Theme Park Visitors’ Responses to the SARS Outbreak in Taiwan

The purpose of this study is to examine empirically different characteristics between theme park visitors who did and did not visit theme parks during the SARS outbreak period in Taiwan. The data consisting of 1,255 respondents were obtained from visitors to the five leading theme parks. Discriminant analysis was used to analyze respondents’ characteristics such as age, benefit sought, product involvement, and risk perception to examine significant differences between the two categories of respondents. Results of this study showed that younger or more frequent visitors more likely continued to visit theme parks during the SARS outbreak. Besides, visitors who continued to visit theme parks perceived greater infectious risk than those who did not visit theme parks during the SARS outbreak.