Safety factors in tourist travel decisions – The case of Slovenia
Purpose:
Safety in tourism is gaining its importance over again. The aim of this article is to research people’s perception about safety in tourism and to understand its influence to decisions about destinations choice.
Design/Methods/Approach:
We used the online questionnaire with snowball technique and simple sampling. When analysing data, we used descriptive method and data manipulation in Excel.
Findings:
Our main finding is that safety in tourism is important for most of our respondents. However, there is always small part of population prepared to take more safety risks. Furthermore, results show that epidemic of COVID-19 did disrupt tourism industry as wish to travel declined in majority of our respondents.
Research Limitations / Implications:
We suggest repeating this research after the epidemic and in a few years too. More equal sex structure of respondents would be recommended, which we couldn’t provide at the time being due to the social distancing limitations.
Practical Implications:
This article offers an insight in safety aspects relating the travel decisions, which can clarify safety perception in tourism. It can also inform management for future tourism planning
Originality/Value:
This article is about safety perceptions and importance of safety in tourism in time when the world is challenged with new disease. It also offers an insight in consumers thinking, when new travel plans are being made.
UDC: 338.48:351.78
Keywords: tourism, safety, travel, terrorism, COVID-19, decision-making process