The coronavirus found in 2019 – commonly known as COVID-19 – has created an
alarming issue and has caused a shutdown of the entire hospitality industry and its
related economies almost overnight. Additionally, the crisis worsened by a domino
effect on the job market due to the reduction of the available position in the
hospitality industry resulting in a cascade effect on the performance of the
remaining workforce. The remaining workforce are directly impacted by the
increased corona safety measures; however, this do not remediate the fear of the
transmission from the direct guest contact. In order to relive these fears, the
occupational health and safety concepts established after the previous SARS
outbreak are revisited. Following the previous lead, the new cluster strategy needs
to be set. This research is aimed to investigate the effect of safety leadership in
response to employee safety behaviour and its effect on belief restoration at
hospitality industry during the COVID-19 pandemic. The scope of the study with
regards to data collection was carried out on the questionnaire responds of 105 fulltime
employees working at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sampling was
carried out using a purposive sampling technique in which data was collected via
google form with a 5-point Likert scale. Data were analysed using Structural
Equation Modelling (SEM) with SmartPLS 3.3 software, which also completed
with validity and reliability tests with Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and
Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) through SPSS 25.0 and AMOS 26.0
respectively. The data suggested there is a strong link between hotel safety
leadership and safety behaviour, as well as employee belief restoration mediating
relationships between these two variables. Furthermore, perceived susceptibility
was shown to positively moderate safety leadership and safety behaviour. Finally,
perceived susceptibility moderates the mediation effect of safety leadership – belief
restoration – safety behaviour in a non-significant way.