Tourophobia: fear of travel resulting from man-made or natural disasters

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how crises impact overall tourist behaviour and travel preferences in times of crisis events, both man-made and natural disasters. In doing so, the present paper has been designed to provide a new conceptualization of travellers’ shifting preferences in terms of the selection of holiday destinations through the new concept of tourophobia and to classify this as a new type of tourist behaviour. Design/methodology/approach The present study uses a literature review as a qualitative deductive content analysis of 58 field studies published by major hospitality and tourism journals. By using a deductive content analysis approach, the current paper is designed to delineate tourist behaviour through a generic review of relevant literature detailing travellers’ preferences in times of crisis. Findings The developed concept of tourophobia and the suggested model, which proposes two possible scenarios, shows that traveller behaviour is heterogeneous in terms of the destination selection process; this finding is based on a content analysis of the articles chosen. Further, by using the developed model, the decline in travel and tourism can also be explained by an increase in what is termed in this paper “tourophobia”, which results from the various devastating effects of crises. Research limitations/implications The proposed model is expected to help destination managers and marketers to segment and forecast the future market demand of tourist travel preferences, thereby enabling them to form effective marketing strategies and increase their responsiveness during difficult times. Only articles from hospitality and tourism journals were subjected to content analysis; this is a major limitation of the study. Originality/value The present research contributes to current knowledge by describing the concept of tourophobia as a tourist behaviour in times of crisis. As an emerging phenomenon, it is also introduced as being one criterion for the selection of destinations and, therefore, is regarded as a driver for tourist behaviour, thus generating the originality of the paper. This study strives to provide a new direction for future studies on tourist behaviour, rather than offering new empirical data.