The Structure and Causal Relationships for the Pricing Components of Tourism Products During the COVID-19 Outbreak: Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping Approach

Price, as an element of marketing, plays an essential role in the decision-making of tourists as well as the income of tourism activists. Therefore, it is essential to identify the components and factors affecting the pricing process. The outbreak of COVID-19 in Iran has drawn the attention of tourism businesses to the necessity of the pricing process and updating the price of tourism products. We examined the pricing components of tourism products by qualitative-quantitative approach and using fuzzy cognitive mapping.  We identified 29 pricing factors of tourism products using the opinion of 9 tourism experts. In the next step, 18 factors were selected in 4 dimensions using semi-structured interviews. Finally, we identified the most important components of tourism products’ pricing during the COVID-19 outbreak. The findings indicate that four components of cost coverage and loss prevention, purchasing power, survival in the tourism market, and the extent of tourist demand are more important than other components during the coronavirus outbreak.