* Tel: #61-7-3381-1319; fax: #61-7-3381-1012.E-mail address: n.carr@mailbox.uq.edu.au (N. Carr).

Tourism Management 22 (2001) 565}570

Research note

An exploratory study of gendered di!erences in young touristsperception of danger within London

Neil Carr*Department of Tourism & Leisure Management, The University of Queensland, 11 Salisbury Road, Ipswich Qld 4305, Australia

Abstract

This paper studies young tourists' perception of danger within the urban holiday environment of London, England. The study ofperceived danger is important not only in its own right, but also because of the in#uence it may have on use of leisure spaces and times.This research assesses gender and group composition di!erences in perception of danger, addressing the relatively neglected issues ofmen's perception and the relationship between the genders. For the purpose of this paper &danger' was assessed by studying how safe,relaxed, vulnerable, threatened, and at risk people felt while in London. The study found a number of similarities and di!erencesbetween the men and women studied, in terms of how they perceived danger and their group composition during the day andnighttime. These results indicate that gender may not be the only in#uence on perception and behaviour, and that men and womenshould not be regarded as homogenous cohorts. � 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Gender; Perceived danger; London; Young tourists

1. Introduction

This paper studies how young tourists perceive dangerwithin an urban holiday environment, namely London,during the day and at night. For the purpose of this study&danger' was deconstructed into "ve separate, but inter-related parts; namely how safe, threatened, vulnerable,relaxed, and at risk people feel. Studying the perceptionof danger is important as it may in#uence the behaviourand use of leisure spaces and times of people (Valentine,1992; Rountree & Land, 1996; Feltes, 1997). Despite this,there appears to have been little research conducted toassess how tourists perceive danger and its componentparts within their holiday destinations in general andurban ones in particular.

In contrast, perception of personal danger within thehome environment does appear to have been studied(e.g., Valentine, 1989; Mowl, 1994). The majority of thiswork has suggested that women's use of public leisurespaces is adversely a!ected by their perception of dangerin general and risk in particular. This process seems to beespecially the case during the nighttime and when womenare by themselves (Whyte & Shaw, 1994; Green, Hebron,

& Woodward, 1987). The presence of gendered di!er-ences in perception of danger is supported by Rountreeand Land (1996: 1390), who claim that `men are signi"-cantly less likely to feel unsafe than womena when inpublic spaces. As a result, it has been claimed that publicleisure is less available to women than men (Mowl, 1994;Feltes, 1997). To help cope with the perceived dangerassociated with public leisure spaces women may seekthe company of other people (Smith, 1987) and men inparticular when outside of their homes (Valentine, 1989).

Alternatively, amongst some women there appears tobe a tendency to visit the leisure spaces they wish, when-ever they like, irrespective of how they perceive personallevels of danger. Their desire to utilize a certain leisurespace can overcome high levels of perceived danger,although the perception itself still persists (Bialeschki& Hicks, 1998; Mehta & Bondi, 1999). It also seems thata blurring of the genders is taking place, in terms of howpeople perceive and react to danger (Wilkinson, 1994).

The need to study perception of danger in the holidayenvironment is related to direct comparison between thehome environment and the holiday destination not beingpossible. This is partly because of a lack of agreementamongst researchers concerning what, if any, relationshipthere is between how people behave in their holiday andhome environments (Carr, 1997). Despite this, the resultsof work on how people perceive danger within the home

0261-5177/01/$ - see front matter � 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.PII: S 0 2 6 1 - 5 1 7 7 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 1 4 - 0

Fig. 1. 10-point scale of "ve components of personal danger.

environment indicate that perception by tourists maydi!er according to gender and group composition (i.e.,whether they are by themselves, or in single or mixed sexgroups in certain leisure spaces and times).

The work on which this paper is based is importantbecause it may increase our understanding of touristbehaviour, which should be central to the developmentand management of the tourism industry (Kinnaird& Hall, 1996; Mansfeld, 1992). It is also valuable in termsof helping to construct social and gender theories. Inaddition, this research may help to address the relativelyneglected issue of men's perception of danger. Finally, itmay help to further identify the relation between menand women in the holiday environment. Consequently,this paper focuses on the potential in#uence of genderand group composition on perception of danger withinthe holiday environment.

