Hussain, K; Ekiz, EH; Bouchon, F; Kumar, J; ,
Security is one of the factors affecting the Tourism sector, and that can impact competing destinations. The change of tourism market in the world and the competitive nature of the tourism industry, require tourist destinations to give better service and generate a positive image on tourists' mind. Unfortunately, the fragility of the tourism sector, internal sources are always not enough to keep or attract the visitors. There are security problems both human made (war, terrorist attacks, robberies & accidents) and natural disasters (earthquake, volcano, tsunami & storm disease) which are affecting the pre and after arrivals and safety perception of tourists that establishes destination's security image and popularity. Destination security image plays an important role in destination choice of tourists. In addition, these events not only damaged the countries physically, also it changed the trends of the tourism. Nowadays, countries are suffering from the Bird Flu, especially tourism based destinations. Over and above deceases like Ebola has also affected travel industry. Furthermore, political issues also affect the image of a particular destination. The case of the Mediterranean island of Cyprus illustrates such situation. Cyprus is divided between North and South since 1974. Where northern part is administered by Turkish armed forces and southern part is governed by Greeks. North Cyprus, which is called Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, is still an unrecognized country and suffers from political instability, while the southern part of the island became a full member state of European Union in 2004. Both sides are major tourist destination in the Mediterranean, ideal place for sand, sun and sea type holidays, however, the northern part remains largely unknown due to its political isolation. Therefore, the aim of the current study is to examine how foreign tourists perceive North Cyprus in terms of security before and after visiting the country.
Pham, TML; Soukup, J; Phan, D; Phung, MT;