Development of a tourist personality inventory to evaluate parameters associated with tourist crime victimization
Creators: name: Jackson, Mervyn
Publisher: name: RMIT University
Year: 2024

description: An extensive literature review led to the conclusion that there has been minimal research into key psychological parameters associated with tourist crime victimization. Three series of four studies were completed that defined 'tourists'; developed an inventory that assessed tourist personality; evaluated the psychometrics of this inventory; and, then determined the role of key psychological parameters in tourist crime victimization. The first series of studies (Chapter 2) focused on defining a 'tourist'. The series began with an archival study that found that tourists had (historically) been described along three dimensions: quest for novelty (versus familiarity); reliance on (or independent from) the tourist industry; and, a motivation to seek and interact with hosts (versus vacations for rest and relaxation). The second (qualitative) study determined that tourist academics described the 'tourist' using four themes: who (psychographics and demographics); does what (travel behaviours); with and to whom (cotravellers and hosts); and, where (destination factors). This qualitative study was successfully triangulated with a third (quantitative) lexical study. The final study in this first series utilized the extremes of the historical dimensions and described them in terms of the four themes. The extremes of the personality dimension were labelled 'Allocentricism' and 'Psychocentricism'. The second series of studies (Chapter 3) described the development and evaluation of a tourist personality inventory that empirically measured 'Allocentricism-Psychocentricism'. The first in this series of studies utilized empirical assessment guidelines to develop a reliable and (face, content) valid inventory. The second study determined criterion validity and found Allocentricism was not related to Extraversion, but was substantially measuring Openness (to new experiences). The third study found that while the Tourist Personality Inventory could predict tourist destination preferences, it failed to predict actual tourist destination choice. It was found that social environmental factors (money, opportunity, time) also influenced tourist decision-making. The final study in Chapter 3 confirmed that travel behaviours under the control of the tourist were predicted by the tourist personality inventory. The final series of four studies (Chapter 4) described four tourist personality types, determined that these tourist types were not culturally universal but had good predictive validity when evaluating Australian inbound and domestic tourists. The final study in this series found that the Allocentric Tourist Personality Inventory predicted tourist crime victimization, but failed to predict post crime reporting behaviour of tourist victims. It was concluded that a reliable and valid measure of tourist personality had been developed and that further research can now occur in the area of tourist crime victimization. The limitations of these studies and future directions.