The effectiveness of ad-induced emotion in reducing tourist risk perceptions towards politically unstable destinations

ABSTRACT

Political crises have a significant impact on tourists’ risks perceptions towards both the affected destination and the neighbouring regions. The longevity of such crises has a long term detrimental impact on those countries whose economies are dependent on tourism due to the tourists’ propensity to avoid destinations they perceive as unsafe. This study investigates the relationship between the theoretical constructs of emotion and risk perception. The study demonstrates the power of ad-induced emotion in lowering risk perceptions towards destinations that are considered to be politically unstable. Focusing on the Middle Eastern country of Jordan, a pre–post experimental design employing psycho-physiological measures of emotion is applied to test the hypotheses and research questions of interest to this study. The results indicated that destination advertisements with emotional appeal are likely to succeed in reducing the risk perceptions and increasing willingness to travel. These findings contribute to the literature by providing empirical evidence to support the notion that positive emotions induced by destination advertisements can reduce risk perceptions. Moreover, this study marks one of the first to apply psycho-physiological measures of emotion to the study of risk perception and makes an important methodological contribution to the tourism literature.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotion
• risk perception
• political instability
• electro-dermal activity
• psycho-physiological measures

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Poerava M. Brodien Hapairai has undertaken a master’s degree in Leadership Tourism at the University of Queensland, Australia. She enjoys studying about destination management and tourists behaviour with regards to risks.

Gabby Walters is a Senior Lecturer in Tourism with the University of Queensland Business School. She holds specific expertise in the areas of destination image management and crises and disaster recovery.

Shanshi Li is a PhD Graduate from the University of Queensland and holds significant expertise in psycho-physiological methods. Shanshi is currently a lecturer with the School of Management, Xiamen University, China.