The idea of this conceptual paper is built upon arguments of risk perception as a valid and convincing tool to
investigate tourists’ concerns prior to and/or when they are taking up a trip. Thus far, the paper has outlined different
aspects of risk perception in tourism context. Based on the studies outlined in above discussion, it appears that
existing tourism studies tend to work on disconnecting rather incorporating the different cognitive and affective
concepts related to risk perception. Conversely, psychology researchers are convinced that emotion and cognition
are inseparable. Loewenstein, Weber, Hsee, and Welch (2001) propose an alternative theoretical perspective,
namely the risk-as-feeling hypothesis. Loewenstein et al. (2001) found that when it comes to the moment of making
decision under a risky or uncertain situation, human’s cognition and emotion act in a divergent way and in many
cases, emotional reaction overrides cognitive evaluation. Therefore, risk perception is more than a perceived
calculation of negative probabilities. Slovic and Peters (2006) conclude that risk is perceived and acted on in two
fundamental ways: risk as feelings and risk as analysis. In this regard, a more holistic approach is needed to cover all
the three layers of concepts related to risk perception.
Considerable work has been focused on the objective side of risk perception, such as those studies which measure
and categorize tourist’s risk perception (Pennington-Gray & Schroeder, 2013; Roehl & Fesenmaier, 1992). The
categorization and labelling of perceived risk, let alone the validity or credibility issue, has contributed significantly
to our understanding of risk perception. However, research solely focus on risk perception fail to recognize risk as a
sophisticated social phenomenon. In fact, tourism itself is a complex social occurrence. Perhaps, it is about the right
time to look at the subjective side of risk perception -- risk perception is socially constructed and mutually shaped
by the subject (tourist) and others (Douglas & Wildavsky, 1982) and the construction of risk perception endures
even after the removal of threats (A. M. Williams & Baláž, 2014). A qualitative or post-modernistic approach could
have much to contribute, especially in bringing into horizon the factors that construct and reconstruct risk
perception.