cultural differences in travel risk perception

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Cultural Differences in Travel Risk PerceptionYvette Reisinger a & Felix Mavondo ba School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Florida International University, 3000 N.E.151st HM 210, North Miami, FL, 33181-3000, USAb Department of Marketing, Faculty of Business and Economics, Monash University,Melbourne, Victoria, 3800, Australia

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Cultural Differences in Travel Risk Perception

Yvette ReisingerFelix Mavondo

ABSTRACT. This paper explores differences in perceptions of travel risk and safety, anxiety andintentions to travel among international tourists from Australia, Canada, Greece, Hong Kong, theUnited Kingdom, and the United States. Data were collected from 830 respondents using a struc-tured questionnaire. The results show that there are significant differences in perceptions of travelrisk and safety, anxiety and travel intentions among tourists from different countries. Tourists fromthe United States, Hong Kong and Australia perceived more travel risk, felt less safe, were moreanxious and reluctant to travel than tourists from the United Kingdom, Canada and Greece. Themarketing implications of the findings are discussed. doi:10.1300/J073v20n01_02 [Article copiesavailable for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address:<[email protected]> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com> © 2006 by The HaworthPress, Inc. All rights reserved.]

KEYWORDS. Travel risk, travel safety, perception, anxiety, intentions to travel

INTRODUCTION

An important global issue is to understandhow potential travelers perceive the concept ofrisk and safety as related to tourism. This isparticularly vital in the current political andsocio-economic situation when tourists are fac-ing an increasing risk when they travel awayfrom home. Today, the probability of risk thatan individual will be a victim of terrorism, in-ternational conflict, health hazard or naturaldisaster is higher than ever before. If the tour-ism industry is going to be prosperous, a betterunderstanding of international tourists’ per-ceptions of risk and safety is needed. Conse-quently, the issues of risk and safety withinthe tourism industry justify attention and re-search.

Risk

There are a large variety of conceptualizationsof perceived risk. Roget’s II: The New The-saurus Dictionary (1995) refers to risk as (1) apossibility of danger, harm, or loss; and (2) achance or hazard. Consumer researchers de-fine risk in terms of the (a) uncertainty of buy-ing a product (or service) (Dowling & Staelin,1994); (b) unfavorable consequences of a pur-chase (Cunningham, 1967; Dowling & Staelin);(c) expectation of loss (Stone & Winter, 1987);and (d) the amount of loss (Cunningham).Risk is also defined as the “chance” if the fo-cus is on probability and “danger” if the focusis on negative consequences (Kogan & Wallach,1964).

Yvette Reisinger is Associate Professor, School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Florida InternationalUniversity, 3000 N.E. 151st HM 210, North Miami, FL 33181-3000 (E-mail: [email protected]). FelixMavondo is Associate Professor and Deputy Head and Director of Research, Department of Marketing, Faculty ofBusiness and Economics, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria 3800, Australia (E-mail: [email protected]).

Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, Vol. 20(1) 2006Available online at http://jttm.haworthpress.com

© 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.doi:10.1300/J073v20n01_02 13

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Risk influences individual perceptions anddecision process (Cheron & Ritchie, 1982)when the outcomes of the decision are uncer-tain (MacCrimmon & Wehrung, 1986). Riskcreates emotions that generate anxiety andfear the outcomes of the purchasing decisions(Ropeik, 2001). A purchase that is risky gen-erates a feeling of anxiety and fear of un-known consequences (Dowling & Staelin,1994). These feelings have a direct bearing onhow safe people feel with their purchases.

Risk should not be confused with uncer-tainty. Risk has a known probability and un-certainty lacks a precise probability (Knight,1948). However, it does not really matterwhether the consumer knows this probability(Cunningham, 1967). In fact, it is very rarethat consumers know probabilities of risk inpurchase behavior.

Types of Risk

There are two types of risk recognized: ab-solute (real) and perceived (subjective) risk(Haddock, 1993). Absolute risk is assessed bycommercial providers who implement safetyprocedures to ensure that the real risk is mini-mized. Perceived risk is assessed by the indi-vidual and its level is measured in a particularcontext (Haddock). The focus of this study ison perceived risk because (a) people are mostlyconcerned with perceived risk; (b) they havelimited information and involvement in a num-ber of different risks (Bauer, 1967); (c) theyare concerned with only a few possible out-comes rather than in the total outcome of theirdecisions (Budescu & Wallsten, 1985); (d) realworld or objective risk does not exist (Stone &Winter, 1985); and if it exists then (e) objec-tive risk is difficult to obtain and all that can beeasily measured is the perceived risk (Mitch-ell, 1999).

Risk Perception in Tourism

In the tourism context, risk has been de-fined as what is perceived and experienced bythe tourists during the process of purchasingand consuming travel services (Tsaur, Tzeng,& Wang, 1997). Since travel products are ofexperiential nature tourists’ perceptions andexperiences can only be evaluated after the

product is purchased and/or during the productconsumption. As a result, the purchase oftravel products generates high uncertainty asto their outcomes (Walsh, 1986).

Types of Risk Associated with Tourism

The five major risks associated with tour-ism are terrorism (Richter, 2003), war and po-litical instability (Sonmez, Apostolopoulos, &Tarlow, 1999), health (Richter, 2003), crime(Dimanche & Lepetic, 1999), and cultural andlanguage difficulties (Basala & Klenosky, 2001).These risks are of growing importance in theglobal tourism environment and present threatsnot only to tourists but also host societies andthe tourist’s home nations (Richter, 2003).

Terrorism poses the greatest threat to inter-national tourism (Norton, 1994) and has a muchgreater negative effect on the tourism industrythan any other human-caused (e.g., crime,regional tensions, international conflicts) ornatural (e.g., hurricanes, earthquakes, floods)catastrophe or disaster (Cavlek, 2002). Manytravelers face a risk of being caught up in ter-rorist attacks. Recent years have seen a worryingincrease in terrorist activities, their frequencyand severity. Terrorist attacks have been ex-tended to many locations worldwide. SinceSeptember 11, 2001 numerous attacks havebeen carried out in Tunisia, Yemen, Morocco,Colombia, Indonesia, Philippines, and SaudiArabia. There have been a number of terroristattacks in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, andIraq. Several violent attacks took place in Rus-sia, Spain, and Turkey. Also, there has been anincrease in attacks against “Western” targets.

War and political instability can deter tour-ists from travel. For example, the massacre inTiananmen Square in China forced 11,500tourists to cancel their visits to Beijing in 1989(Gartner & Shen, 1992). The Persian GulfWar in 1991 caused a massive redirection oftourists away from the Middle East. Even des-tinations such as Kenya and Tanzania that arefar removed from the Middle East were nega-tively affected (Honey, 1999). The war on ter-ror in Afghanistan has created a 54 percentdecline in tourist visits to Nepal (Thapa, 2004).

