At the beginning of the year 2020 the spread of new SARS-like virus, Coronavirus (COVID-19), caused a global situation – a pandemic that significantly impacted the world. Originating in China and rapidly spreading to the rest of the world, COVID-19 led to lockdowns in many countries and this consequently caused significant financial damage to the global economy. One of the affected countries was also Denmark and at the very beginning of the pandemic Denmark closed the borders resulting in nationwide lockdown whereby international arrivals and departures to and from the country were froze. With the positive attitude of Danish inhabitants regarding travelling abroad, this project will examine how the pandemic situation caused by COVID-19 influenced the decision-making of young Danish travellers.

Based on the review of academic literature and adjusting the Theory of Planned Behaviour, in-depth qualitative research was developed for purposes of this research project. Caused by strict social-distancing regulations, in-depth qualitative interviews have been conducted via online communication platforms on the sample of 10 respondents. These respondents were all young Danish inhabitants aged between 20-28 years old without children.

According to the collected data the pandemic situation caused by the new Coronavirus is influencing the decision-making of the interviewed sample of young Danish travellers, however, this is not caused by the actual health risk connected with getting infected by COVID-19. According to the data collected, respondents are not afraid of getting infected by the virus because they are not part of the risk-group of the population. However, they are concerned about rules and regulations caused by Coronavirus both in Denmark and other potential travel destinations, furthermore these rules and regulations will definitely have an impact on their future travel decision-making. Another important factor that influenced the subjective norms of the respondents was pressure from the society. Even though becoming infected by COVID-19 does not present a direct threat to them, spreading it further to other members of society may provide a direct threat for their relatives and other society members who are part of high risk-group.

According to analysed literature and collected data, domestic travel might be the most certain and safe alternative for travelling abroad to limit the potential spread of COVID-19. However, the research respondents would prefer travelling abroad in case that the situation will ease, and rules and regulations will allow them to travel to their potential holiday destination without any restrictions if they also have guaranteed safe return journey back to Denmark. Even though Denmark is currently in the state of re-opening, with the situation changing and progressing on a regular basis, it is very difficult to predict how the pandemic situation will progress around the globe and what is going to be the affect on the face of international travel. Respondents of this research project have a great desire to travel and their further decisions will mostly depend on how the situation will progress in the upcoming months.