Images of safe tourism destinations in the Unites States held by African Americans

Bingjie Liu; Lori Pennington Gray; Ashley Schroeder

doi:10.25145/j.pasos.2013.11.043

Authors

Bingjie Liu
Lori Pennington Gray
Ashley Schroeder

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25145/j.pasos.2013.11.043

Keywords:

african american, safe destination, USA, past experience, personal safety, image

Abstract

Ensuring a safe destination is an essential factor in travelers’ decision-making, as well as a destination’s success. Recent crises have threatened perceptions of safety related to tourism. Under such circumstances, negative destination images might be produced and destination choices might be altered. Thus, understanding the effect of risk perceptions on destination image is a necessary research stream. This study examined African American travelers’ perceptions of safety related to the top three state tourism destinations in the USA. Factors that influenced perceptions of a safe destination varied among the destinations. Consistently, however, past travel experience and the perception of the likelihood of health-related crisis were significant predictors of perceptions of a safe destination.

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Author Biographies

Bingjie Liu

The authors would like to acknowledge Mandala Research LLC for their continued partnership and collecting the data for this research study. Department of Tourism, Recreation and Sport Management.

Lori Pennington Gray

Department of Tourism, Recreation and Sport Management

Ashley Schroeder

Department of Tourism, Recreation and Sport Management

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