Health risk generates a great concern amonginternational tourists. AIDS, litter, garbage,deforestation, pesticide use, malaria, mosqui-

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toes, the West Nile fever cause potential healthhazards and pose far greater demand for safetyand hygiene than ever before (Richter, 2003).For example, a risk of HIV infection and grow-ing numbers of AIDS cases discourage visi-tors from traveling to some destinations inAfrica. Dirty beaches, stinking rivers and foodborne illnesses put off visitors from travelingto Bali (eTurboNews, 2004). Dengue Fever, amosquito-borne illness for which there is novaccine or cure, scares visitors to Aruba andthe Caribbean. An outbreak of Foot and MouthDisease (FMD) in the United Kingdom de-terred thousands of the U.S. tourists fromSouth West England. The Severe Acute Re-spiratory Syndrome (SARS) had a more dev-astating effect on the airline industry than theSeptember 11th attacks (Morgan, 2003).

Crime threatens the well-being of interna-tional tourism. Tourists are occasionallykilled, subject to robberies and other crimes.For example, crime against tourists caused de-clines in international visitors to Brazil, PapuaNew Guinea, Republic of South Africa (Pizam,Tarlow, & Bloom, 1997). Criminal activitytargeting German tourists is a major set-back for the Hungarian tourism development(Michalko, 2004). A high crime rate is also amajor drawback in New Orleans’ tourism de-velopment (Dimanche & Lepetic, 1999).

Cultural and language difficulties representanother issue of concern to international tourists.Although differences in cultures, religions andlanguages represent travel motivators them-selves, they are often perceived as trouble-some and create travel barriers (Basala &Klenosky, 2001).

Travel risks associated with diseases, crime,natural disasters, hygiene, transportation, dif-ferent cultures and languages, and uncertaintyrelated to destination specific laws and regu-lations have been examined by Maser andWeiermair (1998). Other risks that are mostoften associated with pleasure travel are finan-cial, psychological, satisfaction and time risks(Roehl & Fesenmaier, 1992).

Table 1 presents different types of risk asso-ciated with tourism. Tourists may perceiveone or more types of travel risks, or their com-binations, when traveling away from home.

Factors Influencing Risk Perceptionin Tourism

Tourists’ perceptions of risk may depend onthe type of risk and its importance to a con-sumer (Tsaur et al., 1997); socio-demographicfactors, such as age, social status (Schweer,1986) and gender (Gibson & Yiannakis, 2002);psychographic factors such as personality(Carr, 2001; Schweer, 1986) or motivation(Lepp & Gibson, 2003); organizational factorssuch as travel arrangements (group versus in-dividual travel); situation (Roehl & Fesenmaier,1992; Slovic 1972; Slovick & Lichtenstein,

Yvette Reisinger and Felix Mavondo 15

TABLE 1. Types of Risk Associated with Tourism

Type of risk Examples

Crime Possibility of being robbed, becoming a subjectof rape or murder

Cultural Possibility of experiencing difficulties incommunicating with foreigners, culturalmisunderstanding, inability to adjust to aforeign way of life and standards

Equipment Possibility of mechanical, equipment,organizational problems occurring during travelor at destination (transportation, accommodation,attractions)

Financial Possibility of not obtaining value for money;losing or wasting money if travel expectationsare not fulfilled

Health Possibility of becoming sick while travelingor at the destination

Performance Possibility of not receiving holiday benefits dueto the travel product or service not performingwell

Physical Possibility of being physically injured, includesdanger and injury detrimental to health(accidents)

Political Possibility of becoming involved in the politicalturmoil of the country being visited

Psychological Possibility that travel experience will not reflecttraveler’s personality or self-image, damageself-image, reflect poorly on personality

Satisfaction Possibility of not achieving personalsatisfaction and/or self-actualization withtravel experience

Social Possibility that vacation choices or activitieswill be disapproved of by friends, families,associates; losing or lowering personal andsocial status, appearing unfashionable

Terrorism Possibility of being involved in a terrorist actsuch as airplane or personal hijacking, bombexplosion or biochemical attack

Time Possibility that travel experience will take toomuch time, product will not perform on time;traveler will lose or waste time

Source: Sonmez and Graefe (1998a); Basala and Klenosky (2001);Dimanche and Lepetic (1999).

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1968); stage of travel (McIntosh, Swanson,Power, Raeside, & Dempster, 1998); an indi-vidual knowledge and risk acceptance, andthe degree of voluntary exposure to risk(Dowling & Staelin, 1994). Thus, individualsmay perceive the same risk in different ways(Kahneman & Tversky, 1982).

In international tourism, tourists’ percep-tions of risk may greatly depend on cultural,religious and political factors. According toSeddighi, Nuttall, and Theocharous (2001),perception of risk varies by nationality. Travel-ers of different nationalities may perceive thesame risk differently (Richardson & Crompton,1988).

Cultural Differences in Risk Perception

Several cross-cultural studies identified culturaldifferences in risk perceptions (Goszczynska,Tyszka, & Slovic, 1991; Mechitov & Rebrik,1990; Teigen, Brun, & Slovic, 1988), risk ad-justment (Tse, Vertinsky, & Wehrung, 1988)and reactions to terrorism risk (Tremblay,1989; Wall, 1996). A number of studies haveshown that perceived risk varies across coun-tries (Hoover, Green, & Saegert, 1978; Verhage,Yavas, & Green, 1990). Significant differ-ences in risk preferences were reported be-tween respondents from the People’s Republicof China (P.R.C.), U.S., Germany and Polandwhen buying financial options (Weber & Hsee,1998). American, Mexican, Dutch, Turkish,Thai and Saudi consumers were found to bedifferent in their risk perception for consumerproducts (Yavas, Verhage, & Green, 1992).Risk was found to be a less important determi-nant of purchase behavior in Mexico than inthe United States (Hoover, Green, & Saegert,1978).

In tourism, significant differences in per-ceived risk were found between American andChinese-Malaysian students when choosingAustralia as a holiday destination (Summers &McColl-Kennedy, 1998) and among touristsof various nationalities when traveling to Is-rael (Fuchs & Reichel, 2004). Also, riskfactors of a holiday package were found tovary significantly between cultures. Cypriotrespondents perceived more risk than the UKrespondents (Mitchell & Vassos, 1997).

Anxiety

Anxiety is a subjective feeling of being ner-vous, apprehensive, stressed, vulnerable, un-comfortable, disturbed, scared (McIntyre &Roggenbuck, 1998) and frustrated (Hullett &Witte, 2001), which occurs as a consequenceof being exposed to risk. Griffith and Albanese(1996) define anxiety as a stronger than normalfeeling of insecurity. According to Gudykunstand Hammer (1988), anxiety “refers to thefear of negative consequences” (p. 126).

A significant level of anxiety among travel-ers has been generated by fear of terrorist at-tacks, bombing and kidnapping. Several studieshave documented the development of stress,fear, shock, and depression related to the ter-rorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 (Galeaet al., 2002; Raphael, Natelson, Janal, & Nayak,2002; Rosenheck, Schuster, Stein, & Jaycox,2002; Schuster et al., 2001). Tourists may alsohold fears and feel threatened or intimidatedby crime, language difficulties, and limitedknowledge of their locality (Barker, Page, &Meyer, 2003). Lynch (1960) suggests that un-familiarity and difficulties in a new environ-ment may have implications for a sense ofsecurity and emotional instability (see alsoYoung, Morris, Cameron, & Haslett, 1997).The most common travel-related anxieties thatbring fear include traveling long distances,driving on highways, traveling by train andby metro (Center for Travel Anxiety, 2002),take-off and landing of aircraft, flight delays,and baggage reclaim (McIntosh et al., 1998).Every traveler experiences anxiety to a certaindegree when facing risk or uncertainty. Some,however, may feel more anxious than others.

