Title of Paper

UNDERSTANDING TOURIST MOTIVATIONS IN VISITING CURRENT AND FORMER CONFLICT ZONES

Author Bios (50 Words for each Author)

Dr. Sandra Sydnor is an Associate Professor at Purdue University’s White Lodging-J.W. Marriott, Jr. School of Hospitality and Tourism Management and Purdue’s Heath ad Human Sciences Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Her areas of expertise include Resilience: Individual, business, and community levels; Entrepreneurship: Family-owning Business, Small and Rural businesses; and Mindfulness: Student, business levels.

Michael Luongo, MCRP, is a PhD student at Purdue University’s White Lodging-J.W. Marriott, Jr. School of Hospitality and Tourism Management whose research examines tourism redevelopment in the aftermath of conflict. He had previously extensively published on gay/LGBTQ+ tourism and is an award-winning travel journalist, book author and has taught at universities in the USA and China.

Abstract (150 Words)

Locations recovering from conflict encounter difficulty rebuilding their tourism sectors. Factors include infrastructure devastation and persistent perception of danger. This work seeks to answer the following research questions: For those who do venture into these locations soon after war or in the midst of it, what are their characteristics and motivations? Would understanding these early travelers allow recovering locations to target them through early marketing to speed tourism sector recovery and overall economic rebuilding, perhaps leading to a faster shift in outside perceptions? Methodology is a mixed methods approach with primary emphasis on qualitative analysis of 10 interviews with recent travelers to Iraq. Questions examine motivations, perceptions, media research, prior travel frequency, among other factors, along with a Risk-Taking Behavior survey. Subjects are recruited from tour companies and independent travelers. The researchers will also test robustness of traditional analysis of qualitative data by a comparative analysis using both traditional and data analysis software such as NVivo.

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UNDERSTANDING TOURIST MOTIVATIONS IN VISITING CURRENT AND FORMER CONFLICT ZONES

Locations recovering from conflict encounter difficulty rebuilding their tourism sectors. Factors include infrastructure devastation and persistent perception of danger. This work seeks to answer the following research questions: For those who do venture into these locations soon after war or in the midst of it, what are their characteristics and motivations? Would understanding these early travelers allow recovering locations to target them through early marketing to speed tourism sector recovery and overall economic rebuilding, perhaps leading to a faster shift in outside perceptions? Methodology is a mixed methods approach with primary emphasis on qualitative analysis of 10 interviews with recent travelers to Iraq. Questions examine motivations, perceptions, media research, prior travel frequency, among other factors, along with a Risk-Taking Behavior survey. Subjects are recruited from tour companies and independent travelers. The researchers will also test robustness of traditional analysis of qualitative data by a comparative analysis using both traditional and data analysis software such as NVivo.