2. Methodology

This paper is based on a study of the behaviour ofyoung tourists in London, England. The city is one of themost popular tourist destinations within the UK, attract-ing almost 24 million international and domestic visitorsin 1995. London is especially popular with young tourists(15}34 years of age), who accounted for 57 per cent of allvisitors to the city in 1995 (BTA/ETB, 1996).

However, London, in common with many citiesaround the world, sometimes su!ers from negativepublicity about crime and other anti-social incidentsthat may in#uence the way tourists perceive danger in the

city (Smith, 1987). This may be especially pertinent whenthe victims are tourists. Examples of such reports appearto be relatively rare, but headlines in national news-papers such as `Gang grabs C1.5 m gems from womantourista (8.1.98) and `Teenage pack behind headmaster'smurder and rape of tourista (17. 12. 97) do exist (Tele-graph, 1999).

The data on which this paper is based were collectedfrom a convenience sample of tourists staying in the Cityof London Youth Hostel. The information was gatheredfrom 197 young people, of whom 84 were men and 113women using a questionnaire survey that was carried outduring the summer of 1998. The survey was conducted atthe face-to-face level and obtained a response rate ofapproximately 85 per cent. For the purpose of this studya young tourist was identi"ed as anyone between 16 and35 years old. Although this de"nition is in some sensesarbitrary, it is not without precedence (e.g., KilroyTravels as cited in Bywater, 1993). To assess the nature ofany di!erences between the tourists who took part in thesurvey a series of �� tests were carried out. The signi"-cance level used for all these tests was 0.05 per cent.

3. Perception of danger in London

To assess the tourists' perception of danger withinLondon respondents were asked to rank each of thedeconstructed components on a 10-point Likert scale. Byreconstructing these rankings it is possible to highlighthow, overall, the tourists perceived danger. As Fig. 1

566 N. Carr / Tourism Management 22 (2001) 565}570

Fig. 2. Perception of personal danger in London.

Table 1Perception of danger in London according to gender (% of tourists inbrackets)

Perceived level Daytime Nighttimeof danger

Men Women Men Women

Very dangerous 0 (0.00) 0 (0.00) 0 (0.00) 0 (0.00)Dangerous 1 (1.20) 6 (5.31) 1 (1.56) 10 (13.89)Slightly dangerous 20 (24.10) 30 (26.55) 19 (29.69) 37 (51.39)Low danger 35 (42.17) 48 (42.48) 30 (46.88) 22 (30.56)Virtually no danger 27 (32.53) 29 (25.66) 14 (21.88) 3 (4.17)�� test results 3.161 21.100� 0.367 0.000

shows, a score of 5 represents an individual who per-ceived a very high level of personal danger (i.e., who feltvery vulnerable, very unsafe, very threatened, very tense,and at risk). In contrast, a score of 50 represents anindividual who perceived virtually no danger (i.e., whofelt very safe, at no risk, not threatened, not vulnerable,and very relaxed). To allow analysis of these results thereconstructed values for perception of danger have beendivided into 5 groups which are identi"ed as &very dan-gerous' (5}10), &dangerous (11}20), &slightly dangerous'(21}30), &low danger' (31}40), and &virtually no danger(41}50).

Fig. 2 shows that none of the sample perceived Londonto be very dangerous during the daytime. At the oppositeend of the scale, 28.6 per cent of the tourists felt they werein virtually no danger in the city during this time. Incomparison, during the nighttime Fig. 2 illustrates thatwhile none of the tourists felt the city was very danger-ous, only 12.6 percent felt they were in virtually nodanger. The result of a chi square test indicates that thedi!erence shown in Fig. 2 in perception of personaldanger according to time is signi"cant (��"18.958,�(0.005). This result shows that people perceive lowerlevels of personal danger during the day than thenighttime.

4. Gendered di4erences

Table 1 indicates that a higher percentage of womenthan men perceived London to be a dangerous or slightlydangerous place during the nighttime. In contrast, themen were more likely than the women to perceive vir-tually no danger, or a low level of danger. This signi"cant

di!erence between the genders shows that men are lesslikely than women to feel they are in danger when inpublic spaces. However, Table 1 also shows there is nota signi"cant di!erence between the men and womenstudied, in terms of how they perceived personal dangerduring the daytime.

