The postponement of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games critically impacted the sport tourism and hospitality industries in the host country due to the threat of infectious disease, COVID-19. There is, however, a lack of empirical research on how risk perceptions toward infectious disease affect travel intention to a mega sporting event destination. This study aims to examine the effect of risk perception toward COVID-19 on behavioral intention to travel to a host region. This study specifically focuses on the COVID-19 risk perception of potential tourists from a neighboring country, South Korea, and their intention to travel to Japan, the host country. Employing the case of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, this study addresses the effect of South Korean tourists' COVID-19 risk perception, on travel anxiety, travel safety, and intention to travel to a host region. In our results, COVID-19 risk perception was found to have a negative effect on travel intention, while travel safety positively affected travel intention. The findings suggest that the sport event tourism destination with as infectious disease risk had a strong negative impact on tourists` travel intention beyond the geographical advantage in which tourists can perceive a neighboring country as an easy-to-go-to destination. In addition, this research calls upon the efforts of event hosting organizations to provide a safe image for potential tourists in order to mitigate economic losses.
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