Safety

The tourism industry is safety and securitydependent (Tarlow & Santana, 2002). Safetyand security for domestic and internationaltravelers are long-standing global concerns(Smith, 1999). Perceptions of safety greatlyinfluence tourists’ intentions to travel inter-nationally. Lack of safety is a strong predic-tor of tourists avoiding some tourist destinations(Sonmez & Graefe, 1998a).

Tourists differ in their perceptions and needsfor safety. Barker et al. (2003) revealed that in-


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ternational tourists attending the 2000 Amer-ica’s Cup in Auckland, New Zealand, placed ahigher importance on demands for safety thandomestic tourists. Significant differences insafety perceptions were also noted among dif-ferent ethnic groups. Chinese visitors felt rela-tively safe and Japanese visitors felt relativelyunsafe compared with European visitors. Inthe study of visitors’ perception of Seoul, Ko-rea, Suh and Gartner (2004) reported that theJapanese were particularly more interested insecurity attributes of tourism products than theNorth American and European business groups.Pizam and Jeong (1996) identified differencesin the needs for safety versus adventure amongJapanese, Korean and American tourists.

Intentions to Travel

Perceptions of travel risk, anxiety, and per-ceptions of safety are important determinantsof international travel (Reisinger & Mavondo,2005). Ryan (1995) suggests that tourist visi-tation is consistent with theories of risk aver-sion. The feelings of high risk and insecurityhave a direct bearing on how anxious touristsfeel about a destination. If tourists feel threat-ened and nervous during their travel or stay,they are not likely to feel safe and return to thatdestination. According to Sonmez and Graefe(1998a, 1998b), perceived risk and lack ofsafety directly influences vacation destinationchoice and have a strong influence on avoid-ance of risky regions. The destinations per-ceived as too risky may be eliminated from thelist of potential destinations to visit. The per-ceptions of safety also determine tourists’ in-terests in future travel (Sonmez & Graefe,1998a). For example, safety was regarded bythe American travelers as one of the signifi-cant predictors of their likelihood of travel toTurkey (Sonmez & Sirakaya, 2002).

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

This study aims to (1) examine whetherthere are any significant differences in travelrisk and safety perceptions, anxiety, and inten-tions to travel among six national groups oftourists; and (2) assess whether the differences(if any) in travel risk and safety perceptions,

anxiety, and travel intentions are due to the in-fluence of national culture or demographiccharacteristics of the respondents, such as ageand gender. Dann (1993) argues that national-ity cannot solely be used to explain the differ-ences in the behavior of tourists. Pizam andSussmann (1995) claim that nationality shouldbe used with other variables to properly under-stand tourist behavior. Thus, the concept of thenational culture is used to identify differencesin the perceptions of travel risk and safety aftercontrolling for age and gender.

In this study, national culture refers to a sta-ble and dominant cultural character of a soci-ety shared by most of its individuals andremaining constant over long period of time.National culture does not refer to the subcul-tures of many ethnic groups living in a society,which may be distinguished by religion, race,or geographical location. The authors admitthat national cultures of tourists are heteroge-neous, and there are many regional and indi-vidual differences in any culture. However,the issue of the regional and ethnic differencesis not analyzed here. The aim is to analyzetourist groups from a broad national perspec-tive and to recognize the influence of a domi-nant cultural character of the groups thatdistinguishes them from each other.

HYPOTHESES

This study hypothesizes that:

H1: There are significant differences in travelrisk perceptions among six nationalgroups of tourists.

H2: There are significant differences in travelanxiety among six national groups oftourists.

H3: There are significant differences in safetyperceptions among six national groupsof tourists.

H4: There are significant differences in in-tentions to travel among six nationalgroups of tourists.


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H5: Although the differences in travel riskand safety perceptions, anxiety and in-tentions to travel occur due to the in-fluence of national culture, some ofthese differences occur as a result ofthe influence of age and gender.

METHOD

Sample

The total sample consisted of 830 tourists toAustralia: 148 from Canada, 73 from Greece,110 from Hong Kong, 102 from the UnitedKingdom, 124 from the U.S., and 273 fromAustralia. The foreign groups were selectedfor their significance to the Australian tourismmarket. Although New Zealand and Japanrepresent major markets to Australia NewZealand was not selected due to its culturalsimilarity with Australia. The responses ob-tained from New Zealand tourists could bequite similar to Australians. Japan was not se-lected because of the difficulties in obtainingthe permission from tour operators to surveythe Japanese tourists.

The foreign groups were also chosen on abasis of their countries’ location on one of thefour Hofstede’s dimensions of national cul-ture, such as (1) uncertainty avoidance (UA),the extent to which culture encourages risktaking and tolerates uncertainty; (2) powerdistance (PD), the extent to which society ac-cepts inequality between people and social hi-erarchy that dictates how to behave in order tobe protected from the unknowns; (3) individu-alism/collectivism (I/C), the extent to whichculture encourages individuals to be concernedabout own needs and taking risk to achieve in-dividual goals; and (4) masculinity/femininity(M/F), the extent to which gender roles aredistinct (men are aggressive, assertive, andrisk taking; while female are concerned aboutothers, social harmony, quality of life, andsafety (Hofstede, 1980, 2001) (see Table 2).

Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, the UnitedStates and Canada scored lowly on the UA di-mension that has a direct bearing on how visi-tors from these countries define and evaluaterisk and safety, which in turn is reflected intheir intentions to travel in future. It was ex-

pected that these societies would be more will-ing to tolerate higher risk, as opposed to thosewho scored relatively high on the UA dimen-sion. Greece scored the highest on the UA di-mension. It was expected that visitors fromGreece would be the least willing to take risk,most anxious and concerned about their travelsafety.

The United States scored the highest on theindividualism dimension, followed by Austra-lia, the United Kingdom and Canada. It wasexpected that members of these societies wouldbe willing to take risk to achieve and satisfytheir individual travel needs, as opposed tothose from collectivist societies. Hong Kongscored highly on collectivism. It was expectedthat tourists from Hong Kong society that em-phasizes consensus, cooperation, and socialharmony would be very concerned about riskand take little or no travel risk, as opposed totourists from individualist societies.

The United Kingdom scored highly on themasculinity dimension that emphasizes thevalue of success and accepts a high stress andanxiety level. It was believed that touristsfrom the United Kingdom would be more ag-gressive and assertive and exhibit more needfor risk and less for safety, as opposed to tour-ists from more feminine cultures such as Can-ada. Canada is a modest, empathetic, caringand concerned with quality of life and safetynets country. It was assumed that tourists fromCanada would be more concerned about theirtravel safety than tourists from the UnitedKingdom or the United States. Australia andthe United States scored relatively high on themasculinity index.


TABLE 2. Ranking of Six Countries on Hofstede’s(2001) Four Value Dimensions

Country UncertaintyAvoidance

PowerDistance

Individualism Masculinity

Australia 37 41 2 16

Canada 41/42 39 4/5 24

Greece 1 27/28 30 18/19

Hong Kong 49/50 15/16 37 18/19

UK 47/48 42/44 3 9/10

USA 43 38 1 15

Source: Hofstede (2001).Note: A low ranking (e.g., 3) indicates a high rating on that dimension.

