Students' perception of risk in leisure travel

International tourism is nothing extraordinary for neither the broad population nor students anymore. Because going abroad in general, but especially on long haul trips is considered with various risks regarding made investments and safety of the individual, it is all the more interesting to know which determinants play a role in risk perception. Literature suggested destination image and different tourist characteristics as gender, the degree of novelty seeking, travel experience, and language proficiency to play a role in risk perception and in turn risk perception to determine the travel purchase decision. In this study, 90 students from mostly Germany and the Netherlands participated. They were distributed in two conditions where they were asked to evaluate risks of each one fictional destination – a favorable and an unfavorable destination – presented in a text frame. However, literature findings could only be partially confirmed. Namely travel experience, destination image, and to a certain extent novelty seeking seemed to play a role. Interestingly, some additional correlations were observed, indicating risk perception itself to be an interwoven construct. Finally, strengths and weaknesses of this research as integration of a fictional destination, as well as future research recommendations are discussed