Moreover, the luggage checks are more thorough than anywhere else. Security staff is checking every single piece of luggage before loading it on the plane. The need to have an equal system for every destination is highly recommendable.
5 Modelling and Analysis
The model shows the relationships between the different axial codes resulting from our research and represent the tentative hypotheses for further research (Fig.2).
and as long as Erdogan wanted to bring the country forward everything was okay and there had been no terrorist attacks” (Interview Respondent).
Tentative Hypothesis 2: The political situation described by the media has a greater impact on tourists’ security perceptions and their holiday selection/decision than terrorism.
Many of the respondents stated that they would still travel to destinations which had suffered from terrorist attacks. They suggested that other factors, such as the political situation at a destination, play a more important role regarding their security perception and their holiday selection. This can be underlined with the following quote of one participant:“[. . .] The main point is how the political situation is in the country. This is the sticking point at both destinations (meaning Egypt and Turkey) that there had been a lot of political incorrectness. This is sticking in most of the peoples’ heads as well as the current situation regarding Erdogan who is talking about a travel entry ban” (Interview Respondent).
Tentative Hypothesis 3: Media and word-of-mouth seem to be the main determinants of security perceptions and holiday selection/decision.
This indicates that tourists are often influenced by the experience reports of other people or by the media coverage. As these two sources are the main sources of information it appears to have a high impact on security perception as well as other feelings of travellers. Many participants claimed that the media is feeding people’s anxiety. The following quote reveals the experience of one interview participants with media coverage:
“[. . .] In my opinion the media is highly involved in people’s decision to travel.
They prevent people from travelling, because often at the destination the situation is not as bad as described by the media” (Interview Respondent).
Tentative Hypothesis 4: Culture and religion at the travel destination has a high impact on tourists’ security perception.
This tentative hypothesis refers to a number of our interview participants, who described that the culture at a destination can cause a feeling of discomfort and a reduced feeling of security if it is distant to the culture and religion of one’s own home country. Alternatively, cultural distance can also have a positive impact on peoples’ feelings. The following quote is underlying that a welcoming and open culture like the culture of France or UK can lead to a positive feeling of travellers, but it also underlines that the absence of it can lead to the contrary. “[. . .] Great Britain and France are a lot more welcoming to US citizens especially. . . or citizens of a lot of other places. You don’t see the same tensions between their countries or their citizens to other countries the same way you see from Turkey or Egypt” (Interview Respondent).
Tentative Hypothesis 5: Tourists’ security perceptions are key determinants of holiday selection/decision.
The holiday-travel-decision is mainly based on emotions and feelings. One of the interview participants, who works as a travel agent described the booking situation with her clients:“[. . .] But I can totally understand every client who does not have a good feeling (meaning traveling to destinations like Egypt or Turkey). Going on holidays with an unpleasant feeling is never a good idea because if you are not a 100% sure while booking then you should probably think about traveling to a different destination where you might feel more comfortable” (Interview Respondent).
Tentative Hypothesis 6: The perceived degree of security-measure standardisation has a significant impact on tourists’ security perception.
The lack standardisation with regard to security checks and measures around the globe, seems to be a source of insecurity for tourists, especially when confronted with unfamiliar situations. Many of our interviewees describe the checks as very scary, because they are not able to see the logic behind it. One respondent said that she was really surprised about the different security checks at numerous airports:“I am consistently astonished by the difference in security checks at the different destinations” (Interview Respondent).
Tentative Hypothesis 7: Tourists’ security perceptions are significantly influenced by others’ reported experiences and media reports.
The media and others’ experience reports are the main source of information prior traveling. Especially when tourists have not been to a certain destination before, they are highly influenced by the information they receive. “Do you think the media is influencing a lot the feeling of security of people?” “Yeah.” “And why?” “Because media can manipulate other people. When they are saying that there is a lot of security people and that they are saying it is a good place because you can feel comfortable with this and they want to prevent from another situation and people believe that, so they can make you feel sure that it is really safe” (Interview Respondent).
Tentative Hypothesis 8: The impact of terrorism reports on tourists’ security per-ceptions depend on the frequency and number of attacks, as well as the size of the corresponding geographical impact.
Our research suggests that tourists seem to have a heightened risk perception only if the impacted destination had suffered from more than one terrorist attack. More-over, the geographical scope reported in the media appears to also have an impact on security perceptions. One interview participant mentioned that even though terrorist attacks were limited to Istanbul, the media reported that the entire country (i.e. Turkey) is not safe anymore and people are scared to travel to Turkey in general because of this:“[. . .] and so many people are worried because of all the attacks. But these attacks only affect a small part of Turkey, Istanbul. And the rest of Turkey is actually not affected. Turkey does not only consist of Istanbul” (Interview Respondent).
6 Limitations
During the initial stages of research, there was the dilemma of whether to limit the respondent sample to frequent travellers, who are presumably more likely to have experiences with security measures and checks. Yet, during the data analysis it became clear that this option might have actually been a research limitation. Inex-perienced travellers may have different views on security measures and checks, adding to the diversity of the sample; and hence to the richness of ourfindings.
Another limitation that emerged during the interviews none of the respondents had ever experienced a terror attack themselves or through their friends or family.
Nonetheless, the respondents all made clear that a single terror attack at a destination would not have had an impact on their holiday selection/decision. Yet one could be critical of this contention as it rather hypothetical. Another limitation could be the particular time-frame of this piece of research, as in coincided with a number of terrorist attacks, whilst many destinations had to suffer from political conflicts and/or -instability. The corresponding media coverage may have had been very intensive and sensitised the respondents’ views and focus on the matter.
