TY - JOUR
T1 - Destination risk perceptions among U.S. residents for London as the host city of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games
AU - Schroeder, Ashley
AU - Pennington-Gray, Lori
AU - Kaplanidou, Kiki
AU - Zhan, Fangzi
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to acknowledge Mandala Research, LLC for their continued partnership and data collection for this research study. Ashley Schroeder, M.S. is a Research Associate of the Tourism Crisis Management Institute in the Department of Recreation, Tourism and Sport Management at the University of Florida. She is pursuing a Ph.D. in Tourism in the Department of Tourism, Recreation and Sport Management and graduated with a Master's in Tourism from the same department in May 2012. Ashley is dedicated to researching tourism crisis management and emerging media (i.e. social media) and technology (i.e. mobile phone), as well as various aspects of tourism crisis management, including risk perceptions and risk information search behaviors. Dr. Lori Pennington-Gray is the Director of the Tourism Crisis Management Institute at the University of Florida in Gainesville. She received her Ph.D. from Michigan State University (1999), her M.S. from The Pennsylvania State University (1994) and her B.S. from Waterloo University in Canada (1993). She has expertise in tourism marketing, planning and development, policy and crisis management. She has been involved with a number of tourism studies globally and has worked with a number of countries on tourism policy initiatives. Dr. Pennington-Gray teaches both undergraduate and graduate students the concepts of tourism marketing. Kiki Kaplanidou is an Assistant Professor at the University of Florida, Department of Tourism, Recreation and an affiliate member of the Eric Friedheim Tourism Institute (EFTI) at the University of Florida. Her main research interests evolve around the impacts of mega sport event hosting on community development. Dr. Kaplanidou has conducted research related to the legacy of the Olympic Games, which was funded by International Olympic Committee, as well as research on the legacies of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Her work is published in Tourism Management, Journal of Sport Management, European Sport Management Quarterly, Journal of Sport & Tourism, Journal of Travel Research, Journal of Leisure Research, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research and Leisure Sciences. Fangzi (Christina) Zhan received her M.S. degree in Tourism Management at the University of Florida in 2012. She has been involved in a number of research projects as a graduate student. Her research interests are mega sporting event management, destination risk perceptions, visual representations of destination images, and social media. During the Beijing Olympics Games, she worked for the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad in 2008. She is very passionate about tourism and hospitality management and currently working in the hospitality industry in the United States.
PY - 2013/10
Y1 - 2013/10
N2 - Risks associated with the Olympic Games have been studied; however, there is lack of research that examines prospective tourists' perceptions of a host city in terms of destination risk. To examine prospective tourists' destination risk perceptions for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, a survey of 4000 American residents was conducted. Overall, U.S. residents perceived the host city to be safe. Hierarchical regression revealed that demographic factors were drivers of the intention to travel to an Olympic Games host city. While controlling for demographics, past experience traveling to a host city and attending an Olympic Games affected the likelihood to travel. Three destination risk perception items were drivers of the intention to travel to a host city, when controlling for demographics and past experience. Lastly, when controlling for all the independent variables, travel risk type index was a driver of the intention to travel to an Olympic Games host city.
AB - Risks associated with the Olympic Games have been studied; however, there is lack of research that examines prospective tourists' perceptions of a host city in terms of destination risk. To examine prospective tourists' destination risk perceptions for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, a survey of 4000 American residents was conducted. Overall, U.S. residents perceived the host city to be safe. Hierarchical regression revealed that demographic factors were drivers of the intention to travel to an Olympic Games host city. While controlling for demographics, past experience traveling to a host city and attending an Olympic Games affected the likelihood to travel. Three destination risk perception items were drivers of the intention to travel to a host city, when controlling for demographics and past experience. Lastly, when controlling for all the independent variables, travel risk type index was a driver of the intention to travel to an Olympic Games host city.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84876345584&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84876345584&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.tourman.2013.03.001
DO - 10.1016/j.tourman.2013.03.001
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84876345584
VL - 38
SP - 107
EP - 119
JO - Tourism Management
JF - Tourism Management
SN - 0261-5177
ER -