Masked Miles

The COVID-19 pandemic altered daily life on a global scale, redefining work, social interactions, and perceptions of safety. One of its most profound impacts was on the travel and tourism industry, with individuals facing the challenge of balancing public health risks with navigating government-imposed restrictions. Through examining how pandemic factors influenced destination choices and focusing on a comparative analysis of California and Florida, our goal is to explore the relationship between COVID-19 and travel trends. We aim to uncover the human story behind these decisions through examining whether the severity of COVID-19 outbreaks or the inconvenience of travel restrictions had a more significant impact. Our analysis uses data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics’ “Trips by Distance” dataset and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “Weekly United States COVID-19 Cases and Deaths by State” dataset, filtered specifically for California and Florida during the January 2020 until May 2023. These datasets provide insight into travel patterns and virus spreading, allowing us to assess whether Americans prioritized health concerns or convenience when making travel decisions. The stark contrast between California’s stricter restrictions and Florida’ more lenient policies provides a perspective with which we can potentially understand how public policy and public health risks shaped tourist behavior during this unprecedented global crisis.

The intersection of public health and tourism during crisis periods, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, has been widely discussed in the academic literature. Scholars generally agree that the pandemic has led to a significant decline in global travel activity as government-imposed restrictions and growing public health concerns disrupted travel patterns. Hence, many studies show that restrictive policies, such as lockdowns and travel bans, have been effective in slowing the initial spread of the virus, especially when implemented early.  For example, early restrictions on international travel helped reduce importation rates of the virus to the U.S.

However, some studies show that travel restrictions had only limited or temporary effects, particularly in interconnected regions where community transmission was the primary driver of infections.  Some studies also suggest that restrictions are futile if implemented after the virus had already begun to spread in a given community.  Furthermore, critics of travel restrictions have suggested that these could be discriminatory or even politically motivated, unfairly targeting specific regions.  Travel behavior was affected largely by restrictions and fear of contracting the virus, but research shows conflicting conclusions about which of these two factors was more significant overall.  Some studies suggest that individuals prioritize health risks and choose to avoid travel to high-incidence areas, while others argue that political ideology and cultural attitudes influence responses to policies and risk perceptions.

Despite these insights, there is less research in the literature that focuses on state-level comparisons, especially in politically polarized regions such as California and Florida. Limited research has compared states that have adopted different policy approaches to assess how public health concerns versus policy restrictions affect travel trends, leaving an important gap that our study aims to address.  Other aspects of the relationship between travel and the COVID-19 pandemic remain to be explored, such as cultural factors like collectivism vs. individualism, misinformation, socioeconomic disparities, and cognitive biases that could significantly influence the adherence to restrictions and fear-driven decision making.  

This project holds significant value in addressing the dynamic factors involved in the relationship between travel and the COVID-19 pandemic.  The COVID-19 pandemic profoundly reshaped travel behavior, with individuals navigating a delicate balance between public health risks and government-imposed restrictions. By comparing California and Florida – two states with starkly different approaches to public health policies – it offers insights into the variances between policy environments and health risks influencing travel trends.  The project contributes to broader discussions on how political, cultural, and socioeconomic factors intersect to shape human responses to global crises.  By gaining these insights, this work aims to aid policy making and public health professionals design more effective strategies to manage the spread of deadly viruses, while also deepening societal understanding of the complex trade-offs between safety, convenience, and freedom of movement.