7 Conclusion
Understanding security perceptions is a highly relevant topic; especially during critical times. There are many factors that contribute to an unsafe or safe feeling that are not readily obvious. The political aspect seems to particularly relevant in the formation of security-related perceptions. It was surprising to discover that a single terror attack does not appear to have a decisive impact on holiday selection or destination decision; as long as the corresponding country itself is perceived as politically-stable. Moreover, experiencing cultural differences seemed very impor-tant for the majority of tourists, but can be also associated with safety-related discomfort. Often it might be challenging for destinations to adapt their own laws and regulations to their tourism target markets, but a compromise is worth consid-ering for the sake of tourism prosperity and development. Finally, striving for a standardisation of security systems, especially at airports, is recommendable.
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Part II
Tourism Corruption, Holiday Fraud
The ‘Broken Marbles Theory’: Exploring Tourists ’ Perceptions of Corruption
and Their Impact on Travel Behaviour
Alexis Papathanassis and Nicoleta Ramona Dinu
1 Introduction
Tourism represents an attractive option for economic development and prosperity, especially for developing countries. Yet the structural realities of developing econ-omies may coincide with wider corruption, not just in tourism, but in the entirety of their economic activity spectrum. Yet tourism may be particularly susceptible to corruption. Indeed, it has been suggested that corruption is not only endemic to the tourism sector (Din et al.2016; Harris2012), but also potentially irrelevant, or even economically beneficial, from a developmental point of view (Uberti2016; Fisman and Svensson2007). Nevertheless, for developing economies, corruption represents a significant challenge since it can result to: loss of tax income, destination reputation loss and ultimately guest-dissatisfaction.
Holidays are information-intensive and emotional in terms of their selection and consumption. Reputation and image are both decisive in this respect. In order to understand and effectively tackle corruption in tourism, its behavioural dynamics and outcomes need to be explored. The obvious place to begin, is to study the impact corruption has on tourists themselves. In line, with Papageorgiou’s (2008) argument, understanding the ‘personal’ (individual level), is essential for understanding the industry’s dynamics as a whole.
Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore: What do holiday-makers regard as corrupt practices? How do they react to what they perceive as corrupt practice and
A. Papathanassis (*)
Cruise Tourism Management, Bremerhaven University of Applied Sciences, Bremerhaven, Germany
e-mail:[email protected] N. R. Dinu
Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Ovidius, Constanta, Romania
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
A. Papathanassis et al. (eds.), Yellow Tourism, Tourism, Hospitality & Event Management,https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94664-1_6
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why? How do their perception affect, and are affected by, their experiences (or those of others) with corruption? In the following pages the conceptual model of this study is presented, the research methodology is outlined and the results are discussed.
2 Conceptual Model
Assuming that a corruption experience reflects a type of, mostly negative, critical incident during one’s holiday, exploring its impact on behaviour would lend itself to a‘Critical Incident Technique’ (abbr. CIT) as a research methodology. Bitner et al.
(1994) defined an ‘incident’ as an observable fragment of human activity enabling inferences and predictions related to the corresponding actors.‘Critical incidents’ are those that make a significant (positive or negative) contribution in the understanding of an activity or phenomenon (Bitner et al.1994; Grove and Fisk1997).
In its generic form, this method involves collecting critical incident descriptions and performing content analysis on them, in order to explore the cognitive and behavioural aspects of the phenomenon at hand; in our case‘holiday-corruption’.
The conceptual model adopted for structuring this piece of research is simple, but nonetheless useful framework for exploring tourists’: experiences (direct or indirect) with corruption, their behaviour towards them and ultimately the impact of (and on) their perceptions. This model is based on Papathanassis (2016a) work, involving the content analysis of 361 TripAdvisor review which identified the following axial codes:
• Perceptions/Attitudes: Stereotyping (i.e. corruption endemic/particular to a cul-ture and/or mentality), Perceived Authority Competence (i.e. accessibility, effec-tiveness and professionalism of local authorities), Story-telling Exposure (i.e. others reports/recollections)
• Incidents (Types): Victimisation/Exploitation (e.g. Credit card fraud, overcharging in taxis or excursions or restaurants, forced consumption/payment of services, discrim-ination), Annoyance (e.g. Aggressive selling, illegal vendors, no acceptance of credit cards, bribery-requests), Service Failure (e.g. Unfair cancellation policies, incomplete refunding, non-serious complaint-handling, reservation loss), Mis-information (e.g. Exploitative regulations, incorrect quality ratings/recommendations, unreliable website information), Heritage Mismanagement (e.g. Environmental pollution, loss of authenticity, architectural deterioration, insufficient attraction maintenance)
• Reactions/Behaviour: Publication/Advocacy (i.e. warning others, publicly expos-ing corruption), Formal Complaint (e.g. police involvement, legal action, formal complaint to management), Empathy (i.e. feeling sorry for the victims and expressing this), Behavioural Adjustment (i.e. adopting corrupt practices and behaviour to gain benefit).
Those axial codes and the resulting conceptual model are depicted in Fig.1, and constitutes the hypotheses framework for the remaining part of this paper.
3 Methodology
In order to explore and evaluate the conceptual model presented in the previous section, we opted for a quantitative approach based on survey data.