Air Travel Safety Perception Among Tourists With or Without Flying Experience

Abstract

Abstract. Air transport has the key position in the global economic growth. It represents the most important economic sector along with tourism, counting its direct, indirect and multiplier effects. The 21th century is the era of the air travel, as it has reached the share of more than a half of all passengers transported (51%). In the current safety conditions of aviation, even the smallest disorder could have major consequences. There are numerous factors in tourism that could cause difficulties in air travel. It is necessary to examine the psychological factors, as well as the safety perception of passengers. Transport safety is a significant factor for tourists, which could cause cancellation of bookings as a respond to perceived safety risk during the travel. Other researchers showed that passengers are ready to pay extra money for a transport, that seems more safer. Air travel passengers are often avoiding airlines, whose planes were involved in accidents. The main task of this paper is to reveal the major topics and the issues of perception, and to create a base for further scientific research. Results of the paper could be useful to managers of tourist and transport companies. The authors of the paper formed two hypotheses: H1 -There are no differences in air European Journal of Economic Studies, 2014, Vol. (7 ), № 1 16 travel safety perception between tourist with and without flying experience; H2 -Tourists with flying experience consider air transport as the safest. The data in this research was gathered through a direct questionnaire. The main methods used for data analyze and display of results were descriptive statistics, T-test and standard deviation. Data was processed with the IBM SPSS 19.0. software package for statistical research. Results showed that tourists without flying experience have doubts towards air travel safety, which is also influencing tourism. On the other hand, tourists with more experience regard airplanes as the safest way of travel.