The Impact of The Perception of Risk On International Travellers

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH
Int. J. Tourism Res. 9, 233242 (2007)

Published online in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/jtr.607
The Impact of the Perception of Risk on

International Travellers
Metin Kozak1,*, John C. Crotts2 and Rob Law3
School of Tourism and Hospitality Management, Mugla University, 48170 Mugla, Turkey
2
School of Business and Economics, College of Charleston, 66 George Street, Charleston, SC 29424-0001,
USA
3
School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon,
Hong Kong
ABSTRACT
The primary objective of this paper is
twofold: (i) to investigate the impact of
perceived risk on the tendency to travel
internationally; and (ii) to explore if there is
any difference in the perception of risky
places among three clusters segmented
based on the Hofstedes uncertainty
avoidance index. The sample population of
the study consists of 1180 international
travellers visiting Hong Kong in the fall of
2003. The research ndings show that the
majority of travellers are more likely to
change their travel plans to a destination
that has elevated risk while the minority
reports they are more unlikely. These
ndings suggest that international travellers
appear to be sensitive towards the
occurrence of any type of risk in their
evoked destinations. Differences were also
observed from one continent to another in
terms of the inuence of perceived risks.
The nal note is that travellers from
different national cultures may have
varying degrees of the perceived risk.
Implications both for theory and
practitioners are also discussed. Copyright
2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Received 15 June 2006; Accepted 30 January 2007
*Correspondence to: M. Kozak, School of Tourism and

Hospitality Management, Mugla University, 48170
Mugla, Turkey.
E-mail: M.Kozak@superonline.com
Keywords: risk perceptions; natural disaster;

terrorism; health disease; decision-making;
destination choice; national culture.
INTRODUCTION
isk has been identied as a major concern

for international travellers (Yavas, 1990;
Sonmez and Graefe, 1998). Thus, the
need for safety is an innate trait of human
nature (Maslow, 1954) and concern for safety
has been shown to deter travel to specic destinations (Crotts, 2003). The 2003 severe acute
respiratory syndrome (SARS) crisis in Hong
Kong, the 2005 tsunami in the Indian Ocean,
suicide bombings of hotels in the Middle East
and the abduction of a tourist in Aruba represent recent events few tourism marketing professionals like to discuss and even fewer would
wish to endure. However, there are few destinations in the world today that are immune
from such types of events. This research focuses
on the recovery from such events. Specically,
drawing from a sample of domestic and international visitors to Hong Kong, the purpose of
this exploratory study is to identify which segments of international travellers would likely
travel to a destination regardless of the nature
of their perceived risks. Moreover, it assesses
the relative impact of three feasible measures a
destination could employ in terms of their relative abilities to strengthen the condence of
travellers to visit a destination after a catastrophic event: free insurance, guarantee of personal safety and security, and transparency of
information.
Recent published works conrm one of the
main reasons for pleasure travel is relaxation
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
234
(e.g. Kozak, 2002). Even if relaxation is not a
priority, travellers do not want to be bothered
with negative incidents (faulty adventure
equipment, events that are cancelled, problems
associated with food quantity or quality). From
a general perspective, the view that image is a
critical factor in choosing destinations is
widely supported (e.g. Pike, 2002 and references therein). Making visitors feel secure and
safe before and during a vacation can be critical for international competitiveness of a destination, since visitors, in their travel plans,
often consider multiple alternatives (Huan and
Beaman, 2004). Also, if new information on,
e.g. recent violence or political or social unrest
is supplied either by friends or media, a destination can move out of the consideration set
(Sonmez and Graefe, 1998; Brunt et al., 2000;
Faulkner, 2001). The negative image created
through the lack of safety and security may
damage the tourism and travel industry due to
its unavoidable nature through the negative
word-of-mouth communication, regardless of
the provision of high quality visitor attractions
(Goodrich, 2002; Pizam, 2002; Lepp and
Gibson, 2003).
LITERATURE REVIEW
In the last decade, there has been an increasing
interest to discuss the potential impacts of risk
threats such as terrorism, crime, natural disasters and spread of disease over the sustainable
development of both domestic and international tourism and travel industries. In this
context, a growing attention has been invested
into organising several academic conferences
and industry meetings, several books have
been published, and a growing number of both
academic and industry-oriented papers have
been authored. In a similar vein, there has been
intensive media coverage of terrorism attacks,
health diseases and natural disasters. Generally speaking, the destination image in terms
of risk and safety has a deterring impact on the
likelihood of international visitors to travel to
such places that are perceived as under threat.
For example, one could note that those perceiving terrorism as a risk of travelling are
likely to avoid the Middle East (Sonmez and
Graefe, 1998). Visitors have an image of Africa
as a continent which is not safe in terms of its
M. Kozak, J. C. Crotts and R. Law

