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Leisure tourists’ considerations regarding destinations recently experiencing safety and/or security problems
UK, Spain, France and Denmark registered almost similar results. Even though the above
mentioned destinations have experienced terrorist attacks or political crises, they have achieved
a majority of “Yes” and “Definitely Yes” answers. Due to the fact that these destinations are
located in Europe, are important leisure and business markets, and also because most respondents
are of European origin, it can be concluded that their image has not been so much affected
by the negative influence of the security issue.
An important aspect that might have influenced their choice is the factor called “time elapsed
from the incident” – which plays a central role in the decision making process. We can see
this very clearly when we compare the results for Spain and UK with those obtained for
Denmark. In the case of Denmark, the “maybe” answers (32%) are following very closely
the “definitely yes” answers (39%). The high percentage of “Yes” answers (66%) is due to
the general positive overall image of the country before the cartoon riots. Also, this crisis
management, based on diplomacy and without major losses (especially human losses) and
the calm that governs this country once again, might have led participants to give their vote
of confidence.
As far as the case of the USA is concerned, it can be deduced that the highly-positive ratings
which the destination achieved (even though 9/11 is still present in many of the respondents’
minds) are due again to the factor called “time elapsed from the incident”. As it can be observed
later in this study, this factor scores an important percentage when it comes to choosing a
destination. Apparently, leisure tourists do not feel menaced anymore when choosing USA
as a leisure destination. Also, another important factor is the fact that after September 11 th ,
USA did not experience any other major security incidents.
A somewhat predictable high percentage of uncertainty (“maybe” – 33%), followed by an
also high percentage of negative answers (“no” – 26%; “definitely no” – 15%) was registered
for Egypt. This is mainly due to the high-frequency of terrorist attacks that are taking place
in the country – and especially in popular tourist areas. It is worth mentioning that most of
the questionnaires received after the attacks on 25 th of April 2006 (in which at least 23 people
- including three foreigners - have been killed and 62 wounded in three blasts in the Egyptian
resort town of Dahab 5 ) rated Egypt with “no” and “definitely no” answers, while the
questionnaires received before these incidents scored: “no”, “maybe”, “yes”, and even
“definitely yes” answers, as well. Notwithstanding this recent evidence, Wahab (1995) noted
that the Egyptian police had adopted preventive and proactive measures, which included
placing civil police officers on all transport vehicles used by tourists.
SAFETY AND SECURITY FACTORS INFLUENCING DECISION MAKING
PROCESS
The questionnaire then proceeds to exploring the safety and security factors that influence
the decision making process of leisure tourists through three questions.
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