Terrorism and Tourism: An Overview

Discuss about the Current Issues in Tourism.

The tourism industry is a very complicated industry and comprises a large variety of businesses, organisations and dissimilar sectors of the government and non-government bodies to carry a total tourism familiarity. The tourism business plays a very significant function in the economic development of a nation (Baker, 2014). On the other hand, terrorism is adversely impacting the tourism industry of every nation. Terrorism and tourism are two contracting thing which completely changes the economy of the countries. Tourism helps in developing and promoting a country while terrorism impacts the economic situation of a nation negatively. Terrorists are dangerous and have diverse outlook regarding their purposes. There are lot of things those terrorists’ gains by targeting the travellers. Tourists get embattled for their figurative value of indirect representatives. 

Terrorism has immense impact on the tourism sector and related business. It was stated by Darnell B that most of the business activity in the terrorism prone area get influenced by the government policies and strategies to fight against terrorism; this is another factor which affect the tourism industries when terrorist attack takes place (Mukesh, 2014). This is the adverse effect which brings down the rate of tourism of the affected area. It is important to protect the areas which are known for tourist destination. There are several small terrorist attacks which had led a massive fall of tourism rate. If the cost of terrorist attacks is calculated and compares with the losses that tourism sector faced due to terrorist activity, the tourism sector always has to pay huge price than the loss of the terrorist group. According to the information, the amount required to make a bomb is just 400 dollars but the damage it created in the blast of world trade centre in 1993 was estimated as 500 million dollar (Mukesh, 2014). The amount of money that is invested by different countries to get cover from terrorist activity is in billion of dollar whereas it cost nothing for the terrorist organisation as compare to the amount invested by different nations to stop the terrorist activity.

The attention of the people of the world was seized on 11th September 2001 by the word terrorism. The reason behind this was the dramatic and destructive attacks on the world’s most powerful countries core symbol i.e. the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre. The vulnerabilities of the tour and travel industry were exposed by the attacks of the terrorists on the Big Apple of the world on 11 September 2001 (Singh, 2013). The tourists’ perception about the safety and security of travel were also changed due to these attacks. The operational characteristics can be the reason behind the sector’s vulnerabilities. Thus we can say that the terrorist attacks can enable the travel and tour industry to experience its vulnerabilities and it can, in turn, affect the demand patterns (Liu and Pratt, 2017). Communicating the message of fear and danger to the people of the world as widely as possible is the main objective of the terrorist groups. The high security in the embassies and of the politicians makes them less attractive and due to this, the terrorist targets the tourists of the place who are basically the soft targets. The terrorist can damage the economy of a country by attacking the tourists, this has a potential of punishing and destroying the capitalist ideologies. If the terrorist attacks the overseas tourists then it will result in the alienation of their popular support as the other countries that support the terrorists for their own benefits will take it as a threat to their citizens who travel to the locations where these terrorist activities take place (Liu and Pratt, 2017). The result of targeting the local people would lead to the rise of a spirit of vengeance among the local people and due to this the existence of the terrorists will come to risk. Several studies have been done about the destination for tourism according to the terrorism risks and cost of travel.

Assessment of the Cost of Terrorism on Tourism

According to the report published by the European commission, terrorists express their attacks against business more than any other target (Sönmez and Sönmez, 2017). Terrorism could bring any organisation or economy at a devastating position. There are several incidents happened which effected the terrorism. The movement in the Turkey created by the Kurdistan Workers Party wished to establish a self-governing state in the Southern Turkey (Mukesh, 2014). The concerned party mainly targeted the tourism industry of the Turkey and also the local Turkish civilians and forces. They held a campaign against the foreign companies. They warned the foreign companies against sending the tourists to the turkey by bombing the hotels, tourist sites and by kidnapping the foreign tourists. These activities drop the percentage of the foreign visitor’s arrivals. Due to this, there was a drop page of around 8 percent of the foreign visitors.

The latest terrorism attacks in London could lead to destruction of the tourism industry in the city. According to the Travel experts, the tourism industry in London could see a decline as people worries about their safety. The attacks on the London Bridge have created a very serious damage to the country’s image. The UK is always recognised as the safest and lovable destination by the travellers and the terrorist attacks have created a question mark to it (Sönmez and Sönmez, 2017). Scholars stated that UK would be in the list of most favourable destination list by the travellers but some of the tourists would be getting against to it. The terrorist attack on London impacted the UK’s tourism sector. The British Hospitality Association stated that the reservation in the long-haul bookings had cooled down and there is weakening in the number of inbound passengers from Europe (Hurst, 2018). Each of the terrorist attack gives incremental impact on the bookings of tour packages to London. The attack on London created a short-term hit on the London market though the revenue per available room increases. The visitor’s attractions got the hardest hot as there has been decrement on the London sites of 10pc-15pc in the next three days after the attack. The Tourism Industry Emergency Response convened to discuss what impact the attacks will have on the industry (William Turvill, 2018). According to TIER, tourism in London is worth around £36bn a year, and tourism industry in the city gets resilient after these terrorist attacks.    

Same like London, in 2016, Jihadists sowed a terror attack in the City of Light, Paris. The city is now rebellious to reinstate its lustre as the tourists are staying away in the drove (Sönmez and Sönmez, 2017). The tourism chef of Paris region, Frederic Valletoux said that the city has not yet recovered from the terrorists attacks. The impact is lasting and is completely unprecedented. The country has faced a loss of €750 million in its tourism industry. In the last six months of 2016, the tourists visits in the France has been down by 6.4 percent as compared to visitor’s number in 2015 (Liu and Pratt, 2017). The terror attacks and constant strikes from them as contributed to keep the visitors away.

In conclusion, it could be said that the political stability in a nation could lead to rise of terrorism. The civil unrest enhances the insight of risk at a purpose. The political instability creates unenthusiastic publicity and that results in the unavoidable degradation in the arrival of tourists. The study analysed that the risk perception could influence the decision-making of the tourists and destinations could be severely affected. The consequence of terrorism is very high in a country. The risk perception of the terrorism creates anxiety in travellers towards a destination and it could be identified from the condition of London and Paris. Terrorism creates a negative impression about a destination, and this negative attitude towards a destination could create a high level of uncertainty towards the safety of the travellers. The greatest impact on the tourism industry comes from terrorist attacks when the tourists are directly targeted. For reducing the terrorist attacks, government policies and marketing strategies need to be developed and it could lead to massive recovery in the tourism industry. 

References

Baker, D.M.A., 2014. The effects of terrorism on the travel and tourism industry. International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage, 2(1), p.9.

Hurst, A. (2018). European visitor numbers down after UK terror attacks. [online] The Telegraph. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/07/31/european-visitor-numbers-uk-terror-attacks/ [Accessed 30 Apr. 2018].

Liu, A. and Pratt, S., 2017. Tourism’s vulnerability and resilience to terrorism. Tourism Management, 60, pp.404-417.

Mukesh, R., 2014. TERRORISM TERRORIZES TOURISM.

Singh, R., 2013. Terrorism and tourism. International Journal of Advanced Research in Management and Social Sciences, 2(11), pp.187-198.

Sönmez, S.F. and Sönmez, S., 2017. TOURISM, TERRORISM, AND POLITICAL INSTABILITY. Anatolia: Turizm Arastirmalari Dergisi, 28(1), pp.110-137.

William Turvill, S. (2018). Tourism chiefs hold emergency summit over terrorism threat to industry. [online] Cityam.com. Available at: https://www.cityam.com/266033/london-bridge-attack-tourism-chiefs-hold-emergency-summit [Accessed 30 Apr. 2018].