TerrorScale: A Scale to Measure the Contact of International Tourists with Terrorism

Terrorism is unfortunately part of our lives and will not simply disappear. Accepting its presence, the management and prevention of its negative consequences is a key issue. This is imperative not only for countries where terrorist attacks occur, but also for countries that may be affected indirectly. It is necessary to further consider this issue and create more effective instruments for crisis management, ideally based on cooperative solutions among industry, government agencies and tourism-related academic institutions. Although research on terrorism has been undertaken in the tourism domain, the specific concept of tourists’ contact with terrorism has never been operationalized. In this paper we develop a scale that measures the contact of tourists with terrorism. Insights from an empirical study of 600 international tourists indicate that this multi-dimensional scale incorporates three types of contact: 1) Direct, 2) Indirect and 3) Attention to/ Interest in Terrorism on the Media. Discussion centers on implications of this scale for theory development and in the context of strategic destination crisis management decisions. Directions for future research are also presented