Perceived and encountered risks and travel risk reduction among Finnish backpackers’
Perä, Julia (2018)
Perä, Julia
Yrkeshögskolan Arcada
2018
All rights reserved
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2018060412500
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2018060412500
Tiivistelmä
Backpacker tourism is a global phenomenon and by that it’s also affected by global risks. This thesis is study of backpacker tourism and risks among Finnish backpackers. It examines Finnish backpackers’ views about the perceived and encountered risks in backpacker traveling, how the backpackers are prepared for risks and what kind of risk reduction strategies they have.
The data for the study was collected from a Finnish internet backpacker travel forum called Pallontallaajat.net. 6 different conversations and altogether had 912 messages that were under the topic: risks, safety and security in travelling were chosen for the study. Internet conversations were chosen as the data because on them the backpackers’ have genuine and relevant communication about backpacker traveling. The data was analyzed by content analyze.
The perceived and encountered risks were categorized into 8 different risk categories: environmental, political, crime and financial, social and cultural, physical, health, expectation and other. The study results show that Finnish backpackers’ stories were similar about the perceived and encountered risks in terms of environment. Backpackers were aware of the environment risks that certain places might have and the dangers of the nature as well as traffic and they had also encountered many different types of environment related risks and threats. The backpackers were not that afraid of the physical risks and they didn’t see themselves getting into a physical situation. Yet, many of them told about situations where they had been physically assaulted. In terms of travel risk preparedness and reduction strategies, getting information about the travel destination and its’ risks, was the most mentioned way to be prepared for different type of risks that the destination might have. Backpackers mentioned variety of different kind of equipment that they used to reduce their travel risks. Backpackers used the risk reduction strategy of blending in, when they were trying to disguise themselves to look more local and less like a backpacker. The results of the study were in many aspects at the same line as the previous studies about tourism and risks but they also bring out cultural perspective to backpacker tourism from a Finnish backpackers’ point of view, for example to a Finnish backpackers in this study social factors were not seen as travel motivations but as travel risks.
The data for the study was collected from a Finnish internet backpacker travel forum called Pallontallaajat.net. 6 different conversations and altogether had 912 messages that were under the topic: risks, safety and security in travelling were chosen for the study. Internet conversations were chosen as the data because on them the backpackers’ have genuine and relevant communication about backpacker traveling. The data was analyzed by content analyze.
The perceived and encountered risks were categorized into 8 different risk categories: environmental, political, crime and financial, social and cultural, physical, health, expectation and other. The study results show that Finnish backpackers’ stories were similar about the perceived and encountered risks in terms of environment. Backpackers were aware of the environment risks that certain places might have and the dangers of the nature as well as traffic and they had also encountered many different types of environment related risks and threats. The backpackers were not that afraid of the physical risks and they didn’t see themselves getting into a physical situation. Yet, many of them told about situations where they had been physically assaulted. In terms of travel risk preparedness and reduction strategies, getting information about the travel destination and its’ risks, was the most mentioned way to be prepared for different type of risks that the destination might have. Backpackers mentioned variety of different kind of equipment that they used to reduce their travel risks. Backpackers used the risk reduction strategy of blending in, when they were trying to disguise themselves to look more local and less like a backpacker. The results of the study were in many aspects at the same line as the previous studies about tourism and risks but they also bring out cultural perspective to backpacker tourism from a Finnish backpackers’ point of view, for example to a Finnish backpackers in this study social factors were not seen as travel motivations but as travel risks.