Perceived Risks; Prominent Dimensions among Tourists from South India

Abstract

Making travel decisions is never an easy task as tourists will have to consider numerous factors revolving around time, finance, transportation, destinations and activities. Travel decisions are normally made with no expectation of any kind of economic or material returns; intangible results such as pleasure and satisfaction are expected. Therefore, the tourist consumption behavior will involve elements of risk taking. Actions of tourists will regularly yield results and consequences that they may not always be able to anticipate with any approximating degree of certainty, and some of these are at least likely to turn unpleasant. Today, tourists are rarely in a state of mind to anticipate the exact probabilities or risks associated with their purchases. Numerous dimensions of perceived risk have already been identified, such as risks associated with Age, Gender, Income, Personality, Satisfaction, Past Experience, Culture, Nationality and Destination Image. Some of these dimensions appeared more prominent than the others, namely Health Risk, Financial Risk, Time Risk, Safety and Security Risk, and Information and Communication Risk. Research on perceived risk related to tourism has most often been neglected, and in-depth studies on the same have not been extensively undertaken, especially on the South Indian tourists. In this context, the study proposes to investigate the risk perception of tourists travelling from South India.