15:50 〜 16:05
[MZZ50-02] Preparing for volcanic disasters: Risk communication issues when dealing with international tourists.
★Invited Papers
キーワード：risk communication, tourists, disasters
This paper provides insights on the risk communication behavior of international tourists visiting Japan. The study builds on the premise that even if tourism-oriented risk communication has been strongly investigated, tourists’ risk information seeking and processing has been under-investigated. We thus explore risk information seeking and processing of international tourists in Japan. Japan has been selected as a case study for several reasons. First, the level of exposure of the country to natural hazards, such as volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, earthquakes, and typhoons, is high. Second, due to the increasing presence of tourists in recent years, the number of people exposed to disaster-related risk in Japan has also drastically increased. In the case of a major volcanic eruption with disruption to air traffic, the provision of risk information to tourists already in Japan, as well as those preparing to travel is of critical importance. The overall aim of the study consists on providing cross-country evidence to inform risk-communication strategies and improve tourists’ disaster preparedness. In order to investigate the tourists’ perspective, we adopted the Risk Information Seeking and Processing (RISP) model.