Many studies on risk and destination choice focus on specific destinations or tourist characteristics in an isolated way, resulting in a fragmented nature in research results without a comprehensive understanding. Therefore, an integrated research approach is applied using tourists' self-assessments of risk and uncertainty in travel decision-making, as well as key characteristics of destinations at hypothetical and realistic stages of the destination choice process. The study uses data collected from a survey on German tourists' destination choice behavior. The results show that high educational levels and high travel frequencies are distinct characteristics of risk-affine tourists, while higher age groups are more dominant in riskand uncertainty-averse tourist types. Tourists with varying attitudes toward risk and uncertainty in travel decision-making differ strongly with respect to ideal destinations initially, but choose rather similar destinations when it comes to the final destination choice.
The paper examines which travel risks are more salient for tourists' destination choice. We develop and test an integrated travel decision risk typology with survey data from 835 potential tourists. Specifically, we explore the interplay of risk types, tourist attributes and destination characteristics. We examine if travel risks linked to nature, health, terrorism, criminality, political instability are more salient for tourists' destination choice-and how risk perceptions influence tourist's in the key stages of the decision-making process. Results offer an important baseline for future studies in the post-COVID-19 phase. First, our integrated travel decision risk typology distinguishes between sociodemographic, psychological and travel-related factors. We show that past travel experience shapes risk perceptions and impacts tourists' future destination choice. Second, we reveal that natural disasters are not the key barrier in the early decisionmaking stage of the destination choice process. Third, we identify tourist segments that are resilient to certain risks. We conclude with implications for the tourism practice with recommendations on how to manage travel risk and decision-making behaviours in the (post-)COVID-19 phase.
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