Why Does Unfamiliarity Feel Unsettling? Exploring the Formation of Cross-cultural Travel Anxiety

Cultural differences often entail risks and uncertainties, making anxiety a common experience among cross-cultural tourists. To address the limited theoretical attention to this issue, our study draws on data from 33 interviews to explore the content dimensions and formation mechanisms of cross-cultural travel anxiety. The findings identify four content dimensions: functional adaptation anxiety, behavioral transgression anxiety, travel safety anxiety, and social relationship anxiety. These responses are influenced by a combination of factors, including cultural environmental differences, information transmission, cognitive bias, defensive barriers, and personality traits. The core category of the cognitive construction of risk and integrative instability integrates the identified factors. It clarifies the underlying mechanism by which cross-cultural travel anxiety forms, with the proposed visual framework contributing to a clearer, integrated theoretical structure. Overall, this study advances the theoretical understanding of cross-cultural travel anxiety and provides managers with actionable implications for preventing and mitigating such negative emotions.