The influence of political attitudes on the tourist destination preferences: A case study

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between geopolitics and tourism, and the asymmetric correlation between these two phenomena. First, a definition of geopolitics is given, as well as its classification: formal, practical and popular. Bearing in mind that popular geopolitical representations in the collective consciousness of the people are formed mainly under the influence of media, the mass media impact on the formation of national and ethnic stereotypes and prejudices, as well as cross-cultural misunderstandings, is discussed. Then the relationship between popular geopolitics and tourism is examined, that is between 'geopolitical knowledge' that people possess of different countries and their consequent tourist attraction or repulsion. The main part of the work is a case study: a survey of attitudes of 60 first year students of the College of Hotel Management in Belgrade to a selected group of 13 countries. The qualitative part of the research is related to the spontaneous association of three words related to each country. The quantitative part is the evaluation of friendship/hostility of each of the selected countries to Serbia, and the successive evaluation of their tourist attraction/repulsion. Based on the processed data, the correlation between the geopolitical attitudes and travel preferences of students is calculated and appropriate conclusions drawn.