health-related risks, e.g. HIV. In addition, both
Africa and Asia are perceived to be worse than
Europe and Australasia due to health risks
stemming from the supply of poor food and
water quality (Lepp and Gibson, 2003).
Perceived risk and tourist behaviour
Taking the previous paragraph as a departure
point, one should bear in mind the existence of
several determinants affecting consumer
behaviour in general (Oliver, 1999) and vacation decision-making in particular (Sirakaya
and Woodside, 2005). Overall perceptions of
visitors may depend on external factors that
are difcult for destination management or
local tourism businesses to inuence. Factors
disrupting ow to a destination may be economic, political or temporal features appearing
in visitor-generating countries as well as in
visitor-attracting countries, i.e. age, income,
occupation, personality, cost, time, motivation,
distance, party size and composition, risk,
and existence of alternative destinations
(Moutinho, 1987; Sonmez and Graefe, 1998;
Fuchs and Reichel, 2006). There are also such
uncontrollable factors as terrorism directed
from outside a country (reference to the latest
Fiji attack and al Qaeda activity in Pakistan),
spread of disease (MacLaurin, 2004) and
natural disasters (Faulkner and Vikulov, 2001;
Huang and Min, 2002; Huan et al., 2004). These
factors may have lasting affect when they
happen. As the number of disasters and crises
affecting the tourism and travel industry
increases, it becomes evitable to understand
the nature of these disasters and incidents,
predict their potential impacts on the industry,
and control their consequences.
It is also essential to understand the basic
human need for safety and security and to
make potential visitors feel secure prior to, or
during their vacations. Unfortunately, safety
and security problems are often destinationdependent. High perceived risk and safety
concerns have appeared to become a central
issue of visitors decision-making evaluations.
Observations indicate that such incidents may
have a devastating effect not only on where
they have appeared, but also on the decisionmaking visitors who would be interested in
touring these places (Sonmez and Graefe, 1998;
Int. J. Tourism Res. 9, 233242 (2007)
DOI: 10.1002/jtr
Perception of Risk
Brunt et al., 2000). For example, visitors who
perceived certain destinations as being at risk
are likely to avoid them in their future travel
plans, e.g. the Middle East and Africa, whereas
those who had previously travelled to the
same destination (or region) appear to feel
more condent and more likely to go back
because their feelings of safety were increased.
The perception of risks is not being clearly
taken into consideration primarily from the
perspective of political dispute or unrest both
in tourist-generating and in visitor-receiving
countries. An overview of past research indicates the existence of an increasing demand to
cancel travel or vacation plans particularly just
after the 9/11 attack (Chen and Noriega, 2004;
Floyd et al., 2004; Kingsbury and Brunn, 2004).
All these studies focus on how potential visitors perceived the importance of safety and
security concerns in a destination or activitybased choice and how these visitors are likely
to participate in domestic or international
tourism and travel activities. Contrary to these
studies conducted from the demand side perspective, some other studies, oriented from the
supply side, take into account how the nature
of incidents occurred at a destination or in a
country or in a region, e.g. terrorism, criminal
offence, and food safety, may inuence potential visitors decisions to choose a location for
their future vacations (MacLaurin, 2004;
Michalko, 2004; Thapa, 2004).
Another example of risk perceptions is the
fear of disease or the lack of sanitation (Lepp
and Gibson, 2003). Potential visitors are discouraged to visit and tour operators are
unlikely to sell vacations to places with high
risk of diseases. Not surprisingly, visitors also
tend to complain about the threat of food poisoning on a vacation and the lack of hygiene
and sanitation for facilities, food and water
(Lepp and Gibson, 2003). Since it is more likely
that Third World destinations are less responsive to disease problems than their developed
counterparts, a competitive disadvantage
between developed and undeveloped countries will be maintained as long as health,
hygiene and sanitation issues are concerned.
Avoiding destinations with outbreaks of SARS
and now chicken ue or bird ue is prudent
consumer behaviour. Implications of SARS
show how a regions economy can be shaken
235
as a consequence of the fear of disease and a
sudden drop in the number of foreigners visiting the region. In early 2006, a similar concern
appeared to become a potential threat for the
Mediterranean tourism due to the media
coverage of the bird ue.
The aforementioned theoretical and empirical arguments are to be the subject matter of
the consideration for citizens and tourist destinations mostly in the USA, Far East and
Australasia. It is possible to suggest that a signicant gap still exists in the literature in
addressing the entire chain of effects, from terrorism to natural disasters, over where to visit
(on whether a location will be a potential
destination to visit or one actually chosen as a
particular destination). For instance, it is signicant to investigate the inuence of political
dispute (e.g. terrorism attacks) and health
problems (e.g. spread of disease). There is also
a need to include an empirical study of how
risky destinations are perceived by actual or
potential visitors. Despite the fact that there
exist several external (origin-based) risk
factors, this study is limited to the consideration of the three important destination-based
factors which have recently become the most
inuential factors on visitors decision-making
when choosing their nal vacation destinations. These factors consist of terrorism,
natural disaster and health disease.
The empirical investigation of the rst case
has become vital as a result of the experience
of organised, widespread and collective
worldwide terrorist attacks in recent years.
Undoubtly, such negative incidents have tarnished the image of such countries or destinations that are popular in international tourism
and are quite enough to inject the fear of risk
into human beings psychology. The next case
will investigate the strength of the relationship
between destination choices of visitors and
their perceived risk of natural disasters (e.g.
tsunamis and earthquakes), and water and
food-based illnesses (e.g. SARS, chicken ue,
diarrhorea, salmonella, food poisoning, etc.)
on destination choice.
Perceived risk and national culture
The literature provides some evidence to argue
that perceived risk relies on the varying nature
Int. J. Tourism Res. 9, 233242 (2007)
DOI: 10.1002/jtr
236
of national culture on the demand side. The
most widely utilised dimensions of national
culture are the ve presented by Hofstede
(2001) from his instrument called the Values
Survey Module. Briey, they are: power distance (a tolerance for class differentials in
society), individualism (the degree to which
welfare of the individualism is valued more
than the group), masculinity (achievement orientation, competition and materialism), uncertainty avoidance (intolerance of risk) and, later,
the Confucian dynamic (stability, thrift, respect
for tradition and the future). The cultural
perspective employed in this current study
was Hofstedes uncertainty avoidance index
measure.
Of Hofstedes ve cultural dimensions,
uncertainty avoidance (UAI) and power distance have been shown to inuence differences
among cultures in risk taking (Money and
Crotts, 2003). Of the two, UAI was deemed
more appropriate to the substantive domain of
travel purchases. Specically, individuals from
high-UAI national cultures generally will not
be comfortable with situations characterised as
unstructured, ambiguious or risky. They prize
structure; they feel threatened by the unknown
and the ambiguous. On the other hand, indviduals from low-UAI cultures (risk-tolerant)
are generally more comfortable with situations
involving uncertainty and risk than high-UAI
cultures (risk-avoiding). These statements
provide the argument to suggest that visitors
of a high-UAI national culture are more concerned about those risks that are associated
with infectious disease, terrorist attack and
natural disaster. These visitors are also
expected to avoid travelling to any place where
such risks are elevated.
Research objectives
As mentioned previously, the primary objectives of this research are to present a research
framework to understand the impact of risks
related to safety (e.g. health) and security (e.g.
terrorism and natural disaster) over destination choices of international visitors; and to
explore if any differences exist between visitor
groups on the demand side as well as between
regions on the supply side in terms of the
nature of perceived risk. The achievement of

