An Overview of Tourism Risk Perception: Assessment, Factors, and Implications

Subjective Factors of Tourism Risk Perception

In recent years, people pay more and more attention to travel safety and travel risks. Tourism risk perception is a quantitative assessment of tourism security. Destination risk perception of tourists directly affects tourists purchase intention. The asymmetry of the objective existence of tourist safety information and the subjective perception of tourists determines that tourists are extremely sensitive to travel risks. The inevitability of tourism risks requests that tourists have a certain level knowledge of destination environment. This study aimed to systematically review existing researches of tourism risk perception.

(1) Tourism risk perception includes three views, which were subjective feelings, objective evaluation and the cognition of exceeding the threshold portion of the negative consequences or negative impact that may occur during travel.

(2) The subjective factors of tourism risk perception were the physical characteristics and psychological processes. The objective factors include physical risk, economic risk, equipment risk, social risk, psychological risk, time risk and opportunity loss.

(3) The multi-dimensional model and the two-factor model were the two main types of risk perception assessment models. The survey (with interviews) and mathematical statistical analysis were the main research methods.

(1) There is a certain critical value for travel risk perception of tourists;

(2) cognitive ability is an important factor affecting the level of tourists objective risk perception; and

(3) quantitative assessment of tourism risk perception level is helpful to the tourism decision making and destination management.

With the development of society and economy, the improvement of people’s living standards and the increase in leisure time, the tourism industry grows rapidly. From the formation and development of world tourism, it has entered a period of steady development. Since the nineties, China’s tourism industry has gone into the fast lane. In 2013, the number of domestic trips was 3.26 billion passengers and tourism revenue reached 2.6276 trillion yuan (People’s Republic of China National Bureau of Statistics 2013).

With the increase in people’s travel times and extension of tourism space, the problem of travel safety is increasing and travel risks are growing. Tourism risk is that tourists in their travel behavior perceive negative results that may occur (Fischer et al. 1991; Chen et al. 2009). When tourists choose a tourist destination, they have to consider the security situation of their destination, but security cannot be quantified (Suddle 2009). So it is necessary to link security and risk (Lepp and Gibson 2003).

At present, the academic background of scholars engaged in tourism risk perception can be summarized as cognitive psychology, consumer behavior discipline and travel safety discipline. Correspondingly, the concept of ‘‘tourism risk perception’’ can also be divided into three views (Fig. 1), namely

Objective Factors of Tourism Risk Perception

1. Tourism risk perception is tourists’ subjective feelings of the negative consequences or negative impact that may occur during travel;

2. Tourism risk perception is tourists’ objective evaluation of the negative consequences or negative impact that may occur during travel;

3. Tourism risk perception is tourists’ cognitive of exceeding the threshold portion of the negative consequences or negative impact that may occur during travel.

Mavondo 2006; Kozak et al. 2007). As mentioned above, cognitive psychology school concerns tourists’ subjective feelings of the negative consequences or negative impact that may occur during travel. The tourism risk perception is significantly influenced by the physical characteristics and psychological processes (such as attention, perception, effect of representation, memory, thinking and language skills) of tourists. Table 2 shows the researching results of the subjective factors of tourism risk perception from scholars in recent years.

Currently, the subjective factors affecting tourism risk perception can be divided into two categories, namely demographic variables and individual cognitive abilities. The former includes age, gender, educational experience, academic background, social status, geography, education level, income and social experience. The latter focuses on temperament, personality, emotions, outlook, values, cognitive and meta-cognitive and so on.

1. Women’s sensibility for travel risk is slightly higher than that of men;

2. The similarity of culture and psychology and spatial contiguity of geographical position determines the feeling of tourists for the loss;

3. When people have the higher level of education, the more frequent contact with media people and the higher the class status, the level of their risk perception is stronger;

4. When people are more confidence with information sources and agencies, their risk perception is stronger;

5. Urban residents have a stronger risk perception than rural residents;

6. People’s concerns, anxiety and other emotions for travel risk can affect individual’s awareness of risk perceptions, whereas the understanding of the individual’s tourism risks will also affect their emotional intensity.

