Zmiany zachowań nabywców pakietów turystycznych w obliczu zagrożenia pandemią Covid -19

The main aim of the article was to identify changes in the purchasing decision-making process of holiday package buyers as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. A query of the scientific literature was carried out, as well as research on the buyers of tourist services (N = 1502) on the issues of travel before and during the pandemic was conducted. The data was collected using the indirect survey technique, i.e. computer assisted web interview (CAWI), and the methods of descriptive statistics were used for their analysis. The obtained results made it possible to acquire new knowledge about the behaviour patterns of buyers of packaged holidays and to distinguish four segments of the tourists. The categories of buyers' behaviour most frequently represented in the study (in total almost 95% before and slightly over 92% of indications during the pandemic) confirm the role of the Internet in the purchasing processes of travel agencies customers and the tendency of progressive virtualization of buyers' behaviour in the tourist market. During the COVID-19 pandemic, in the case of the purchase of holiday packages, it was observed that the buyers transfer the entire purchasing process to the Internet much less frequently than before its occurrence, i.e. they both look for information about travel agencies offers and make purchases on the Internet.(original abstract)