Abstract

The review focuses on how tourists perceive terrorism risk, through the comparison of different studies that explored, with the use of questionnaires and random samples, how terrorism affects the perception of risk, the trip’s decisions of a tourist and the destinations’ image. The review departs from the seminal contribution of Sönmez e Graefe (1998) and the comparison to other investigations that have studied the phenomenon considering in particular socio-demographic factors, personality, the role of the trip experience, and different types of tourists. Studies that have specifically considered emotions also as an antecedent of the tourists’ choices, through experimental method, are also presented. More specifically the ones which take in consideration the effects that anger, fear and anxiety have on the perception of terrorism risk and on the choice of the trip destinations. A section is dedicated to the topic of media, as they are often negatively associated with the perception of terrorism risk, also thanks to the social amplification. In conclusion it is discussed the possible influences on the tourism marketing.