Small Island Developing States (SIDS) COVID-19 post-pandemic tourism recovery: A system dynamics approach

The economy of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) is highly dependent on tourism and travel sector. Under the impact of COVID-19, these islands have suffered strongly. Possible recovery strategies are tested through exploring the concept of risk perception as an important factor to influence the behaviour intention under the framework of theory of planned behaviour (TPB). A behavioural simulation is built to help evaluate tourism policies. This paper takes Maldives as an example. Four strategies are tested in the model: social distancing, tax reduction strategy, travel bubble strategy and joint strategy. The results show that the most effective way to change tourist behaviour intention is the travel bubble strategy. The results also indicate that the reduction in tourism arrivals may bring opportunities for local ecosystem recovery. This study exemplifies the advantage of using the system dynamics approach when the past pattern is not a good predictor for the future by making predictions based on how the system works.