| Summary: | Tourism industry plays a vital role in the economic development of any country by
attracting foreign tourists resulting in positive country image. International tourism in
Palestine has been economically and culturally undesirable because it has been subject
to political turmoil over the past decades, and its tourist arrivals have not fully
capitalized on the potential that the region holds. This is compounded by the negative
image that the media has developed about Palestin concerning instability as opposed
to actual reality in stability, security, safety and as such, it has become essential to
disseminate the right image. The turbulent situation in Jerusalem occasioned by Israeli
Palestinian crisis put euphoria in the mind set of tourist visiting the country . Therefore,
this study is attempted to evaluate the role of various factors (destination image, tourist
trust, and tourist emotion and perceived risk) under the mediation role of political
stability towards tourist retention in Jerusalem. A quantitative methodology was applied
in this research. The tudy has collected the primary data through questionnaire. The
data were collected from 384 tourists who had visited Jerusalem by using cluster and
non-probability purposive sampling technique. In the second step, the collected data is
analysed by using statistical tools i.e. SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science)
and AMOS. The results of the structural equation modelling, found that trust, tourist
emotion, and Israel risk have a significant relationship with political stability and tourist
loyalty. In addition, political stability also acts as a mediator in the relationship between
trust, tourist emotion, Israel risk, and tourist loyalty. Although destination image has a
significant relationship with tourist loyalty, there is a negative relationship between
destination image and political stability. Political stability does not act as a mediator in
the relationship between destination image and tourist loyalty. The most important
finding is that human behaviour measurement of tourist loyalty entails the focus on
tourist emotion as this variable had the top effect towards both variables (political
stability and tourist loyalty). Tourism managers should focus on improving the positive
image of Jerusalem to increase influx of guests, more revenue, and sustainability
because successful t0UIism development is closel related to lower risk at a destination.
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