Developing a typology of tourist harassment in archeological sites: a netnographic approach

ABSTRACT

Tourist harassment has received some attention over the past two decades as a major challenge affecting travelers’ personal safety and their perceptions of tourism destinations. However, there is still a need to understand and explore in depth the types of behavior that constitute tourist harassment. Using a qualitative netnographic study approach, this study identified the types of harassment that tourists are likely to experience in archeological sites. Travelers’ anecdotes reporting harassment incidents in two Jordanian archeological sites, Petra and Jerash, were retrieved from TripAdvisor and examined using a hybrid content analysis approach. Six key categories of tourist harassment emerged from the data. These categories were labeled as vendors’ persistence, obtrusive on-site service providers, beggar children, sexual harassment, verbal abuse, and physical abuse. Each category was explored in depth and exemplified using travelers’ anecdotes. A typology of tourists’ response to harassment was also developed based on the anecdotes. Results suggest that vendors’ persistence was the most frequently reported type of harassment. When experiencing harassment, tourists are likely to respond by resisting the harassers. The findings have several theoretical and managerial implications for both researchers and destination managers.

KEYWORDS:

• Tourist harassment
• tourist safety
• tourist complaints
• netnography
• archeological sites
• Jordan

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank Professor Gloria Bien and Ms. Sarah Harpending for having read the manuscript of this paper and for having made useful suggestions upon it.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Zaid Alrawadieh holds a Ph.D. degree in Tourism Management (Turkey) and a Master’s degree in Tourism and Environment (Italy). Currently, he lectures in the Department of Hotel, Restaurant and Catering Services at Istanbul University Cerrahpasa, Turkey ([email protected]). His research interests include customer complaining behavior, tourist experiences, tourist behavior, and peer-to-peer accommodation.

Ziad Alrawadieh is an associate professor in the School of Archaeology and Tourism at the University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan ([email protected]). He obtained his Ph.D. in Tourism Management (Italy) and was a visiting scholar at Leeds Metropolitan University (UK). His main research interests include ecotourism, local tourism products and regional development, and heritage tourism.

ORCID

Zaid Alrawadieh http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8355-9958

Ziad Alrawadieh http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3809-675X