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The United Kingdom, followed by Australia,Canada, and the United States scored lowly onthe power distance dimension. These coun-tries take more risk than members of the highPD cultures (e.g., Hong Kong) that rely uponhierarchical systems of authority and formalrules that give people directions how to be-have and protect them from unknown and anx-ieties.

The characteristics of the Hong Kong soci-ety, however, may be questioned. In the pastfew decades Hong Kong society has experi-enced the influences of Western culture. Itmay be argued that modernization, economicdevelopment and socio-cultural changes inHong Kong might lead to changes in the tra-ditional value system. However, Wong andLau (2001), who investigated the Hong Kongtourists’ cultural values in comparison to Chi-nese values, revealed that most Hong KongChinese tourists today place importance onChinese cultural values and follow the teach-ing of Confucius. Although Hong Kong Chi-nese tourists did not assign importance tosome Chinese values such as reciprocation,being conservative, social harmony, probablybecause they have become more open, indi-vidualistic, liberal and materialistic in nature,they regarded safety as a major considerationin traveling activities, which was contrary tothe Hofstede’s findings.

It seems that the six selected groups of in-ternational tourists represent cultures quitedifferent from one another and thus their per-ceptions of travel risk, safety, anxiety andtravel intentions might be dissimilar.

Instrument

A structured questionnaire was developed.Thirteen travel risk perceptions (see Table 1)were measured on a 7-point scale varyingfrom “none” (1) to “very high” (7). Anxietywas measured using 12 bi-polar adjectives.The respondents were asked to rate their feel-ings (e.g., calm/worried; relaxed/tense; com-posed/stressed) on a 7-point scale. Perceptionsof travel safety in various situations (e.g., athotels, airports, when sightseeing) were mea-sured on a 7-point scale ranging from “veryunsafe” (1) to “very safe” (7). Intentions totravel internationally (e.g., cancel all travel plans,

intent to fly/travel again) were measured on a10-point scale (0 = no intention; 10 = definiteintention). The survey also posed questions re-garding the respondents’ age and gender.

No specific destination was chosen for thisstudy in order to eliminate the possible effectsof respondents’ prior knowledge and pasttravel experience with that destination. Thestudy examined the perceptions of risk andsafety perceptions in relation to any destina-tion.

Procedure

The questionnaire was developed in Eng-lish, translated by a professional languagetranslation service into Greek and Mandarin,and then translated back into English. A pilottest was conducted with 60 international tour-ists (10 from each national group) to makesure the statements in the questionnaire werefully understood by respondents.

The survey instrument was randomly ad-ministered to tourists by teams of six researchassistants who had been trained on how to sur-vey the tourists to ensure consistency in theirwork. Two research assistants were nativeGreek and Mandarin language speakers. Theseresearch assistants were instructed to conductthe interview verbally in the tourist specificlanguages with the bilingual questionnaire inhand. The assistants collected the surveys im-mediately back upon their completion.

Only tourists older than 18 years of agewere surveyed. Those aged 18 and youngerwere considered not mature enough to judgethe degree of perceived travel risk. Only plea-sure travelers (holidaymakers) were soughtfor the study. Only one respondent as the rep-resentative of families, couples, and grouptravelers was asked to complete the survey.

A screening question was asked to identifythose respondents who had been born, raisedand lived in the same country. Foreign nation-als (born in one country and raised in another)and those who were born and raised in onecountry and lived in another for extended peri-ods of time might perceive the travel risk dif-ferently than those who were born, raised andlived in the same country.

The survey was conducted in Melbourne,Australia, during a 2-month period between


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December 2002 and January 2003. Respon-dents were randomly selected from a popula-tion of visitors to The Victoria Market, BotanicGarden, Melbourne Arts Center, HealsvilleSanctuary and Phillip Island in Victoria, Aus-tralia. The tourist attractions were chosen onthe basis of the size of the tourist populationvisiting particular places and their willingnessto participate in the research. Of the 1,000 sur-veys distributed, 830 usable surveys were re-turned for an overall return rate of 83%. Smallsouvenirs were given to the travelers as an in-centive to increase the response rate.

Data Analysis

Frequency distribution of the variables wasconducted in order to identify the respondents’profile (age and gender), and compare meansand standard deviations for each behavioralvariable. A series of one-way ANOVA testswere carried out to compare the six groups oftourists and identify which groups were differ-ent in their perception of travel risk and safety,anxiety and travel intentions. However, in or-der to ensure other factors that might accountfor across group differences, we first con-trolled for age and gender as covariates. Thisway the effects of the covariates were partialledout before the comparisons of the travel riskand safety perception, anxiety and travel in-tentions were made. This had also the effect ofreducing the size of the F-ratios and, in somecases, this made the differences across groupsnot significant (see tables of results). Whenstatistically significant differences in risk andsafety perceptions, anxiety and travel inten-tions among the groups were identified (aftercontrolling for the covariates), results wereexamined further to determine which specificgroups were different. The across group dif-ferences were identified using Least Signifi-cant Differences (LSD) method.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Age

The majority of the total sample (62%)tended to be younger than 30 years of age. TheCanadian sample had the highest percentage

(100%) of those younger than 30 years of age,followed by the Greek (87.6%), U.S. (83.4%),British (70.6%), Hong Kong (69.7%), andAustralian (65.5%) sample (see Table 3).

Gender

The majority of the total sample (65.5%)was represented by female. The U.S. grouphad the highest percentage of female (66.7%),followed by the British (55.9%) and Canadian(50%) group. The Hong Kong and Australiangroup had the highest percentage of male,66.7% and 60.1% respectively (see Table 4).

Age and Gender Influences

Research suggests that the age of the touristmay have an important impact on their percep-tions of risk, anxiety or willingness to travel.Gibson and Yiannakis (2002) reported thatpreference for risk in tourism decreases withage. However, Sonmez and Graefe (1998b)did not find age to influence an individual’sperception of risk. To ensure age did not con-taminate the nationality tests, we controlledfor age as a covariate. There are several vari-ables for which age has been identified as be-ing a significant predictor of risk perceptions(e.g., perception of time waste risk), anxiety(e.g., feeling scared, nervous, hopeless), safetyperceptions (e.g., during check-in, sightseeing,at attractions, at entertainments), and travel in-tentions (probability of traveling again and re-ducing travel). In a few cases this made therelationship between nationality and the age


TABLE 3. Distribution of Age in the Six ForeignGroups (Percent)

Agegroup

Australia UnitedKingdom

Canada Greece HongKong

USA Total

under20

17.9 2.0 8.3 12.3 30.3 16.7 10.3

20-24 27.8 44.1 58.3 49.3 18.2 16.7 34.5

25-29 19.8 24.5 33.3 26.0 21.2 50.0 17.2

30-34 7.3 4.9 - 1.4 12.1 - 3.4

35-39 4.0 2.0 - 4.1 9.1 - 17.2

40-49 12.5 9.8 - 5.5 9.1 - 6.9

50-59 8.1 8.8 - 1.4 - 16.7 6.9

60 andover

2.6 3.9 - - - - 3.4

Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

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variable not significant (e.g., feeling scaredand hopeless) (see Table 5).

