Why do tourists seek risk? Development of the multidimensional risk tourism motivation scale (RTMS)

The goal of the present investigation is to develop the Risk Tourism Motivation Scale (RTMS), a multidimensional scale that explicates why individuals engage in tourism activities that carry heightened risk, including the possibility of physical injury or death. Unlike prior work that has primarily emphasised risk taking and sensation seeking, the RTMS introduces a domain-specific, multidimensional measure of risk tourism motivations. Drawing on Western English-speaking participants recruited from Prolific, we followed a four-study process involving preliminary dimension identification, item reduction via EFA, factor-structure confirmation via CFA, and incremental validity testing through hierarchical regression. Results indicate that the RTMS contains four dimensions: Risk Appraisal, Social Influence, Recognition, and Experiential Motivation. The RTMS also explains additional variance in risk tourism intentions and behaviour beyond established constructs such as risk taking, sensation seeking, and social approval.