The results of a pair of �� tests indicate there is nota signi"cant di!erence between the levels of danger per-ceived by the men during the day and nighttime(��"2.112, �'0.05). However, a signi"cant di!erencedoes exist between how the women perceived dangeraccording to the time (��"24.637, �(0.05). Indeed,Table 1 shows a higher percentage of women felt Londonwas dangerous or slightly dangerous during the nightthan the daytime. In contrast, a lower percentage ofwomen perceived low levels of danger or virtually nodanger during the night compared to the daytime. The

N. Carr / Tourism Management 22 (2001) 565}570 567

Table 3Perception of danger in London according to group composition (% of tourists in brackets)

Perceived levelof danger

Daytime Nighttime

By self Single sexgroups

Mixed sexgroups

By self Single sexgroups

Mixed sexgroups

Very dangerous 0 (0.00) 0 (0.00) 0 (0.00) 0 (0.00) 0 (0.00) 0 (0.00)Dangerous 2 (3.17) 4 (5.19) 0 (0.00) 1 (2.86) 6 (11.11) 1 (5.26)Slightly dangerous 16 (25.40) 15 (19.48) 6 (24.00) 12 (34.29) 22 (40.74) 11 (57.89)Low danger 20 (31.75) 39 (50.65) 13 (52.00) 15 (42.86) 20 (37.04) 7 (36.84)Virtually no danger 25 (39.68) 19 (24.68) 6 (24.00) 7 (20.00) 6 (11.11) 0 (0.00)�� test results 8.305� 8.145�

��'0.05.

Table 2Group composition of men and women backpackers in London (% oftourists in brackets)

Groupcomposition

Daytime Nighttime

Men Women Men Women

By self 40 (57.14) 21 (24.14) 18 (34.62) 19 (32.20)Single sex 21 (30.00) 53 (60.92) 25 (48.08) 29 (49.15)Mixed sex 9 (12.86) 13 (14.94) 9 (17.31) 11 (18.64)�� test results 18.864 0.082� 0.000 0.960

results of these �� tests, and the data illustrated inTable 1, indicate that women are likely to perceive higherlevels of personal danger at night than during the day-time. In contrast, the data suggests that time doesnot have a signi"cant in#uence on men's perception ofpersonal danger.

The results highlighted in Table 1 illustrate how bothmen and women can perceive a variety of levels of dangerwhen in London during the day and nighttime. Thisallows an expansion of Mowl's (1994) suggestion that theleisure spaces of some (i.e., men) can be places of per-ceived danger for others (i.e., women). Instead of &others'being only women, as Mowl intimates, this group mayactually consist of both men and women. Consequently,the results highlighted in Table 1 indicate that neitherwomen nor men should be treat as homogenous groups(Scraton & Watson, 1998). This concept suggests theremay be other in#uences, in addition to gender, that areresponsible for how danger is perceived.

5. Group composition

The results illustrated in Table 2 show there is a signi"-cant di!erence between the genders, in terms of theirgroup composition during the daytime. Indeed, during

this time 33 per cent more men than women were bythemselves, making this the most common type of groupcomposition for the men. In comparison, the majority ofwomen tended to be in single sex groups during this time.These results suggest that women prefer to go into publicspaces in groups, while men are more likely to go out bythemselves. However, this does not seem to be true of allthe women and men studied, which again highlights theheterogeneous nature of the two genders. In contrast tothe daytime, Table 2 shows there is not a signi"cantdi!erence between the men and women, in terms of whothey went out with during the nighttime.

The temporal di!erence in group composition of themen illustrated in Table 2 is signi"cant at the 0.05per cent level (��"6.171). The data shows that duringthe nighttime the percentage of men by themselves islower and the percentage in single sex groups is higherthan during the daytime. A potential explanation of thischange is provided by Carr (1997), who suggests that inaddition to acting as a safety net against perceiveddanger the group is an important social tool, especially atnight. That the men's perception of personal danger doesnot change signi"cantly between the day and nighttime,suggests the function of the group as a safety net for themen does not change signi"cantly according to the time.This indicates that the increase in percentage of men ingroups at night compared to during the daytime may beprimarily due to the socializing function of the group.Interestingly, the results illustrated in Table 2 show thereis not a signi"cant di!erence between the group composi-tion of the women during the day and nighttime(��"1.995, �'0.05). This con#icts with the hypothesisthat women are more likely to seek the company ofgroups, particularly mixed sex ones, during the nighttimethan the day (Valentine, 1989). The lack of any signi"cantchange in the group composition of the women alsoquestions the in#uence of perception of danger on groupcomposition.

