The Impact of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense Incident on Tourism Risk Perception and Attitude Change of Chinese Tourists Traveling to South Korea

Hao Zhang, Taeyoung Cho and Huanjiong Wang
Additional contact information
Hao Zhang: Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 11A, Datun Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, China
Taeyoung Cho: Department of Hotel Tourism Management, Dongguk University, 123, Dongdae-ro, Gyeongju-si, Gyeongsangbuk-do 38066, Korea
Huanjiong Wang: Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 11A, Datun Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, China

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: The crisis event, which is one of the factors that occur most frequently, affects the sustainable development of tourism. Aiming to investigate the impact of a terminal high altitude area defense (THAAD) incident on tourism risk perception, destination image, attitude change and behavior intention of Chinese citizens planning to travel to South Korea, a questionnaire survey was conducted among 1000 Chinese citizens. By using descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and a structural equation model on the survey data, the results showed that (1) tourist destination risk perception exerted a negative effect on tourism image, culture image, and stability image of the destination; (2) the risk perception of tourists on tourism destinations would lead to a change in tourism attitudes, as Chinese citizens who planned to travel to South Korea considered changing their tourist destinations due to the THAAD incident; and (3) the increased risk perception of tourists on destinations had negative effects on behavior intention. Chinese citizens’ intention to travel to Korea was reduced after the THAAD incident. This study is of great importance for the sustainable development of tourism between China and Korea and provided a reference for improving risk management strategy for a tourism destination.

Keywords: tourism risk perception; destination image; attitude change; tourist behavioral intention; THAAD incident (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/1/7/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/1/7/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2019:i:1:p:7-:d:299096

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().