Sexual health education for young tourists Liza Berdychevsky * Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA highlights  Recommendations for sexual health education for young tourists are proposed.  Comprehensive harm reduction and health promotion approaches are advised.  Uniqueness of tourist experiences should be leveraged in health education messages.  Targeting, framing, and tailoring can improve sexual health education for tourists.  Findings bridge across tourism and public health literature and practice. article info Article history: Received 13 February 2017 Accepted 30 March 2017 Keywords: Sexual health education Harm reduction Health promotion Targeting Framing Tailoring Young tourists abstract There is a pressing need for developing effective sexual health education for a high-risk group of young tourists. The purpose of this study was to explore the necessity of sexual health education for young tourists and to identify the characteristics of potentially successful sexual health messages. The data were obtained from three mixed-gender focus groups and 13 individual interviews (N ¼ 32) and analyzed using constructivist grounded theory. The findings highlight the necessity for innovative sexual health education methods supporting young adults' decision-making in tourism. Participants' recommenda- tions for sexual health education for tourists included informing decisions about safer sex instead of condemning sex; developing tourism-focused, age-specific, and gender-sensitive messages; varying messages’ emphases on risks vs. benefits; and individualizing the messages based on risk perceptions and motivations. These recommendations can be explained and applied using context-specific, harm reduction, and health promotion approaches as well as the methods of targeting, framing, and tailoring. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Health concerns associated with sexual risk taking in tourism have become a focus of travel medicine research (Bauer, 2009; Cabada et al., 2007). Nevertheless, current sexual health education strategies for tourists seem unsatisfactory and are also severely under-researched and poorly understood (Berdychevsky, 2017; Matteelli & Capone, 2016; Matteelli & Carosi, 2001). It is prob- lematic because some tourist experiences offer opportunities for increased sexual mixing that can be a cause of morbidity (Matteelli et al., 2013; McNulty, Egan, Wand, & Donovan, 2010; Rogstad, 2004). Indeed, research suggests that tourism is associated with the geographical expansion of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) (Brown et al., 2014; Hamlyn, Peer, & Easterbrook, 2007; Marrazzo, 2008; Qvarnstr€ om & Oscarsson, 2014), while the odds of con- tracting such infections during travel are three-fold compared to everyday life (Vivancos, Abubakar, & Hunter, 2010). Young adults are at particularly high risk of STIs and other detrimental sexual health outcomes (Hughes, Downing, Bellis, Dillon, & Copeland, 2009; Richens, 2006; Ward & Plourde, 2006), as substantial numbers of them have (often unprotected) sex with new partners in tourism (Davies, Karagiannis, Headon, Wiig, & Duffy, 2011; Hamlyn et al., 2007; Lewis & de Wildt, 2016; Senn, de Valliere, Berdoz, & Genton, 2011). A low profile of sexual health education for tourists might be explained by the erroneous perceptions of such prevention efforts as unnecessary, impractical, or unfeasible (Matteelli & Capone, 2016). However, there is a pressing need for including an emphasis on sexual behavior in travel health education (Bauer, 2009; Cabada et al., 2007; Tanton et al., 2016). Likewise, travel clinics should pay more attention to travelers' sexual health and provide advice about safer sex in travel health consultations * Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism, University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, 104 Huff Hall, 1206 South Fourth St., Champaign, IL 61820, USA. E-mail address: lizabk@illinois.edu. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Tourism Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tourman http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2017.03.025 0261-5177/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Tourism Management 62 (2017) 189e195