Safety and risk in tourists' destination choices - a cross-cultural study focusing on the destination Israel

如今，世界范围内恐怖袭击的增加和受恐怖主义影响的目的地数量的增加，导致旅游安全和风险研究的相关性增加。旅游目的地的安全保障或不存在严重的人身风险被视为旅游发展的基本前提，也是游客决定是否前往某个目的地的决定性因素。然而，实际安全和保安风险的相关性不如个人对这些风险的感知。一种解释是，目的地选择一方面是游客的期望、假设或态度，另一方面是旅游提供以及目的地的具体特征的复杂谈判过程。因此，在决定是否去一个目的地旅游的过程中，个人的旅行经历以及游客本国的生活水平或安全水平都起着重要的作用。拟议的研究项目以目前由德国联邦政府资助的一个研究项目为基础，该项目调查安全和保障对游客目的地选择的影响，重点以目的地以色列和客源市场德国为例（SCHM 850 / 201）。本研究项目的继续将集中研究国籍或文化背景因素对游客目的地选择的影响，以确定不同国籍游客在风险感知和访问风险目的地决策方面的异同。目前研究项目中关于德国游客个人目的地选择过程的方法和主要发现将针对与以色列旅游业高度相关的四个客源市场进行调整和加强。研究采用了双重方法：宏观层面的方法旨在调查从这些客源市场到以色列的旅游流量，以了解恐怖主义对旅游业的时空影响。在下一步中，将采用定量和定性方法的微观方法来理解游客个人层面的集体旅行决策。这种不同视角和方法的结合解决了过去的研究空白，并允许在风险和不确定性的背景下对目的地选择过程进行更全面的分析。本研究项目的主要发展有：1)将地理学视角整合到旅游决策和目的地选择过程中的安全与风险研究中；2)评价国籍和文化背景对主观风险感知和个人目的地选择过程的影响因素；3)建立具有特定影响因素的旅游需求模型，该模型与被调查客源市场的独特性直接相关。

The rise in worldwide terror attacks and the growing number of destinations affected by terrorism, nowadays, leads to an increase in the relevance of research on safety and risk in tourism. Safety and security or the absence of severe physical risk at a destination are seen as basic prerequisites for the touristic development and decisive determinants of tourists' decisions to visit a certain destination. However, actual safety and security risks are less relevant than the individual perception of these risks. An explanation is that destination choices are complex negotiation processes of tourists' expectations, assumptions or attitudes, on the one hand, and the touristic offer as well as specific characteristics of the destinations, on the other hand. Hence, personal travel experience but also living standards or safety and security levels in tourists' home countries play important roles during the decision whether or not to visit a destination. The proposed research project is based on a current DFG funded research project that investigates the influence of safety and security on tourists' destination choices focusing on the destination Israel and source market Germany as a case example (SCHM 850 / 20 1). The continuation of this research project will concentrate on the influence of the factors nationality or cultural background on tourists' destination choices to identify similarities or differences in risk perceptions and the decision to visit a risky destination between tourists with different nationalities. The methodology and key findings about individual destination choice processes of German tourists from the current research project will be adapted and enhanced for four source markets with high relevance for the Israeli tourism industry. The research adopts a dual approach: The macro level approach aims to investigate tourism flows from these source markets to Israel in order to understand temporal and spatial impacts of terrorism on tourism. In the next step, a micro level approach using quantitative and qualitative methods will be applied to comprehend collective travel decisions on the individual level of the tourist. This combination of different perspectives and methodologies addresses past research gaps and allows a more comprehensive analysis of destination choice processes in the context of risk and uncertainty. The key developments of this research project are: 1) the integration of a geographical perspective into tourism research on safety and risk in travel decision making and destination choice processes; 2) the evaluation of the influencing factors nationality and cultural background on the subjective perception of risk and on individual destination choice processes; and 3) the development of a tourism demand model with specific influencing factors directly related to the unique characteristics of the investigated source markets.