Although Sonmez and Graefe (1998b) didnot find gender to influence an individual’sperception of risk, gender is known to be animportant factor influencing risk perceptions.Significant gender differences in risky be-havior have been documented by Mattila,Apostolopoulos, Sonmez, Yu, and Sasidharan(2001). Similarly, Carr (2001) reported thatpreference for risk in tourism differs accord-ing to gender. Gibson and Jordan (1998a,1998b) noted that females are more vulnerableto risk than men. Consequently, there are likelyto be significant differences among the foreigngroups arising from gender differences. To en-sure the interpretation of the cultural differ-ences, we controlled for gender. The analysisshows that there are several variables for whichgender is an important predictor of the differ-ences in risk perceptions (e.g., functional, health,physical, hijacking, bomb explosion and bio-chemical attack), anxiety (e.g., all variablesexcept for feeling scared), safety perceptions(e.g., airport transfer, during air travel, cruis-ing, sightseeing, at attractions), and probabil-ity of traveling again. Again, in a few casesthis made the relationship between nationalityand the gender variable not significant (e.g.,functional risk, feeling fearful, threatened,worried, tense, disturbed and hopeless) (seeTable 5).

Differences in Risk Perception

The ANOVA tests revealed that there weresignificant differences in the risk perceptionin 10 out of 13 travel risk perception itemsamong foreign groups (see Table 6). Culturalrisk was perceived higher by Hong Kong, Ca-nadians and Australians than by the British,with tourists from the USA somewhere in the

middle of the rating scale. There were no signifi-cant differences for functional and financialrisk across countries suggesting some degreeof homogenization of perceptions in thesetypes of risks. It is not that that these types ofrisk are not important; rather, that they are per-ceived similarly across countries in our study.Further, tourists from the USA and UK ap-peared to be the least concerned about healthrisk when undertaking international travel, asopposed to Hong Kong, Canadians and Aus-tralians. This may reflect the fact that touristsfrom the USA and UK factor this in theirtravel arrangements and make contingencyplans than other nationalities. Thus, whentravel is undertaken this is being taken care of.However, Hong Kong tourists appeared to bethe most concerned about the health risk. Thisis not surprising. The SARS illness, first rec-ognized in China, spread to more than 24countries in North and South America, Europeand Asia, and infected a total of 8,360 peopleworldwide and killed 774 in 28 countries(WHO, 2003). The deadly virus has caused ahuge health scare problem. Although the SARSoutbreak was contained, the uncertainty thatsurrounded the deadly disease caused fearamong Hong Kong tourists and deterred thou-sands of them from international travel. Next,tourists from Australia and Hong Kong weremore concerned about the possibility of physi-cal risk than the Greeks and Canadians. Tour-ists from the UK and the USA were not overlyconcerned about this type of risk. With respectto political risk Australians and Hong Kongtourists were more concerned than the Britishand Canadians. With respect to satisfactionrisk again the British tourists appeared signifi-cantly the least concerned, with Australiansand Hong Kong tourists relatively more con-cerned. There was no significant difference insocial risk.

Moreover, the one-way ANOVA tests re-vealed that there was a significant differencein the terrorism risk perception among foreigngroups. Tourists from the USA appeared toperceive the risk of air hijacking far more thanall other tourists. This might be a reflection ofthe traumatic events of September 11th thatmade the US tourists more sensitive to hijack-ing risk than other international tourist mar-kets. Hong Kong and Australian tourists also


TABLE 4. Distribution of Gender in the Six ForeignGroups (Percent)

Gender Australia UnitedKingdom

Canada Greece HongKong

USA Total

Male 60.1 44.1 50.0 54.8 66.7 33.3 34.5

Female 39.9 55.9 50.0 45.2 33.3 66.7 65.5

Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

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TABLE 5. Differences in Risk and Safety Perception, Anxiety and Travel Intentions Across Countries

DIFFERENCES IN RISK PERCEPTIONS

Simultaneously Controlling for (F-ratios) Country effects F-ratio

Variable Gender Age

Cultural risk 0.664 0.162 3.916** p = 0.002

Functional risk 7.152** p = 0.008 0.266 2.858

Financial risk 2.002 0.211 1.452

Health risk 6.753*** p = 0.001 0.624 4.164*** p = 0.001

Physical risk 4.904* p = 0.027 1.107 3.266** p = 0.006

Political risk 0.446 1.039 4.075*** p = 0.001

Psychological risk 0.819 0.731 3.722** p = 0.003

Satisfaction risk 1.490 2.690 3.697** p = 0.003

Social risk 1.486 0.177 2.146

Hijacking risk 19.506*** p = 0.001 1.156 6.216*** p = 0.001

Bomb explosion risk 12.742*** p = 0.001 0.002 4.942*** p = 0.001

Biochemical attack 24.670*** p = 0.001 0.190 5.475*** p = 0.001

Time waste risk 0.926 6.069*** p = 0.014 4.472*** p = 0.001

DIFFERENCES IN ANXIETY


Variable Gender Age

Vulnerable 21.397*** p = 0.001 0.857 2.499* p = 0.03

Lost 19.570*** p = 0.001 0.075 4.484*** p = 0.001

Fearful 11.707*** p = 0.001 0.060 2.140

Concerned 16.025*** p = 0.001 3.105 2.473* p = 0.031

Stressed 4.740* p = 0.03 1.356 2.878** p = 0.014

Threatened 6.545** p = 0.011 0.004 2.038

Worried 13.183*** p = 0.001 3.106 1.042

Scared 3.268 18.161*** p = 0.001 0.406

Tense 8.872** p = 0.003 2.270 1.824

Nervous 15.423*** p = 0.001 4.008* p = 0.046 3.059** p = 0.01

Disturbed 9.682** p = 0.002 2.382 2.068

Hopeless 8.145** p = 0.004 16.055*** p = 0.001 0.744

DIFFERENCES IN SAFETY PERCEPTIONS


Variable Gender Age

During check-in 1.517 3.869* p = 0.05 2.902* p = 0.013

Airport transfer 6.555*** p = 0.011 1.476 5.741*** p = 0.001

During air travel 15.477*** p = 0.001 2.800 11.377*** p = 0.001

Cruising 11.465*** p = 0.001 2.147 6.696*** p = 0.001

At hotels 0.752 0.355 3.790** p = 0.002

During sightseeing 5.866* p = 0.016 6.893** p = 0.009 2.525* p = 0.028

At holiday attractions 8.205** p = 0.004 6.638** p = 0.01 4.946*** p = 0.001

At entertainments 3.087 5.649* p = 0.018 3.074** p = 0.01

In the cities 3.435 2.488 0.905

In the rural environment 1.709 1.995 3.001** p = 0.011

DIFFERENCES IN TRAVEL INTENTIONS


Gender Age

Probability of traveling again 7.029** p = 0.008 13.707*** p = 0.001 10.876*** p = 0.001

Probability of reducing travel 0.905 6.778** p = 0.009 3.621** p = 0.003

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shared the perceived risk of air hijacking. Thisis not surprising given the Australian supportfor the U.S. efforts in war in Iraq. Canadiansand British, however, feared less of air hijack-ing. With respect to the possibility of bio-chemical risk, again tourists from the USAperceived this to be a significant risk, followedby tourists from Hong Kong and Australia.This is consistent with their experience and thecopycat chemical attacks that followed theSeptember 11th attack. Although the industryslowly recovered the impact of the September11th, 2001 attack on the United States, theevent was followed by reports of people beingexposed to, infected by, and dying from an-thrax–an example of bioterrorism. Experienc-ing such disastrous events increased people’sperceptions of risk and vulnerability (Drottz-Sjoberg & Sjoberg, 1990). Again, British andCanadians feared less of biochemical attack.As to bomb explosion risk, tourists from Aus-tralian and the USA perceived this to be a sig-nificant risk, followed by tourists from HongKong. Canadians were the least concernedabout the risk of bomb explosion. Finally, theabove pattern of results is repeated for risk oftime waste. Tourists from the USA perceivedthis to be a significant risk as opposed to Cana-dians, British, Australians and Greeks.