The objective factors affecting tourism risk perception mainly refer to negative consequences or negative impact that may occur during travel. They can be summarized as multiple dimensions of tourism risk. Table 3 shows the results of scholars’ studies about objective factors of tourism risk perception in recent years. Tourists risk perception is often five to seven dimensions, namely

1. five-dimension risk: psychological risk, financial risk, performance risk, health risk and social risk;

2. six-dimension risk: performance risk, physical risk, financial risk, psychological risk, social risk and time risk;

Dominant Risk Factors Influencing Tourism

3. seven-dimension risk: physical risk, economic risk, equipment risk, social risk, psychological risk, time risk and opportunity loss.

It should be noted that the multi-dimensional tourism risk factors often include ‘‘psychological risk.’’ The school of consumer behavior recognizes the psychological factor as the cognitive of tourists for their behavior after they make the wrong purchase decision. In recent years, the gradual development of tourism safety leads to the study on tourism safety cognition (Zheng 2009). Tourism security school considers that the objective factors affecting tourism safety perception include the social and natural environment in tourist destinations and the security situation of ‘‘food, housing, transportation, travel, shopping, entertainment’’ in the process of travel (Wu et al. 2001; Yvette and Felix 2005; Atila and Fisun 2007; Zhu 2008).

‘‘Through summarizing and analyzing the relevant literature, the dominant risk factors influencing the tourism are proposed for different types of tourism resources and different tourism groups (Table 4). The first three factors influencing the tourism risk when tourists visit different types of destination were listed in the left part of Table 4. The risk degree is characterized by star numbers. Specifically, physical risk is most important for natural tourism resources or scenic areas (such as land scenery, waters scenery, biological landscape, astronomer and climatic scenery), followed by equipment risk and performance risk. For cultural relics such as sites, sites, buildings, etc.,

Conclusion and Discussion

The research of travel risk perception has been more than half a century. The science of consumer behavior, cognitive psychology and tourism safety explore the characterization of tourism risk and the evaluation of risk perception from a different perspective.

1. There were three views of tourism risk perception, which were subjective feelings of the negative consequences or negative impact that may occur during travel, objective evaluation of the negative consequences or negative impact that may occur during 654 Nat Hazards (2016) 82:643–658 123 travel and cognition of exceeding the threshold portion of the negative consequences or negative impact that may occur during travel.

2. There were two-dimensional impact factors (subjective) and the seven-dimensional impact factors (objective) of tourism risk perception. The former were the physical characteristics and psychological processes, and the latter include physical risk, economic risk, equipment risk, social risk, psychological risk, time risk and opportunity loss.

3. There were two types of risk perception assessment models, which were summarized as the multi-dimensional model and the two-factor model.

4. The survey (with interviews) and mathematical statistical analysis of tourism risk perception assessment;

5. The subjective and objective laws of travel risk perception’s ability and level.

The development of the concept of tourism risk perception reflects the intersecting of economics, tourism, psychology and other disciplines. The theoretical and empirical studies of objective tourism risk (second level) and subjective tourism perception (first level) are more abundant, while the studies of the measure and define of tourism risk perception threshold (third level) are relatively less. The author’s academic background relates to geography, environmental science, risk science and tourism.

1. The basis of tourism risk perception assessment is the science and rationality of the hypothesis. According to the empirical facts of tourism activities and the travel safety scientific theory, scholars can re-conceived and speculate the category, characteristics, spatial and temporal distribution of tourism risk factor (five- or seven-dimensional) and risk perception factors (subjective and objective). Only under the logical theoretical assumptions, the explanation of tourism risk perception is necessary and valuable;

2. The key of tourism risk perception assessment is the decision of the risk threshold that tourists can accept. Taking the physical characteristics, learning ability and practical experience of the respondents into account, scholars make sure the withstand value (tourist risk value) of tourism risk’s consequences (such as personal injury, economic loss, psychological impact and decision-making behavior) and the probability of occurrence (percentage) through social survey methods;

3. The significance of tourism risk perception assessment is making tourism behavioral decision and destination security management. Acceptable risk has a positive feedback effect on tourists’ decisions, and unacceptable risk (or an unacceptable dimension risk) has a guiding role for the risk of the tourist destination control. Targeted risk prevention and strategies are importantly significant for the decision motivate of tourists, sustainable use of tourism resources and cycle of development of the tourism industry.