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This study aims to examine consumer perception during COVID-19 and identifies cruise industry marketing strategies to fill a gap in crisis management and product pricing literature.

This study developed and validated two-factor measurement scales (vaccine perception and protective behavior), which predicted cruise intents well. This study revealed how geo-regional factors affect consumer psychology through spatial analysis.

This study recommended pricing 7-day cruises at $1,464 (the most preferred length). The results also showed that future price hikes would not affect demand and that coastal marketing would help retain customers.

This study contributed to the business, hospitality and tourism literature by identifying two new and unique factors (vaccine perception and protective behaviors), which were found to affect consumers’ intention to travel by cruise significantly. The result provided a better understanding of cruise tourists’ pricing preferences and the methods utilized could easily be applied to other cruise markets or tourism entities.

Hippotherapy is an emerging area of paediatric occupational therapy practice in Ireland. It is a treatment strategy used by specially trained occupational therapy practitioners, physical therapists and speech language pathologists as part of the intervention programme to facilitate functional gains. This paper aims to explore parents’ perspectives on children’s participation in home-based occupations following hippotherapy treatment.

Qualitative, semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight participants. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. In accordance with thematic analysis, line-by-line coding was completed to identify codes. Codes were organised into categories, which were grouped to develop themes.

Three core themes were identified: lack of knowledge regarding hippotherapy as an occupational therapy intervention; children’s increased participation in home-based occupations secondary to improved physical, psychological, communication and social skills; and the unique hippotherapy environment as a motivating factor for children to engage in occupational therapy intervention.

Findings from this study support the growing body of evidence that hippotherapy is an effective means of intervention for increasing physical, psychological, social and communication skills. The participants report positive effects following hippotherapy on their children’s participation in home-based occupations. It highlights a link between the unique hippotherapy environment and children’s increased engagement in occupational therapy. Given that no published hippotherapy-specific literature related to occupational therapy exists in the Irish context, and given that hippotherapy is an emerging area of practice in Ireland, this paper contributes to the knowledge base.