The Impact of Greece as a Safe Tourism Destination (STD) in Tourist Psychology: Evidence from Spain

17 COVID-19 cases over 660,000 in 213 countries panic spreading of COVID-19 pandemic combination the travel restriction, tourism travel most [4], on the Q1 2020 22% and the current scenarios point to declines of 58% to 78% for 2020 decreased arrivals 2). Nowadays, many countries are in the phase of reopening their economies. They have reopened schools and businesses and they try to restart their tourism economy in local scale and in limited international scale [1]. ABSTRACT The main purpose of this paper is to examine and analyze the effect that the image of a place, in our case Greece, can have as a STD in the decision-making process for Spanish tourists’ who will take summer holidays in 2020, amid covid19 pandemic. Data collected between 15 of June and 31 of July after the first wave of Covid-19 outbreak, when the Greek authorities promoted Greece as a Safe Tourist Destination to attract tourists. Results indicate that Spanish tourist consider Greece as a Safe Tourist Destination. The successful management of the Covid-19 pandemic compared to other countries and the low rates of Covid-19 cases strongly correlated to the image of Greece as a STD.


Tourism, Covid-19 Outbreak And Destinations' Health Safety
On 31 December 2019, China's authorities reported to the WHO a pneumonia caused by a new virus. This new disease, coronavirus COVID-19, originated in Chinas city Wuhan was largely disregarded by the authorities of other countries despite the reports of its rapid dispersion [1]. According to WHO [2], coronavirus COVID-19 is an infectious disease that primary inflects the lungs of humans.
It mostly affects kids, old aged people and people suffering with cardiovascular disease, cancer, respiratory disease, diabetes etc.
The virus is spread in two main ways: through contact with infected peoples when they cough or sneeze and by touching surfaces that have the virus on it and then touches their eyes or mouth [3].
The virus spread quickly and on 11 March 2020 COVID-19, cases reported in 146 countries and WHO declared it as a pandemic.
Without a vaccine or a specific antiviral treatment, the daily growing number of COVID19 cases in many countries obligated their authorities to implement non-pharmaceutical measures such as closing restaurants, bars, hotels and travel restrictions, border closure and even to implement general lockdown.
All those necessary health measures have lead on the collapse of the tourism chain. Flights canceled, airlines, hotels and restaurant closed and were on the verge of bankruptcy due to lack of clients and liquidity. Governments had to subsidize with state money all these companies and their employees. In fact, global tourism over the last twenty years has faced different health crises such as the SARS (2003) and the MERS (2015) outbreaks. None of them, not even the 2008 economic crisis, has dramatically affected the growth of the tourism sector ( Figure 1) such as the coronavirus COVID-19 [1].
As of 31 July 2020, over 17 million COVID-19 confirmed cases and over 660,000 deaths were reported in 213 countries [2]. The panic among the public created by the spreading of COVID-19 pandemic in combination with the travel restriction, affected tourism and travel sector the most [3]. According to UNWTO [4], on the Q1 2020 22% and the current scenarios point to declines of 58% to 78% for 2020 decreased arrivals ( Figure 2). Nowadays, many countries are in the phase of reopening their economies. They have reopened schools and businesses and they try to restart their tourism economy in local scale and in limited international scale [1].   [4].
To avoid all the negative impacts of the COVID19 outbreak [5], many destinations focus on tourism like business-as-usual [1].
However, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed tourists' perspective and awareness of safety and cleanliness issues [6]. The perceived health risk factors and the risk of contagious diseases influence the image of health destinations [7] and negative impression of the destination can be developed if the tourist feels unsafe [8]. Today the slogan "Safety sells in tourism" is more important than ever in the tourism and travel industry [9] and for this reason, many destinations have been promoted as Safe Tourist Destinations (STD) in order to attract tourists. According to Neuburger & Egger [10] tourism industry has to focus on reducing tourists' travel risk perception to bounce back quickly once the threat of COVID-19 decreases. Tourists can form reasonable safety expectations only when they have access to accurate and reliable information about the destination [11]. Thus, destinations have to communicate all the health cover and safety measures to ensure that tourists will feel safe. The purpose of the present study is to examine the factors that influence Greece's perceptions as a Safe Tourist Destination in the decision-making process for potential tourists from Spain, who will take summer holidays in 2020, amid Covid-19 pandemic.

Covid-19 in Spain
According to the Ministery of Health, Consumption and Social Welfare [12], the following graphic shows the number of daily It has also been one with the strictest lockdown and isolation measures, including the prohibition for children to go out during the state of alarm [13]. The experiences lived during the pandemic include different sources of stress for the population [14]. Previous studies carried out in stressful situations and emergencies make it possible to define which are the most significant variables of the psychological impact on people: fear of infection, not being able to cover basic needs, not having information and clear guidelines for action, feelings of frustration, anger and boredom [15] or the presence of economic problems [16]According to RodriguezRey et al. [17], those who suffer the most are women, young people, and those who consider themselves as a risk-population group. These authors strongly recommend to listen to the urgent call made by some European governments to look for a united approach to deal with the upcoming economic recession if we want to prevent a longlasting psychological suffering for the spanish society and people in other countries under similar circumstances.The Covid-19 pandemic is not over yet and the psychological effects related to this health crisis [18] are likely to have long lasting consequences after the pandemic is under control, which should be considered in future longitudinal studies [15].

Research Method
To explore Greece's perceptions as a Safe Tourist Destination this study conducted in Spanish tourists. In Greece, the first

Greece as a Safe Tourist Destination
The study's results confirm that Spanish tourists mind Greece as a health safe destination. Figure 4 indicates that 72.3% of Spanish tourist consider Greece as a Safe Tourist Destination. According to the mean score of each factor, for the Spaniards, the "consciousness and discipline of the citizen with the rules and regulations", "the highly trained medical and nursing professionals" and the "commitment on maintaining an unaffected brand name in terms of safety" considered the most significant factors that name Greece a Safe Tourist Destination. On the other hand, the less significant factors are their "prior travel experiences in Greece" and "how safe one can be under the COVID-19 circumstances" and "the access to information and advertising campaigns about how safe is to travel to Greece". Table 2

Discussion and Conclusions
The