The process of establishing risk perceptions

L. De Boer (2014)

Since the outbreak of the Egyptian revolution, the number of tourists visiting Egypt has decreased by millions. However, at the same time also millions of people continue travelling to the country despite of the unrests and the threat of terrorism.

In this thesis I investigate the relation between tourists’ risk perceptions of Egypt, and the willingness to go to the country. The risk perceptions are further analyzed by exploring relations with factors which are believed to be influencing these risk perceptions, namely tourists’ socio-demographic characteristics, travel experience and the sources from which tourists get their information about the country. This is done by means of a directive content analysis of travel blogs and web discussions on travel forums, and two additional interviews. Low risk perceptions are found to cause people to be more willing to travel to Egypt, while high risk perceptions in many cases form a barrier for going on a holiday to Egypt. The results also indicate that especially travel experience, the used information sources each are related to the risk perceptions of tourists. Concerning the socio-demographic characteristics, only gender seems to play a role in the shaping of risk perceptions. The study does not aim to make generalizations, instead the findings function as a stepping stone for subsequent, more extensive research on (aspects of) the same topic.