The heterogeneity of tourists' reactions to terrorism

Official URL: http://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b1669278 (Table of Contents)

In this thesis, I argue that tourists’ reactions to terrorism depend on how much terrorism they are exposed to in their home countries. I propose that if a country is more likely to suffer from terrorist threats, then its citizens will be more likely to ignore terrorism risk in their potential destinations, and they will not change their travel plans. To test this prediction, I conduct linear regression analysis on how tourist arrivals change according to different characteristics of 168 destination and 178 origin countries between 1995 and 2014. I provide support for my hypothesis by showing that if terrorism in both destination and origin countries together increase, the negative effect of terrorism on tourism decreases. Furthermore, I find that tourists from richer countries are more sensitive to terrorist attacks and terrorism creates more damage for tourism sector when it is surrounded by civil war. The main insight of this research is that tourists of different nationalities are not homogenous in terms of their reactions to terrorism.