These results supported hypothesis 1. As itwas expected there were significant differ-ences in travel risk perceptions among six na-tional groups of tourists. However, contrary to

expectations, Hong Kong, that scored verylowly on the UA dimension, and Australia,that scored relatively low, perceived highertravel risk than expected. The study confirmedthe Wong and Lau (2001) findings that HongKong Chinese tourists try to avoid risk whentravel. The U.S. group did not confirm its lowrating on the UA index either. Tourists fromthe USA, although from a low UA society,perceived higher terrorism risk than touristsfrom Greece that scored the highest on the UAdimension. Tourists from the UK, Canada andGreece perceived less travel risk than othergroups.

Differences in Anxiety

The ANOVA tests revealed that there weresignificant differences in anxiety among tour-ists from different countries in 5 out of 12measuring items (see Table 7). Tourists fromHong Kong and Australia felt significantlymore vulnerable than British tourists. Touristsfrom Hong Kong and Australia also felt morelost than British, Canadians or tourists fromthe USA. There was no difference in feelingfearful among the groups. The British and Ca-nadians felt the least concerned, with HongKong tourists, followed by Australian, themost concerned. The British also felt the leaststressed, as opposed to tourists from Hong Kongand Australia. There was no difference acrosscountries attributable to national culture when


TABLE 6. Differences in Risk Perceptions Across Countries

Means F-Ratio Significantly different groups

Variable British Greeks USA Canada Australia Hong Kong

Cultural risk 2.80 3.07 3.00 3.67 3.49 3.76 3.916*** HK, AU, C > B

Functional risk 2.80 3.25 4.00 3.42 3.31 3.36 2.858 No significantly different groups

Financial risk 3.08 3.60 3.00 3.67 3.23 3.03 1.452 No significant differences

Health risk 3.25 3.44 2.83 4.00 3.90 4.33 4.164*** HK and AU > B; HK, AU, C > U

Physical risk 2.87 2.78 2.83 2.75 3.38 3.39 3.266** AU and HK > G, C

Political risk 2.53 2.49 3.17 2.33 3.15 3.39 4.075*** AU > B and C; HK > C

Psychological risk 1.90 2.27 3.00 2.75 2.11 2.24 3.722** No significantly different groups

Satisfaction risk 2.14 2.79 2.17 2.42 2.80 2.94 3.697** AU > B

Social risk 2.00 1.96 2.33 1.50 2.04 2.39 2.146 No significantly different groups

Hijacking risk 2.32 2.48 3.67 2.17 3.18 3.21 6.216*** U > B, G, C; HK and AU > C

Bomb explosion risk 2.21 2.36 3.00 2.08 3.03 2.85 4.942*** AU and U > B and C

Biochemical attack 1.90 2.14 3.33 2.00 2.67 2.85 5.475*** U > B, G, C; AU, U and HK > C

Time waste risk 2.08 2.23 3.50 2.00 2.20 2.64 4.472*** U > B, G, C and AU

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respondents were asked whether they werethreatened, worried, scared, tense, disturbedand felt hopeless. Perhaps these adjectives aretoo strong for anybody going on holiday to ad-mit. Besides why undertake the trip if one wasworried, scared or felt tense about it. Thismight be a case of socially desirable answers.In the case of feeling threatened, worried, tense,disturbed and hopeless gender played an im-portant role in differentiating the groups. Sim-ilarly, age had a significant effect on feelingsof being scared and hopeless. Further, touristsfrom the USA, Australia and Hong Kong ap-peared to be the most nervous while the Cana-dians were the least nervous. This supportsNorton’s (1987) finding that the U.S. travelershave become exceedingly nervous about trav-eling.

The results supported hypothesis 2. As itwas expected there were significant differ-ences in travel anxiety among six nationalgroups of tourists. However, contrary to ex-pectations, the Hong Kong and Australiantourists who belong to low UA societies weresignificantly more anxious about their travelthan envisaged. They were more anxious ingeneral than the British and Canadians. Tour-ists from the USA, although nervous abouttraveling, were somewhere in the middle ofthe anxiety scale. In particular, tourists fromGreece, who scored the highest on uncertaintyavoidance, seemed to worry the least about thetravel risk.

Differences in Safety Perception

The ANOVA tests revealed that there weresignificant differences among tourists fromdifferent countries in 9 out of 10 measuringitems (see Table 8). Tourists from the USA,followed by tourists from Hong Kong andAustralia, felt the most intimidated by thecheck-in, with the British and Canadians feel-ing most safe. Tourists from Hong Kong, theUSA and Australia felt relatively unsafe dur-ing transfers at airports when compared toBritish and Canadians. The British and Cana-dians, more than those from the USA, Austra-lia and Hong Kong, felt relatively safe duringflying. The U.S. tourists felt the least safe dur-ing air travel among all other countries. Theseresults may mirror the stringency with whichairport safety procedures are followed in theUSA as compared to the United Kingdom andCanada. The pattern is repeated for cruisingand during stay at the hotels. Tourists fromHong Kong felt the least safe during cruisingand staying at the hotels. Surprisingly, tour-ists from Greece and Canada felt the safestduring sightseeing. Canadians felt the safestvisiting tourist attractions, whereas touristsfrom Hong Kong and Australia felt the leastsafe. In terms of visiting places of entertain-ment, tourists from Hong Kong felt the leastsafe. There was no difference found in theperceptions of safety in the cities across coun-tries. The Hong Kong tourists felt the leastsafe when visiting rural areas. This may reflect


TABLE 7. Differences in Anxiety Across Countries



Vulnerable 2.38 2.74 2.83 2.42 2.96 3.09 2.499* AU and HK > B

Lost 2.33 2.58 2.33 2.33 2.96 3.36 4.484*** HK and AU > B and C; HK > U

Fearful 2.59 2.85 2.33 2.75 3.18 3.55 2.140 No significantly different groups

Concerned 2.96 3.26 3.17 3.00 3.47 3.94 2.473* HK > B and C

Stressed 2.39 2.86 2.67 2.83 2.99 3.24 2.878** HK and AU > B

Threatened 2.67 2.82 3.17 2.42 3.17 3.27 2.038 No significantly different groups

Worried 2.78 2.97 3.17 2.75 3.07 3.33 1.042 No significant differences

Scared 2.37 2.48 2.50 2.25 2.49 2.67 .406 No significant differences

Tense 2.57 2.64 3.00 2.25 2.87 2.91 1.824 No significant differences

Nervous 2.61 2.48 3.00 2.08 2.92 2.91 3.059** HK and AU and U > C

Disturbed 2.56 2.77 2.83 2.42 2.96 3.15 2.068 No significantly different groups

Hopeless 2.54 2.42 2.33 2.58 2.73 2.91 .744 No significant differences

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the fact that most tourists from Hong Kong arecity dwellers or are the wealthy one who canafford international tourism. This may also bea reflection of their feeling of safety in num-bers.

