Together with the theoretical discourse on types of risk perception
determinants, tourism researchers also assumed that
individual perception of risk is an outcome of tourists’ personal
background characteristics. Pursuing such relationships
is essential since findings can be highly effective in marketing
tourism products, in general, and tourist destinations affected
by such risk generators, in particular. Furthermore, such findings
can help to transmit mitigating messages according to different
market segments that are characterized by different or
unique cultural, subcultural, and/or sociodemographic and
economic backgrounds. Indeed, the assumed relationships
between tourists’ background characteristics and their levels
of risk perception have—in most cases—been substantiated.
Thus, direct or indirect causal relations have been found with
respect to various demographics (Sönmez and Graefe 1998b;
Lepp and Gibson 2003; Moreira 2008; Gibson and Zhang
2009), economic status (Mitchell 1998), and cultural differences
(Fuchs and Reichel 2004; Pizam et al. 2004; Reisinger
and Mavondo 2005; Hunter-Jones, Jefs, and Smith 2008).