all these objectives will be of signicance, particularly to pratitioners who are in charge of
making their destinations more attractive in
the international travel market. In that regard,
recommendations to practitioners will be
made (e.g. ministries of tourism, national and
local tourism organisations/associations,
national health organisations, and individual
tourism businesses such as travel agencies or
tour operators). Implications for destination
authorities can be of help to understand how
likely risk perceptions are affective in vacation
decision-making. Implications for travel
agencies or tour operators include developing
strategies to better promote such places.
METHODOLOGY
The data for the study was from the 2003 International Visitor Survey conducted in Hong
Kong. Interviews were conducted at the departure lounges of the airport with the assistance
of trained interviewers. Passengers departing
from Hong Kong were invited to participate in
the survey. Employed was a random cluster
sampling procedure where all passengers
on randomly selected ights on randomly
selected days were administered the survey
instrument in the fall of 2003, shortly after the
SARS crisis of spring 2003. At the end of the
data collection period, a total of 1180 usable
questionnaires were obtained for a further
stage of data assessment. Participants were
from 14 different countries.
Respondents were rst asked to evoke a
country they would likely visit on their next
international trip. Respondents were subsequently grouped into one of ve world regions
(North America, Europe, Asia, Oceana, Other)
which contained their most preferred destinations for a subsequent between-group analysis.
Next, they were asked the probability of three
types of risks occurring in their preferred destination; the magnitude of the threat if it happened; and the efcacy of the destinations
media in disseminating information on the
threats if it indeed occurred. All responses
were recorded on a Likert scale from 1 = very
low to a 5 = very high. In marketing, consumer perception is reality so this approach
gained insights of international travellers as to
the type of risk inherent in specic regions and
Int. J. Tourism Res. 9, 233242 (2007)
DOI: 10.1002/jtr
Perception of Risk
the value of the ofcial media in the region in
terms of keeping visitors well informed and
safe. The three types of risks were: an infection
disease, a terrorist attack, and a natural disaster. A three-point scale was anchored with 1 =
the least signicant factor to 5 = the most signicant factor. In addition, respondents were
asked to indicate the extent to which they are
likely to change their travel plans if such a risk
occurred in their preferred/evoked destination. The scale was anchored from 1 (very
unlikely) to 5 (very likely).
Such variables as gender, age, education,
national culture (as measured by Hofstedes
(2001) UAI index), and self reported measures
of international travel experience were selected
as the independent variables of this segmenta-
237
tion study. Thus, the model allows for the
analysis of the effects of these independent
variables to identify the segment of international travellers most likely to help a destination rebound from a signicant natural or
human-nature disaster. The categorical predictor variable of gender in the model was coded
as binomial variables with certain values set as
the reference values, to which the remaining
values were compared.
DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS
Of the 1180 respondents, 83.8% reported that
they were likely to change their travel plans to
a destination that has elevated risk, while
16.2% reported they would not. Table 1
Table 1. Descriptive differences of respondents in terms of demographics

