Developing a typology of tourist harassment in archeological sites: a netnographic approach

Tourist harassment has received some attention over the past two decades as a major challenge affecting travelers' personal safety and their perceptions of tourism destinations. However, there is still a need to understand and explore in depth the types of behavior that constitute tourist harassment. Using a qualitative netnographic study approach, this study identified the types of harassment that tourists are likely to experience in archeological sites. Travelers' anecdotes reporting harassment incidents in two Jordanian archeological sites, Petra and Jerash, were retrieved from TripAdvisor and examined using a hybrid content analysis approach. Six key categories of tourist harassment emerged from the data. These categories were labeled as vendors' persistence, obtrusive on-site service providers, beggar children, sexual harassment, verbal abuse, and physical abuse. Each category was explored in depth and exemplified using travelers' anecdotes. A typology of tourists' response to harassment was also developed based on the anecdotes. Results suggest that vendors' persistence was the most frequently reported type of harassment. When experiencing harassment, tourists are likely to respond by resisting the harassers. The findings have several theoretical and managerial implications for both researchers and destination managers.