Tourism, Security and Safety From Theory to Practice

Factors That Might Change Respondents’ Minds about Traveling
Table 2 lists the factors that might change respondents’ minds about travel-
ing to a destination where a theft occurred. This table represents only the
responses of those respondents who indicated that they would “definitely not
travel to the destination” where the theft occurred. Of these respondents, an
absolute majority (67.3%) said, “nothing would change my mind” followed by
“passing of time” (12.2%), and “learning of someone’s positive experience”
(12.2%).
Previous Crime Victimization
An absolute majority of the respondents (57%) indicated that the person (the
respondent or the person the respondent knew who experienced the personal theft
on a trip) had been a victim of personal and non-trip-related theft in the past.
Twenty-three percent of the respondents had been a victim of thefts as well as more
serious crimes.
Geographic Location of Theft
Tables 3 and 4 list the geographical location of the thefts discussed in the survey.
Of the 204 responses to this question, 157 or 77% of the theft incidents took place
in a domestic location and 47 or 23% took place outside of the United States. As
can be seen from Table 4, the top US cities/districts where the incidents took place
were Washington, DC (6.3%), followed by Las Vegas (5.1%), Atlanta (3.8%), and
Chicago (3.8%).
Does Theft Affect Tourist Destination Decisions?
117
Table 2
Factors That Might Change Respondents’ Mind about
Traveling*
Factor
Percent
Passing of time
12.2
Someone’s positive experience
12.2
Learning from media
4.1
Other
4.1
Nothing will change my mind
67.3
Total
100.0
*Restricted to those respondents who indicated that they would “definitely not travel
to the destination where the theft occurred.”
H7898_Ch06.qxd 8/24/05 8:07 AM Page 117

---

Internationally, Italy, Mexico, Canada, France, and Spain respectively were the
most prominent with 49% of the incidents occurring in these countries. Both Italy
and Mexico consisted of 13% of the responses each.