Guerrilla Affecting Tourists’ Risk Perception and Their Travel Intention: A Colombian Case

Abstract

Tourism Industry is considered as one of the world‘s most important economic activities due to its fastest growing elements in the global trade. For some countries and travel destinations, tourism is an important economic sector where economic growth and survival are dependent on, as it contributes an important portion of the country‘s gross domestic product. Destination marketers, the tourism sector, and, the government should work together in order to promote destinations which will create strategies that aim to make touristic spots attractive, thus instilling in them the intention to travel to these specific destinations. This study examined the impact of tourism information, violent acts, destination image, and government strategy on tourists’ intention to visit Colombia as a tourist destination. 331 questionnaires were collected from Colombians and tourists from the American Continent and the Caribbean Islands. The structural equation model, multiple regression, canonical regression, and t-test were used to identify the impact of each construct on tourists’ intention to visit Colombia. Through this research, it has been demonstrated the relationship between tourism information and destination image, violent acts and destination image, violent acts and government strategy, and destination image and intention to visit. In contrast it was demonstrated that government strategy has not impact on intention to visit.