Would change travel plans (%)
Yes
(n = 873)
No
(n = 136)
Gender
Male
Female
52.0
48.0
70.3
29.7
Age
<18
1825
2635
3645
4655
5665
65>
0.4
8.2
30.3
25.8
20.5
10.5
4.3
1.1
9.1
26.9
25.1
14.3
19.4
4.0
Education
Less than high school
Completed high school
Some college/university
Completed university degree
Completed postgraduate degree
1.2
13.5
13.8
51.1
20.5
0.6
10.9
14.3
45.1
29.1
International travel experience

Inexperienced
Not very experienced
About average
Experienced
Very experienced
8.8
12.5
33.8
24.7
20.2
7.4
7.4
17.7
33.1
34.3
Country of residence uncertainty avoidance

High uncertainty avoidance
Medium uncertainty avoidance
Low uncertainty avoidance
36.1
48.5
15.5
22.8
67.6
9.6
Chi/p <
19.9/p < 0.001
15.16/p < 0.01
7.53/p > 0.05
33.12/p < 0.001
17.7/p < 0.001
Int. J. Tourism Res. 9, 233242 (2007)

DOI: 10.1002/jtr
238
summarises the results of group membership

cross-tabulated with the segmentation variables. Subjects who were unlikely to change
their travel plans were more likely to be male,
older, experienced in international travel and
more likely to reside in countries that are categorised by Hofstede (2001) as medium-UAI
national cultures. These ndings provide
partial evidence to support the argument that
medium-UAI national culture groups are
likely to be more risk-tolerant than other
groups who are believed to be risk avoiders
(Money and Crotts, 2003). Moreover, there is
also evidence to support that experienced
visitors perceive less risk on terrorism and
food safety, as postulated by Lepp and Gibson
(2003).
Next, data were categorised into three segments based on the Hofstedes UAI index: low,
medium and high avoidance groups. The rst
group is represented by those from what Hofstede considered as the low-UAI countries of
Singapore, China and Malaysia. The second
group refers to those originating from the
medium-UAI nations of US and Australia. The
last group includes those originating from the
high-UAI nation of Taiwan. The rest of other
groups were excluded from this stage of data
assessment due to their small proportions.
Findings of an ANOVA test revealed signicant
differences between these three groups on six
criteria in the directions predicted (Table 2).
Respondents assigned to the low-UAI national

