Tourist Safety Intelligence: Scale Development, Validation, and Prediction

Safety intelligence is critical for navigating security challenges but remains unexplored in tourism. This study conceptualizes the structure of tourist safety intelligence, develops a measurement scale, and investigates its behavioral influence mechanisms. Study 1 confirmed a triarchic structure of analytical, practical, and creative intelligence based on Sternberg’s Successful Intelligence Theory and validated a scale with adequate fit for both first-order and second-order models. Study 2 revealed that analytical intelligence positively predicts safety compliance but negatively predicts safety participation, while practical and creative intelligence both positively predict safety participation. Analytical and practical intelligence also indirectly influence both behaviors through sequential mediation of social and personal norms. Practically, these findings enable tourism authorities to design targeted training programs enhancing specific intelligence dimensions, develop tailored safety communication strategies based on tourists’ cognitive profiles, and implement differentiated interventions to promote both safety compliance and participation.