Segmenting Generation Z Based on Their Intention to Comply with Non-mandatory Governmental Protection Measures During the Tourism Period

Tourism is considered one of the most important economic sectors, and for countries like Greece which were hit harshly by the financial crisis, tourism is even more crucial. The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) generated a drawback on tourism revenues worldwide due to the measures undertaken to minimize the transmission of the virus. Greece, which was under lockdown and curfew in 2020, reopened its borders (May 14, 2021) to enjoy revenues from inbound tourism to ease the country’s economic condition. In this tourism mode, the government had already distributed vaccines and had withdrawn many of the initial measures, while some basic ones such as wearing a mask or keeping a distance of two meters in public places kept on existing. Therefore, it is up to the citizens’ free will to keep complying (or not) with the non-mandatory-protective or withdrawn measures from the government. With these in mind, this paper presents research that segments the Generation Z (Gen Z) cohort, based on its intention to comply with the non-mandatory protective measures during the summer tourism period. Adopting an online questionnaire from May to July, a total of 1086 Gen Zers participated. Four segments arose, the “Partial intention to comply segment”, the “Personal hygiene segment”, the “High awareness and precautious segment”, and the “No intention to comply segment”. Based on the results, implications for effectively approaching this segment to take self-protective measures from SARS-CoV-2 and its variants are discussed.