culture group reported on average a more positive evaluation of attitudes towards risk perceptions. Respondents from low-UAI countries
received the highest mean scores, while the
medium group was ranked as the second place,
followed by the high-avoidance group as the
lowest. From these ndings, one may speculate
that those from the low-UAI national cultures
(i.e. Singapore, China and Malaysia) are more
likely to report infection disease, terrorist
attack and natural disaster as the magnitude of
threat for themselves while travelling. A
similar nding also exists for the perceived efcacy of ofcial media in disseminating the
information about a potential risk. It is interesting to note that infection disease seems
to be a higher risk factor as perceived by lowavoidance group members than by the other
two groups, whereas high-avoidance group
members are more concerned about terrorist
attacks.
Table 3 presents the ndings on the basis of
differences by travellers risk perceptions of
their likely destinations. It appears that North
America and Asia were differentiated as the
most risky destinations in terms of natural disaster. No difference was observed for the other
two types of risks, although, on a relative basis,
infection disease was ranked as the highest
factor and terrorist attack was ranked as the
second highest factor. This nding suggests
Table 2. Differences by low-, medium- and high-avoidance groups*

Variables
Lowa
Mediumb
Highc
Sig. t
<
Infection disease
Terrorist attack
Natural disaster
Infection disease (probability of occurrence)
Terrorist attack (probability of occurrence)
Natural disaster (probability of occurrence)
Infection disease (magnitude of threat)
Terrorist attack (magnitude of threat)
Natural disaster (magnitude of threat)
Infection disease (efcacy of media)
Terrorist attack (efcacy of media)
Natural disaster (efcacy of media)
2.47
2.02
1.37
1.70
2.09
1.91
2.95
2.92
2.70
3.80
3.70
3.78
2.36
2.10
1.48
1.90
1.97
1.91
2.84
2.62
2.57
3.25
3.19
3.27
2.23
2.23
1.39
1.87
1.90
1.80
2.23
2.36
1.95
2.99
3.08
3.09
7.105
6.051
2.005
0.853
0.770
2.381
14.676
5.407
16.472
9.078
4.804
6.111
0.001
0.002
0.135
0.426
0.463
0.093
0.000
0.005
0.000
0.000
0.008
0.002
c<b<a
a<b<c
c<b<a
c<b<a
c<b<a
c<b<a
c<b<a
c<b<a
Note: *Scored on a ve-point scale where 1 = very low and 5 = very high.
a
Low-avoidance group refers to Singapore, China and Malaysia; b Medium-avoidance group refers to the USA and
Australia; c High-avoidance group refers to Taiwan.
Int. J. Tourism Res. 9, 233242 (2007)

DOI: 10.1002/jtr
2.30
2.13
1.41
1.62
2.16
1.62
2.44
2.71
2.22
3.33
3.40
3.39
4.02
2.94
3.48
3.71
2.22
2.05
1.49
1.99
2.72
2.12
2.59
2.86
2.42
3.53
3.60
3.60
4.03
3.09
3.61
3.58
Europe
3.89
3.09
3.47
4.06
3.17
3.11
3.24
2.89
2.46
2.54
2.40
1.73
2.16
2.26
2.11
1.46
Asia
*Scored on a three-point scale where 1 = the least signicant and 3 = the most signicant.
**Scored on a ve-point scale where 1 = very low and 5 = very high.
***Scored on a ve-point scale where 1 = very unlikely and 5 = very likely.
****Scored on a ve-point scale where 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree.
Types of risks*
Infection disease
Terrorist attack
Natural disaster
Probability of occurrence**
Infection disease
Terrorist attack
Natural disaster
Magnitude of threat**
Infection disease
Terrorist attack
Natural disaster
Efcacy of media**
Infection disease
Terrorist attack
Natural disaster
How likely to change the travel destination***
Intention lies from a lower to a higher level
Measures to strengthen their condence to travel****
Free insurance coverage
Guarantee of personal safety and security by
the local government
An increase of transparency of information related
to risk incidents
Variables
North
America
Table 3. Differences by travellers based on risk perceptions of their likely destinations
3.47
2.87
2.97
4.00
2.59
2.69
2.74
2.87
2.69
2.37
2.53
2.18
1.86
2.26
2.17
1.39
South
America,
Africa,
Middle
East
3.80
3.22
3.40
4.15
3.66
3.66
3.65
2.30
2.49
2.23
1.52
1.79
1.65
2.39
2.30
1.27
Australia
and New
Zealand
3.310
3.509
3.233
1.581
7.514
5.611
.332
6.825
2.519
2.601
37.246
20.435
13.469
1.100
2.156
2.508
0.010
0.007
0.012
0.177
0.000
0.000
0.856
0.000
0.040
0.035
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.355
0.072
0.040
Sig. t
d<a<b<e<c
d<b<a<c<e
d<e<c<b<a
d<c<b<a<e
d<c<b<a<e
e<b<a<d<c
c<e<d<b<a
b<e<d<a<c
e<b<a<c<d
c<e<b<d<a
b<e<d<a<c
e<d<b<c<a
<
Perception of Risk
239
Int. J. Tourism Res. 9, 233242 (2007)

