Mid Sweden University

PurposeThe purpose of this thesis is to understand the barriers of women to participate in hard adventure tourism activities with an empirical study among Vietnamese female tourists in Vietnam.Design/methodology/approachThis is a quantitative study to test 11 hypotheses about the influence of 11 barriers on the intention and participation of women in hard adventure tourism. The barriers were identified using Theory of Planned Behavior, and data was collected using the survey questionnaire. SPSS software was used to interpret and analyze the data with the following analysis method: frequencies analysis, descriptive analysis, normality analysis, reliability analysis, correlation analysis, nonparametric test for hypothesis testing and logistic regression.

FindingsBased on the result, the barriers to the intention of women to participate in hard adventure tourism activities include the negative attitudes such as the sense of guilt, the sense of fear, the perception of being unadventurous; social pressure including social expectation, the masculine portrayal of adventure on media, the lack of role models, the self-doubt about their ability together with being unfamiliar with the travel destination. The factors relating to actual behavioral control such as lack of time and lack of money act as constraints to the actual participation of women in hard adventure tourism.Research limitations/implicationsThe study is limited only to the investigation of the barriers among Vietnamese female tourists in Vietnam who are active on Internet platform. Therefore, the findings should be used with caution for Vietnam tourism market and non-Western countries with similar culture and maybe not appropriate to apply to Western contexts.Practical implicationsThe results of the study have implications for marketers, travel companies and policy makers regarding the promotion of the image of women in hard adventure activities, which encourage women to participate in this type of tourism.