2016-11-03T14:11:40

The main purpose of this study was to test cruise line customers' responses to risk and crisis communication messages addressing health-related incidents on cruise ships. This study used norovirus infections as the context and the Risk Perception Attitude framework as the conceptual foundation. An experiment was conducted to test how communication messages affected cruise line customers' information search behavior, safety perceptions, and cruise travel intentions. A total of 240 responses were included and analyzed. The results revealed group differences on the three outcome variables. The results also showed that safety perceptions mediated the relationship between participants' RPAs and cruise travel intentions. Based on the findings, this study provided practical implications on how to develop effective risk and crisis communication messages. This study also highlighted the need for more empirical and theory-driven research in the area of tourism crisis communication.

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The role of social media in crisis communications is an embryonic area of research in tourism, thus the purpose of this study was to examine drivers of social media use during crises. An online survey of 2,416 tourists from Australia, Brazil, China, India, and Korea was conducted. Hierarchical regression revealed that the drivers were risk perceptions associated with crime, disease, health-related, physical, equipment failure, weather, cultural barriers, and political crises when controlling for nationality, as well as use of a smartphone during past travel when controlling for nationality and risk perceptions. Implications and recommendations are discussed.

No abstract