DOI: 10.1002/jtr
240
that infection disease is a number one reason
inuencing travellers choice of destinations,
regardless of the category of regions where
they tend to travel. In terms of the probability
of occurrence of such risks, regions such as
South America, Africa, the Middle East and
Asia were perceived to be riskier places for the
threat of infection disease, North America was
riskier for terrorist acts, while Asia and North
America were again perceived riskier destinations with their higher scores of the occurrence
of natural disaster. Several recent events
provide support for this nding, such as the
recent earthquake in South Asia, tsunami in
the Indian Ocean and hurricanes in North
America. This is almost the same as how such
places are perceived in terms of the magnitude
of threat. It also appears that respondents are
less likely to trust the efcacy of media in disseminating the information about those risks
in South America, Africa, Middle East and
Asia.
Regardless of the category of visitors
evoked destinations, there was no signicant
difference between their likelihood to change
their original travel plans if the most signicant risk might occur in their potential destinations, although this variable gained a high
score, i.e. over 4.00 out of a ve-point scale.
Those with the intention of travelling to such
places as Australia/New Zealand (Oceania)
expect that a free insurance coverage and a
guaranteed personal safety of visitors to be
provided by local governments of host destinations will more likely strengthen the level of
their condence required to travel to such
places as compared to some other places such
as Europe, South America, Africa and the
Middle East. Subjects also agree that they may
have a higher level of condence to travel to
Asia, Oceania and Europe as long as more
transparent information in relation to risk
incidents is provided.
A multiple regression analysis with the stepwise procedure was conducted to identify the
relative importance of each risk factor on the
respondents intention of changing their travel
plans as the dependent variable of the model.
Independent variables are comprised of infection disease, terrorist acts and natural disaster.
As can be seen in Table 4, two factors signicantly contributed to the dependent variable

Table 4. Inuence of types of risks on the intention
of changing travel plans
Variables
Infection of
disease
Terrorist acts
Standardised
beta
t-value
Sig. t
0.175
6.253
0.000
0.091
3.240
0.001
Note: Constant: 2.593; R-square: 0.34; Adjusted R-square:

