Perception of Safety Tourism in Colombia

Antošová, Gabriela; Lima Santos, Luís; Stradová, Sara

Colombia is notorious for drug cartels and internal armed conflicts that have persisted in the country for more than 50 years. With the peace agreement signed in 2016 Colombia gradually became a country with strong tourism potential in Latin America. Supported by movie tourism and dark tourism, the influx of tourists to Colombia registered considerable increases. Colombia became a popular destination for recreation and beach stays, for adventure and experience tourism; and ecotourism has a dominant role related to the cultivation of coffee. However, Colombia presents natural risks and security risks that support the low level of peace and the low quality of life indicator as a tourism destination. The existence of a greater number of flights and low-cost booking systems, allows to increase interest in new non-traditional places, avoiding mass tourism, which can be an advantage for many travel agencies in the Czech and Portuguese markets that seek authentic and relatively unknown places. Despite the threat of the pandemic COVID-19, tourist packages to Colombia were analysed. Considering the main objective of the study, to assess the perception of security in Colombia, a questionnaire was carried out to identify the risks associated with this destination. To allow a comparison of the perception of safety with the Global Safety index, the responses of 206 potential tourists, 103 from Portugal and 103 from the Czech Republic, were selected. The results show that the destination Colombia is perceived as more dangerous by potential tourists than by actual tourists who have visited it and perceive it as much safer and more attractive.