Clear and Concise Messages are the Best Warnings

Stronger warning messages lead to better tourist safety compliance and participation.

Research by Lai et al. (2024) highlights the effectiveness of strong warning messages in encouraging tourists to follow safety guidelines in natural recreational settings. The study found that stronger warnings lead to higher compliance and participation in safety measures by influencing tourists’ perception of threats and their coping strategies.

For maximum impact, designers should use striking colors, fonts, and graphical imagery of the potential harms. Additionally, the presence of other tourists following safety guidelines reinforces compliance, making it important to create an environment where responsible behavior is visible and encouraged. Thus, signage promoting individual impact on a group is crucial to ensuring that there is no poor tourist behavior imitation.

An example message the article uses is “Don’t let your dangerous behavior spread to others.” This message reinforces the idea that tourists will behave similarly to other tourists, even the ones promoting dangerous behaviors.

By strategically designing safety messages and leveraging social influence, natural destinations can ensure tourist safety while maintaining an enjoyable experience in natural destinations.

The study can be found here.

Lai, F. et al. (2024) ‘The persuasive effects of warning messages’, Annals of Tourism Research, 109, p. 103829. doi:10.1016/j.annals.2024.103829

Written by: Reed Davisson