The results supported hypothesis 3. As itwas expected there were significant differ-ences in travel safety perceptions among sixnational groups if tourists. However, againcontrary to expectations tourists from the USA,Hong Kong and Australia, all from low UAcultures, felt less safe than tourists from theUK and Canada. Tourists from the UK, Can-ada and Greece felt the safest.

Differences in Travel Intentions

The ANOVA tests revealed that there weresignificant differences in travel intentionsamong tourists from different countries (seeTable 8). When tourists were asked about theprobability of taking an international trip inthe next 12 months, tourists from the USA andCanada indicated the highest probability (USAabout 80% and Canada about 90%) whileAustralians and Hong Kong tourists were inthe middle with 50%, with the British and Greekssomewhere about 70%. While there were dif-ferences in the probability of reducing interna-tional travel across all nationalities (about20%) these differences were small. The USArecorded the highest probability of reducinginternational travel of 40%. This result is not

surprising. Terrorist attacks specifically target-ing the U.S., and in particular the September11th, 2001 attack on the Twin Towers in NewYork City and the Pentagon in WashingtonD.C. scared many potential U.S. travelers andresulted in cancellations of both vacation andbusiness trips. The U.S. public was warnedabout the possibility of further attacks on theU.S. As a result, there is a fear among the U.S.tourists that similar attacks may occur in thefuture.

The results supported hypothesis 4. Again,as it was expected, there were significantdifferences in travel intentions among sixnational groups of tourists. However, again,contrary to expectations, the U.S. that scoredlowly on uncertainty dimensions exhibited thehighest probability of reducing future traveldue to high fear factor.

SUMMARY

The British and Canadians were the leastconcerned about the travel risk, felt the safestand were less anxious about international trav-eling than tourists from other countries. Thisfinding is consistent with Hofstede (2001) whoclaimed that the British and Canadians scoredvery low on uncertainty avoidance. The Aus-tralian and Hong Kong tourists appeared to bemore prone to travel risk than the British andCanadian, felt less safe, were more anxious


TABLE 8. Differences in Safety Preceptions and Travel Intentions Across Countries



During check-in 6.08 5.68 5.33 6.08 5.56 5.39 2.902* B and C > AU and U and HK

Airport transfer 6.01 5.68 5.17 6.25 5.42 5.00 5.741*** B and C > AU and HK; C >U and AU

During air travel 5.48 4.96 3.17 5.67 4.75 4.85 11.377*** B and C > U and AU; C > G and HK > U

Cruising 5.63 5.40 4.33 5.83 5.29 4.25 6.696*** B, C, AU and G > U and HK

At hotels 5.73 5.63 5.17 5.83 5.29 4.88 3.790** C > AU and HK; B > HK

During sightseeing 5.50 5.70 5.17 5.75 5.17 5.15 2.525* G > AU, HK and U

At holiday attractions 5.58 5.56 5.67 6.25 5.23 5.06 4.946*** C > B, G, AU and HK

At entertainments 5.59 5.62 5.17 5.67 5.15 4.91 3.074** G and C > AU and HK

In the cities 5.31 5.23 5.00 5.25 4.97 5.03 .905 No significant differences

In rural areas 5.28 5.30 4.67 5.25 5.06 4.30 3.001** B & G > HK

INTENTIONS TOTRAVEL

Again 7.03 6.99 7.50 8.75 5.55 5.61 10.876*** C > B, G, AU & HK; B > AU; U & G > AU

Reduce 2.50 2.25 3.83 1.43 2.64 2.42 3.621** B > U, C, G > C; U & AU > C

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and reluctant to travel. This finding is surpris-ing because Hong Kong scored very low onHofstede’s uncertainty avoidance. However,this finding supports Wong and Lau (2001)who claimed that Hong Kong tourists are con-cerned about travel risk and safety. As to Aus-tralians, they value exciting life more thanother groups and a comfortable life less thanother groups (Feather, 1975). Most Austra-lians are venturesome and seek excitement.They often engage in risky and adventurousholiday activities such as scuba diving, bungeejumping or rock-climbing to experience ex-citement and challenge. Thus, one may thinkthey may accept more risk. However, the studyshowed that this was not the case. The vulner-ability of Australians and Hong Kong touriststo travel risk, their perception of lack of safetyand feelings of anxiety might, however, beexplained by the timing of this research inrelative proximity to the traumatic events ofOctober 12th–terrorist attacks in Bali–duringwhich many Australian travelers to Indonesiawere killed.

Tourists from the USA appeared to be themost anxious about travel risk, in particular,the hijacking and biochemical risk, and alsobomb explosions. The U.S. tourists felt the leastsafe during air travel than any other group.They were also less interested in traveling in-ternationally and recorded the highest proba-bility of not taking international travel in thenear future. As for tourists from Greece, theyappeared to be more concerned about the fi-nancial risk than any other type of risk. Theyfelt safe and were less anxious than othergroups.

The study supported the hypotheses of theexistence of the significant differences intravel risk perception, anxiety, safety percep-tion and future travel intentions among the sixgroups of international tourists. The studyshowed the influence of nationality on the ma-jority of these differences. However, since anumber of measuring items became not signif-icant when the model was controlled for ageand gender, the study also noted that in somecases age and gender, rather than nationality(small changes in reported F ratios), were themajor predictors of the differences. Genderseems to be a controlling variable in some riskand safety perception, anxiety and travel in-

tention items. Age, on the other hand, seems tocontrol only a few measuring items. Thus, it isreasonable to say that the differences in riskand safety perceptions, anxiety and intentionsto travel occur due to the influence of nationalculture. However, some of the identified dif-ferences occur as a result of the respondents’gender and age profile. The results support hy-pothesis 5.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

The study implies that different marketingstrategies may be needed to encourage inter-national travel from different countries de-pending upon tourists’ perceptions of travelrisk and safety. In terms of risk perception, theU.S., Australian and Hong Kong tourists whoperceive higher risk and are the most fearfuland less keen to travel internationally shouldbe targeted with messages emphasizing lowtravel risk. These groups of tourists should beencouraged to travel to destinations that theydo not perceive as risky. They may becomemore interested in traveling within their owncountry or taking short gateways. To appeal tothese tourists marketers should emphasizedestination/product comfort, familiarity, thebenefits of customized holiday packages ortraveling in groups and risk-free activities(e.g., tourists from Hong Kong). The industrytravel and representatives should help thesetourists to eliminate part of the perceived riskby providing them with the most current infor-mation on destinations and products to en-hance tourists’ feelings of safety and security.Airlines and professional tour operators shouldencourage tourists from the USA, Australiaand Hong Kong to seek accurate and valid in-formation. On the other hand, British, Greekand Canadian tourists who perceive lowertravel risk and are less fearful and ready totravel more could be additionally targetedwith messages that incorporate some elementsof adventure or challenge. For instance, theadvertising messages could highlight the ben-efits of seeking novelty and uniqueness, trav-eling to more distant places and experiencingforeign cultures, religion and political sys-tems.