0.34.
suggesting that infection of diseases (beta =

0.175, p < 0.000) and terrorist acts (beta = 0.091,
p < 0.001) would be regarded as the two most
important reasons to force respondents to
change their travel plans. Such incidents seem
to be strongly inuencing the behaviour of
potential international visitors. In other words,
the image in terms of risk and security has a
deterring impact of the likelihood of visitors to
choose their potential destinations. From this
nding, one may suggest that the infection of
disease-tourism and the terrorism-tourism
nexus awaits developing a visible solution to
minimise their impacts for the benet of
tourism development.
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
Although the literature is rich in terms of
emphasising the importance of the relationship between perceived risk and actual behaviour, there has been little research exploring the
perceived risk associated with the tendency to
involve it in international tourism and travel
activities through certain countries or geographical regions. Crimes, natural disasters,
terrorist acts and spread of disease appear
occasionally at tourist destinations, which
directly inuence the tourism and travel
industry. Findings of this study indicate that a
single act of terrorism, natural disaster and
spread of disease may sometimes lead to
forming an overal negative image of all the
neighbourhood countries, resulting in a global
devastating impact in the region, e.g. tsunamis,
earthquakes and SARS in Asia; political conicts in Africa; and terrorism acts in North
America and the Middle East. From the results
of these incidents, we see that, due to a close
relationship between tourism and other
Int. J. Tourism Res. 9, 233242 (2007)
DOI: 10.1002/jtr
Perception of Risk
supporting industries, any negative experience
with the rst one leads to an economy suffering directly from consequences of such incidents. In other words, the multiplier effect of
such incidents are both economics, social and
psychological, e.g. limiting job opportunities,
losing trust towards others and feeling
unsecure.
As for the perception of risk and attitudes
towards taking visits to such risky places, the
ndings of this research conrm that, as predicted, a majority of respondents are likely to
change their travel plans subject to the appearance of any potential risk threat in their evoked
future destinations. This nding has evidence
to support the ndings of past research (i.e.
Chen and Noriega, 2004; Kingsbury and
Brunn, 2004). There also appears a signicant
difference between those representing different groups of national culture categorised on
the basis of the UAI index purported by Holstede. Specically, as predicted, those from the
high- and medium-UAI group are likely to be
more concerned about risk threats. This type of
investigation is lacking in the literature, as
emphasised by Lepp and Gibson (2003). Moreover, consistent with earlier studies (Sonmez
and Graefe, 1998; Lepp and Gibson, 2003), the
ndings of this study support the notion that
travellers risk perceptions decreased while
their experience increased, and men are less
concerned about risk than are women. As
opposed to Sonmez and Graefes ndings, age
is found to be a predictor of risk perceptions,
which means that elderly people are less likely
to change their travel plans if risk threat
occurs.
This study further explored that travellers
risk perceptions differ from one geographical
region to another. This is also the case when
one may take into account what types of measures travellers should take to strengthen their
condence of travelling to any destination in
each of these regions. Travellers perceive
regions in different ways; therefore, the
authorities or the related bodies need to revisit
the issue of how they are seen by their target
markets to set up better positioning strategies
for the future. For example, those with the
intention of travelling to Australia/New
Zealand expect to gain a free insurance coverage and a guaranteed personal safety and
241
security to be provided by local governments
of the host destinations. Generally speaking,
tourism authorities should also provide more
transparent information in relation to the
occurance of risk incidents in their regions if
they are keen on attracting more visitors with
a higher level of condence.
As a sensitive structure of the tourism and
travel industry towards political, economic,
social and environmental changes, including
the risk of natural disasters, it has become
essential to investigate how the threat of perceived risk may inuence ones destination
choice or change ones original plans if a
potential risk appears. As already predicted,
threats to health (spread of disease) and safety
(terrorism acts) are found to be compelling
deterrents to taking vacations. The long-term
stability of a region will make it a relatively
more attractive destination both for service
providers and visitors. Internal social and
political turmoil are the issues which need to
be considered regarding the perceived risk of
tourist destinations. In recent years, the existence of both political and social unrest in some
countries in East Europe, the Middle East and
Asia has affected their previous positive trends
in the development of their tourism industies.
Contrary to expectations, natural disaster is
not associated with the intention of changing
travel plans. One possible reason could be that
natural disaster no longer has a long term
effect on visitation, although it is more inuential in the short term.
Last but not the least, there is no study
without mentioning its limitations. Since this
study was composed of the perceived risk of
visitors from a general perspective, these ndings are potentially limited for comparison
with other similar studies. Therefore, one
avenue for future research would be to repeat
this study by including various criteria: familiarity (Sonmez and Graefe, 1998); typology of
visitors based on their motivations (Lepp and
Gibson, 2003); distribution by demographic
characteristics of visitors, e.g. party composition and income (Sonmez and Graefe, 1998;
Fuchs and Reichel, 2006); and personality
types (Plog, 1974). This type of analysis may
lead us to facilitate the understanding the role
of such independent variables on variances in
respect of risk perceptions. For example,
Int. J. Tourism Res. 9, 233242 (2007)
DOI: 10.1002/jtr
242
according to the study by Fuchs and Reichel
(2006), individual visitors are associated with
natural disaster, whereas group visitors are
more concerned about human-induced risk
and food safety. This method would be of
help to better visualise the distribution of risk
perceptions towards different geographical
locations on the basis of categorical data.
Finally, segmentation within the ve continents may impose many variances within
them. Thus, a greater amount of data is
needed to draw more valid conclusions for
countries as specic destinations other than
continents.
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DOI: 10.1002/jtr

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Int. J. Tourism Res. 9, 233242 (2007)