L38 - Public PolicyReturn

According to the duration of the health crisis caused by the COVID-19 virus, this study examines Serbian tourists’ perception of risk (travel risk, destination risk, health and psychological risk, and financial risk) in two different periods of the crisis. The collection of primary data was performed using the questionnaire technique, and the research was conducted during May 2020 (363 respondents) and January 2021 (360 respondents). The research findings revealed that the perception of risk is higher in the first period of the health crisis compared to the second observed period, except for health and psychological risk (higher in the second period of the crisis). After observing both periods of health crisis and the examined control variables (gender, age, monthly income, level of education, travel intention, crisis period), the findings of linear hierarchical regressions indicate that the perception of travel risk and health and psychological risk is significantly influenced by education and travel intention, while the perception of destination risk and financial risk is influenced by travel intention. The results of the cluster analysis identified three characteristic clusters ("carefree", "relaxed", and "concerned") and a change in cluster composition during two periods of the COVID-19 crisis. The results of the study are discussed, the implications are stated, and the directions of further research are suggested.
Implications for Central European audience: The study's findings contribute toward understanding the risk perception of travel in the period of health crisis caused by COVID-19 infection, which can help destination and marketing managers form strategies to reduce risk perception, which is crucial for the recovery of the national and global tourism industry. Also, the findings of the cluster analysis have significant marketing implications for travel organizers and tourist destinations since the recovery of tourism will depend on their ability to develop strategies to attract different segments of Serbian tourists in the crisis and post-crisis period.

In the young Croatian democracy, there is a necessary role of the strategic approach to the political marketing communication campaigns, especially in using the new media, social networks and Facebook, being the most representative one. This paper aims to analyse to what degree the political parties use Facebook, how they manage this, and the opinions and viewpoints of the voters. This study has two major goals: to analyse how the leading political parties in Croatia use and manage social media services, particularly Facebook, and to evaluate perspectives of the Croatian voters regarding social media during political campaigns. Two instruments were created based on the secondary research: a protocol for in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted with the social media specialists of the leading Croatian political parties (n = 3) and a survey of voters (n = 557), ranging in age from 18-45 years (78.1%), 46-55 years (14.7%), 56-65 years (6.1%) and older than 66 (1.1%). Croatian political parties do not use Facebook's entire potential. The respondents who vote regularly believe that the political parties' Facebook pages are significant in their promotion and visit these pages more frequently. These pages are visited more frequently during political campaigns. It is imperative to focus on increased quality and more frequent communication, direct communication and turning to young people in the campaigns. There are statistically significant differences with regard to age on the issue of voting. Croatian political parties can improve the potential of social networks, primarily Facebook, in election campaigns.
Implications for a Central European audience: In addition to the specified deficiencies of the Facebook pages, the voters provided suggestions for improving the Facebook content and increasing page visits. When used in combination with other social media, Facebook has the strongest potential for influencing the young voters. The results indicate the need for professional management of relevant social media strategies and tactics. The improvements of the Facebook pages can be grouped in several categories, the most important being "Content", "Communication" and "Strategy". The improvements would yield more frequent visits by the potential voters.