Adventure Tourism: Behavioural Drivers to Visit and Spread Word of Mouth with Perceived Risk as Moderator

Abstract

The main purpose of this research is a study which examines the effects of involvement in adventure tourism, positive attitude towards adventure tourism, and destination image on intention to visit adventurous destinations and word-of-mouth intention by developing and testing a conceptual framework. Moreover, since adventure tourism is characterized by a high degree of risk, perceived risk is included as a moderator in the aforementioned relationships. There is a paucity of research conducted in the adventure tourism area to investigate what drives Indian tourists to indulge in adventure tourism. A survey is conducted on 500 respondents in the present article, wherein the results show that involvement, attitude and destination image affect tourist behaviour positively. Contrary to the general consensus, perceived risk is found to positively moderate some of these aforementioned relationships. The key implication of the study shows that adventure tourism marketers and service providers must focus on the tourist behavioural intention. A high-risk adventure tourism destination could drive many tourists towards it. Recommendations are proposed along with the future areas of research in this study.