Project Description
How does terrorism influence risk perceptions of tourists? How are the resulting travel behaviours and attitudes altered due to this relation? The purpose of this thesis was to examine how the impacts of safety and security issues in the MENA region, and Egypt in particular, influence tourists’ decision-making processes in consideration of destination risk perception and uncertainty in travel decision-making.
The present paper is the first to focus on Egypt, a country that is one of the main destinations for German holiday-makers within the MENA region. Besides the literature review on the key concepts of this study, the research adopted a quantitative approach based on an online survey that was designed to identify risk perceptions of German tourists towards the MENA region and Egypt, their attitudes and behaviours and factors influencing those such as socio-demographics, political unrest within the region in general (spill-over effect) and past travel experience (PTE). Possible preventive measures and their effectiveness as risk reduction strategies were also part of the survey.
It was found that Egypt is generally perceived as an unsafe destination to travel to, however, those respondents with PTE rate the country’s attractiveness higher and are thus more likely to revisit as well. Spill-over effect was found to be significant, as well as the influence of several socio-demographic factors. Risk reduction strategies were generally rated to be effective and could therefore have implications for DMOs to create a more appealing image of Egypt as a holiday destination.
Author: L. Selle (2018)
