Tourism in the Covid-19 Process: A Conceptual Evaluation of Hypochondric Tourist Behaviors

Abstract

Hypochondria is defined in DSM IV as the belief that a person has a serious illness or fear that they will have it, based on an inability to interpret bodily symptoms correctly. Contemporary psychiatry has classified hypochondria as an anxiety-related somatoform disorder and accepted as the differential diagnosis of a condition that has a negative impact on family, social, and professional relationships with a misinterpretation of physical symptoms persisting for at least six months despite reassuring medical control. The changes that have emerged in tourism trends with the covid-19 epidemic are at a level that will change the structure of tourist types and forms of tourism to be realized. Tourists are in search of business services that will provide personal protection services at the highest level during the epidemic, and this trend is expected to lead to a transition from mass tourism to more individual tourism types in the long run. It is estimated that those who suffer from hypochondria among the tourists will take stricter measures. The question of how these measures affect the tourism preferences of hypochondriacal tourists is the question that the research seeks to answer. According to the results of the study, measures to encourage hypochondric tourists to tourism activities and the opportunities that businesses can offer to tourists are included.