Research On Tourists’ Risk Perception After Wenchuan Earthquake

According to Maslow’s Need Hierarchy Theory, safety is the second most significant need for human beings, next only to physiological need. Since tourism is a thriving industry worldwide and increasing people are involved in travelling, security has become one of the most important factors for tourists."2008.5.12 Wenchuan Earthquake" had brought tremendous negative impact on tourism industry of Sichuan province. April 20 this year,7.0 earthquake occurred again in Lushan County,Ya’an City, Sichuan Province. Earthquake and other risks of sudden, uncertainty characteristics determine the high sensitivity of tourism development.Tourism Risk Perception is tourists’ perception of negative consequences that may occur before and during their travels. Based on the literature review, risk perception has developed into an important part in tourism study nowadays, and has a far-reaching influence on tourism decision-making process. Through open-ended questionnaires’ research, this paper builds a scale of tourists’risk perception composed of 18 indicators, including geological disasters, meteorological disasters, forest fires, crime, disease, traffic accidents and so on, which provides basis and reference for research in other natural sight-seeing.Taken Jiuzhaigou as a case,600 questionnaires were distributed and 565 valid questionnaires were recovered. Through empirical analysis, this paper has reached some conclusions:(1) Based on factorial analysis, the perceived risks of tourists can be divided into three main dimensions:dysfunction, crisis event and cultural conflict. Among them, t the worry degree of tourists in dysfunction risk is the most, crisis event comes next, while cultural conflict least. Type dysfunction risk is the common risk of every tourism destination. However, crisis event and cultural conflict risk is unique to Jiuzhaigou, and these two types of risks are relatively low. It illustrates the overall risk of Jiuzhaigou is relatively small, tourists do not be overly sensitive to the unique type of risk in Jiuzhaigou.(2) The overall risk perception of tourists is inconspicuous. And the risks perceived during the tour are less than which were imagined before the travel. This indicates that travelling in Jiuzhaigou is safer than peoples’imagination. The crisis events such as earthquakes are not the main risks which tourists worried about. On the one hand, earthquake and other disasters in the minds of the collective memory does not become the tourists’risk perception. On the other hand, the actual perception of the positive effects already have been reflected in the tourist’s overall satisfaction, willingness to recommend and willingness to revisit. This will further strengthen tourism in Jiuzhaigou positive image of small risk, forming a positive feedback mechanism.(3) The parameter test analysis shows that:dysfunction risk has a significant difference among tourists who have travelled to Jiuzhaigou for different times, who differ in age and education level. Cultural conflict risk shows a significant difference among tourists who have different occupation, education level and income level. And crisis event risk has no difference among different groups of tourists. The differences among different groups of tourists are mainly reflected in "waste of money", "lost or losing companion" and "language barriers". Besides, gender, region, whether or not experienced disasters, whether or not bought insurance, whether or not carried drugs and other factors have no significant effects on the differences among various types of risk perceptions. Moreover, degrees of tourists’ satisfaction, loyalty and recommendations also have no significant difference in effect on all types of risk perception.Based on these findings, the tourists’ risk perception research in this study provides a reference to improve tourism safety theory and has an important significance on the planning and management of tourist destination. This paper’s scale of tourists’ risk perception has its own characteristics in natural disasters and cultural conflicts dimensions. And it provides a preliminary framework for the research on Tourism Risk Perception in natural sight-seeing, such as Jiuzhaigou. The adaptability of the scale of tourists’ risk perception in holiday and cultural tourist destinations could be researched further in the future.