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In order to react to the travelers’ high anxi-ety level and justifiable or unreasonable con-cerns, marketers should reposition the travelproducts that create fear and offer only thosethat reduce the anxiety level and stimulatetourism. Tourists also should be encouraged toseek information from sources other than themass media such as TV or radio that are over-saturated with images of terrorist events andmessages of terrorist threats and killings.

In terms of safety perceptions, marketersshould provide more travel products and pro-mote destinations, which are seen as safe andreassuring. The focus should be on enhancingthe perceptions of safety at different stages oftravel. The specific tourist markets should betargeted according to their safety needs. Inter-national leisure travelers could be encouragedto travel to different world regions dependingon their perceptions of safety in these regions.

CONCLUSION

Using respondents from six countries suchas Australia, Canada, Greece, Hong Kong, theUnited Kingdom and the United States the au-thors attempted to examine differences in travelrisk and safety perception, anxiety and inten-tions to travel internationally among touristsfrom these countries. Results have shown sig-nificant differences in travel risk and safetyperceptions, as well as anxiety level and inten-tions to travel among international tourists.The study identified the U.S., Australian andHong Kong tourists as more likely to perceivetravel as risky, be more safety conscious andmore anxious about the future travel as op-posed to British, Greek and Canadian tourists.The study only partially supported Hofstede’sfindings.

The study confirmed that the issues of travelrisk and safety are global concerns of interna-tional tourists. The results suggested that ter-rorism might dampen international travel,especially in the USA. However, it is hopedthe spirit of tourism cannot be defeated. Theremay be minor reductions in international tour-ist flights around the world but this should beviewed as short-term reactions to the most re-cent political developments. It seems that peo-

ple will recover from the international shockand flights return to normal.

The study draws attention to the importanceof travel risk perception in the travel deci-sion-making process and the existence of risksegments that vary in their perceived risk. Thestudy supports Roehl and Fesenmaier (1992)who claim that one can identify different groupsof travelers based on their perception of travelrisk (those who do not consider travel as beingrisky and those who perceive vacations anddestinations to involve risk).

LIMITATIONS

Data for this study were collected in De-cember 2002 and January 2003. The authorsjudge this to in close proximity to the Septem-ber 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks in the USA,October 12th terrorist attacks in Bali and out-break of SARS that might have skewed the re-sponses somewhat. Tourists might possiblyhave responded differently if they had not beenexposed to the tragic events. However, beingable to identify significant differences acrossdifferent countries in different geographic re-gions gives the authors some confidence thatthe issues under investigation resonate acrossmany tourist groups. The study clearly indi-cates global concerns of travel risk and its im-pact on perceptions of safety and intentions totravel among six national groups of respon-dents.

Travel risk may not be the primary deterrentfor all tourists in the same culture. Each coun-try possesses a variety of subcultures some ofwhich may influence risk taking, while othersmight affect risk avoiding. Thus, it is fair toexpect significant differences from differentsubcultures or geographic regions of the samecountry. The authors are conscious that differ-ent countries and regions may have many sub-cultures and hence no attempt was made toequate country or a region with cultural orien-tation. However, the same criticism can beleveled at many cross-country studies since tosome extent such studies over-simplify thetrue situation.

Further, some market segments such asrisk seekers, novelty or venturesome seekers(Lepp & Gibson, 2003; Plog, 2002) may toler-


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ate higher levels of risk and be attracted tomore risky destinations and products and de-liberately seek risk during their travel (e.g.,travel to Iraq or Afghanistan, rock climbing,parachuting). Other segments such as riskavoiders may be more sensitive to risk andseek safety and security. These, however, werenot explored. There are also a number of addi-tional factors that might influence perceivedrisk that could be investigated (e.g., travel ar-rangements, the purpose of the trip, length ofstay, tourist typology, etc.). For example, tour-ist typologies (Cohen, 1972; Plog, 1974, 1987,1990; Smith, 1989) and the travel style havesignificant effects on the type and degree ofrisk tourists prefer to experience when travel-ing (Basala & Klenosky, 2001).

The sample sizes of the various groups pre-cluded the testing of measure equivalency. Asa result any scalar measures would potentiallynot be equivalent. It is also possible that EFA(exploratory factor analysis) for each groupcould result in different latent variables beingfound making it difficult to compare the sixgroups. The use of single items can be justifiedon these grounds but because their reliabilityis impossible to establish, this must be seen asa limitation of the study.

The use of Australian versus foreign groupcould be questioned. Foreigners were viewedas tourists who had decided to travel interna-tionally and the Australians were consideredas tourists who took their holidays at home. Inorder to eliminate the bias in responses bothgroups were specifically asked about their riskperceptions and future travel intentions in re-lation to any destination outside Australia.

Finally, the results can be generalized onlyto the young travel market segment and theydo not reflect the possible changes in risk andsafety perceptions that might occur over time.It is possible the results could be different ifthe data were collected at different points intime. Although the above limitations reducethe generalisability of the findings, they dodemonstrate the adequacy of the approach tothe analysis of the differences in the percep-tions of travel risk and safety, anxiety and in-tentions to travel.

FUTURE STUDIES

Future research could replicate the study bysurveying tourists from other countries andcomparing their responses. Future researchmight consider disaggregating different coun-tries into regional subcultures, geographicalregions and nationalities to gain more insights.Comparisons of travel risk and safety percep-tions could be made across regions of rela-tively similar cultures, e.g., North America,South America, South East Asia, Western Eu-rope, or the Middle East. The authors also sug-gest examining differences in risk perceptionin various sectors of the tourism and travel in-dustry (e.g., accommodation, transportation,attractions, food and beverage) to create amore comprehensive picture of the differencesamong these sectors as perceived by touristsfrom different countries. In addition, one mightexamine the differences in risk perceptionacross specific holiday products such as cul-tural, religious, environmental, adventurous,or packaged versus individually purchasedproducts.

More risk perception studies could be donein various market segments. For example, morerisk perception studies could be done on tour-ists who are regularly attracted to “risky” ordangerous destinations (e.g., Israel, Iraq, Af-ghanistan) and/or leisure activities such ashang-gliding, mountaineering, white-water raft-ing, bungee jumping and other adventurous ac-tivities, as suggested by Venkatesan’s (1973)work on novelty seeking. Moreover, one mightexamine types of tourists who are attractedto/discouraged by different types of risks. Fur-ther, research might also consider testing thedifferences in travel risk and safety percep-tion, as well as anxiety and intentions to travel,on respondents from a more senior age group,different socio-economic classes and familylife stages.

It is possible that these differences can alsobe identified in relation to specific travel ar-rangements, purpose of trip, and length of stayor tourist typology. Next, by repeating thestudy over a period of time one would be ableto assess the changes in the travel risk andsafety perceptions across different countries,


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nationalities or regions. Finally, the study im-plies the need for tourism researchers to testand assess the travel anxiety scale and to deter-mine whether the measurement scales are sim-ilar across countries.

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SUBMITTED: May 11, 2005FIRST REVISION SUBMITTED:

May 19, 2005SECOND REVISION SUBMITTED:

June 24, 2005ACCEPTED: July 23, 2005

REFEREED ANONYMOUSLY

doi:10.1300/J073v20n01_02


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cultural differences in travel risk perception

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