To assess the nature of any relationship between groupcomposition and perception of danger, Table 3 highlights

568 N. Carr / Tourism Management 22 (2001) 565}570

how the tourists perceived danger during the day andnighttime when they were divided according to whomthey were with at the time. The table shows there is nota signi"cant di!erence between the di!erent groups, interms of how they perceived personal danger duringeither the day or nighttime. One explanation for the lowlevels of danger perceived by most of the tourists out bythemselves could be related to the increasingly hedonisticand risk oriented behaviour linked to young people,irrespective of gender (Wilkinson, 1994). The resultsshown in Table 3 may also be, at least partially, a func-tion of individual personality (Carr, 1999). Consequently,while being in a mixed sex group may enable some peopleto perceive low levels of danger, or virtually no danger,other tourists in this type of group may perceive higherlevels of danger which are a function of their individualpersonality and not their group composition. This sug-gests that perception may be in#uenced by group com-position, but that personality also has a role to play indetermining the level of danger perceived by each person.

6. Conclusion

It is important to note that the results highlighted inthis paper may be speci"c to young tourists. These peopletend to possess motivations and personal traits that aredi!erent from the general population (Loker-Murphy& Pearce, 1995; Pastor, 1991). This may lead to di!er-ences between young tourists and the general population,in terms of their perception of danger, group composi-tion, and gendered di!erences/similarities. Consequently,any attempts to generalize the results of this paper shouldbe treat with a degree of caution. Despite this, someinteresting results have emerged from this study thatboth support and contradict research on perception ofdanger in the home environment. The similarities foundbetween the men and women may be a symptom of theblurring of the gender boundaries, but the remainingdi!erences suggest that the behaviour of men and womenis still, at least partially, distinguishable. The results ofprevious research on women's perception of danger com-bined with those highlighted in this paper indicate thatthe convergence of the genders may be a result of changesin how women perceive personal danger. It may also bethe case that men's perception of danger is changing.However, a lack of previous research on the way menperceive danger makes it di$cult to assess the validity ofthis hypothesis. Another explanation of the apparentsimilarities between the genders is related to the similarit-ies in the personal traits of the tourist population studied.This suggests that an individual's perception of danger isnot only in#uenced by the socio-cultural norms andvalues that gender represents, but also by personal desir-es. Additional research is required to assess the validity ofthis concept.

In terms of group composition, the current study hascon"rmed the apparent preference of women for groups,but not for mixed sex ones. More detailed work is re-quired to provide explanations for these results, but it ispossible that a rising determination amongst women notto be controlled by men or their perceived fears has beena contributory factor. The study has also con"rmed thatmen are more likely than women to go out in publicduring the day and at night by themselves. However, it isclear that a signi"cant percentage of women are willingto go out in public at any time by themselves. Building onthis hypothesis, more research needs to be carried outthat progresses beyond the assumptions of commonalitybetween people on the basis of their gender. Instead, it isimportant that work is conducted which begins to ex-plore the in#uence of individual personality on groupcomposition. This concept recognizes the potential in#u-ence of socio-cultural norms and values on individuals,but also notes the ability of people to develop personali-ties outside of these norms in a way that ensures thatgender relations and roles are in a constant state ofchange (Rose, 1993; Jackson, 1989). Additionally, re-search is required that further assesses the relationshipbetween group composition and perception of danger.

Due to the nature of the data collection method utiliz-ed for this study explanations for the group composi-tions, perceptions of danger, and gendered di!erences/similarities observed are di$cult to make. However, thequestionnaires have provided the framework and foun-dation necessary for a more detailed study of perceptionof danger within the urban holiday environment. It maybe suggested that group composition can be in#uencedby perception of danger, and vice versa, and that socio-cultural norms and values may in#uence perception.However, personal desires also have a role to play. De-tailed discussion with and observation of young tourists,speci"cally, and men and women in general is needed toassess the validity of the results of this study, providemore detailed explanations for them, and apply them tothe general population.

Acknowledgements

The University of Hertfordshire funded the researchon which this paper is based.

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