanced by integrating push-and-pull factor compendium and examining the role of social media. A stratified sample of 1,106 representative "tourists" from key markets to South Carolina was obtained using an online survey. The findings show that tourists' cognitive images, negative emotions, perceived changes in South Carolina after the floods, and familiarity with the floods exert a significant impact on both visit and recommendation intentions. The social media involvement positively moderates the relationship between negative emotions and recommending intentions as well as between familiarity with the floods and behavioral intentions.