The Influence of Perceived Risk and Perceived Information Credibility on Tourists’ Intention to Visit Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Although The government of Saudi Arabia has spent high amount of money to improve the Saudi tourism market and destination image, tourists’ perception toward Saudi still not clear. This study aims to examine the influence of perceived risk on tourist intention to visit Saudi Arabia as well as the information credibility offered by the Saudi tourism authority’s campaigns. This study utilizes the theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to understand tourists’ intention to visit Saudi Arabia. This paper employs a quantitative approach to evaluate thirteen research hypotheses. An instrument was developed based on previous tourism and marketing literature Participants were tasked with viewing a brief promotional video on Saudi Tourism, produced and disseminated by the Saudi Ministry of Tourism through various YouTube and answer the survey accordingly. Participants were recruited from the Amazon Mechanical Turk consumer panel (MTURK). Only U.S. respondents of legal age who had never visited Saudi Arabia were included in the study. After screening for incomplete responses, 526 usable surveys were retained for analysis. This study utilized SPSS, Mplus, and AMOS 18 for data analysis. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was initially conducted through Mplus to determine the number of factors for each measurement utilized and to provide guidance for subsequent Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to evaluate the overall fit of the measurement model. Finally, a structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed through AMOS 18 to examine the relationships between defined constructs and latent variables. The findings indicate a negative correlation between perceived risk and perceived information credibility, subjective norms, and attitudes toward visiting Saudi Arabia. However, contrary to initial hypotheses, perceived risk was not found to significantly influence perceived behavioral control. Moreover, the study revealed that perceived information credibility positively influenced attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. Additionally, it was found that attitudes positively correlated with subjective norms and intention to visit Saudi Arabia. Similarly, a significant positive association was discovered between subjective norms and intention. Furthermore, the study found that subjective norms were positively linked with perceived behavioral control. However, perceived behavioral control did not notably impact intention, as revealed by the study's results. This study is important because it helps the Saudi tourism practitioners to understand how international tourists perceive the information they publish, and their perception of perceived risk toward Saudi Arabia. This study is important for tourism literature because it emphasized the significance of perceptions of risk and information credibility, contributing to the existing literature by integrating them as additional predictors within the current Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) model.