TOURISM BEHAVIOR TOWARD DISASTERS: A CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISON

The current study extends the author's previous study in which Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance dimension (1991) was applied to the case of the September 21st earthquake in 1999, the largest natural disaster of the 20th century in Taiwan. The study assessed how the behavior of Japanese and United States tourists has been affected. The results indicate clear differences in rebound status between Japanese and American visitor arrivals that are remarkably consistent with Hofstede's conceptualization – the Japanese tended toward uncertainty avoidance more than the Americans.