Terrorism has not targeted one specific sector within the tourism industry, though attacks on airlines have gained the greatest amount of publicity. Terrorist attacks can occur in such diverse places/means of transportation as:
● Airlines
● Buses
● Casinos
● Cruise Ships
● Hotels and places of lodging
● Major events, sporting or recreation areas
● National parks
● Places where people congregate
● Restaurants and outdoor cafes
● Wherever people are carefree and happy.
● The debasement of women. Medieval societies may use women as a form of gaining power, but once power is gained then women are reduced to second-class citizens.
Medieval societies assume male domestic “infantilization” and female servitude.
● A xenophobic fear/hatred for the “other.” Medieval societies tend to find social harmony around xenophobic hatreds. These groups reject people as individuals and instead hold their own people together by fear of the “other.”
● Medieval societies are ones in which travel is made difficult. Eco (1983, p. 79) illustrates this position clearly when he writes: “Insecurity is a key word: ... In the Middle Ages, a wanderer in the woods at night saw them peopled with maleficent presences; one did not lightly venture beyond town ... This condition is close to that of the white middle-class inhabitant of New York, who doesn’t set foot in Central Park after five in the afternoon, or who makes sure not to get off the subway in Harlem ... ”
● The rejection of capitalism. Medieval societies have tended to see economic gain as
“unholy” and have sought rewards not in this world but rather in the world(s) to come.
For example, Islamic militant literature speaks consistently of the replacement of capi- talism with an Islamic economic system. The same is true of other forms of terrorism around the world such as that expressed by the Senderos Iluminosos of Peru.
● The rejection of individualism. Modern societies tend to judge people as individuals rather than as part of a group. A person is expected to see him/herself as a competitor for resources and the only legal limitations placed on the individual are those of natural abil- ity or determination. Medieval societies tend to be more proscribed societies. Positions are inherited or assigned. People are judged not by merit but rather by the group to which they belong. It is for this reason that modern societies tend to fight wars against other nation’s leaders, but medieval societies tend to fight wars against “whole peoples.”
Tourism is the opposite of the phenomena described above. It can be argued that using the word “modern” in its technical sense (as opposed to medieval as defined above) tourism is the most modern of industries. If terrorism is based on a medieval paradigm, then tourism is terrorism’s exact opposite. It can be argued that modern mass tourism was born only after World War II. Prior to that war, tourism was an activity almost exclusively designed for the upper classes. For anyone else, it was all too easy to understand why to travel was more “work” than “pleasure.” Indeed, the English word “travel” is derived from the French word “travail” (work) and which in turn was derived from the Latin word for
“pitchfork.” Travel, prior to WWII, was both dangerous and arduous. Post World War II society saw the development of leisure tourism as a modern industry. This modernity was not only historical in nature but also sociological.
For example, tourism is an industry in which women play a major role, not only in ser- vant/service positions but also as leaders, CEOs, and managers. Furthermore, tourism is big business. While no one knows the exact amount of money made from the tourism industry, it is fair to say that it is one of the world’s largest, if not the largest, non-bellicose industries.2Not only is tourism a big business, but it also holds a nation’s iconic treasures.
2The economic impact of tourism will vary according to which component industries are included and according to each geographic region’s definition of who is a tourist.
Thus, an attack on tourism is not only an attack on a national economy, but it often is an attack on that nation’s iconic treasures. Tourism is an inviting target for other sociological reasons. For example, tourism is based on a sense of openness; it is by nature the opposite of xenophobia, a celebration of diversity. Terrorists who seek a return to medieval social paradigms then will note that tourism permits a great number of women to be employed without sexism. This return to the “days before” is what Boym (2001) calls “restorative nostalgia”. Restorative nostalgia, as distinguished from Reflexive nostalgia, can become a major fuel of terrorism. Table 6.2 distinguishes the major sociological differences between these two forms of nostalgia and helps to explain part of the relationship between tourism and terrorism.
Tourism as an industry also has a number of aspects that make it highly vulnerable to terrorist attacks. For example, tourism sells a highly volatile and capricious product.
Terrorists and tourism professionals alike are aware of the fact that tourism is a voluntary activity. That is, to say, that no one is forced to take a vacation or spend money on leisure travel. Thus, many leisure travelers tend to shy away from a location when there is a per- ceived or real sense of danger. It is important to note that a perceived act of terrorism may be as damaging from an economic standpoint as an actual threat.
Second, tourism products are open to spoilage. An airplane seat unsold is now “spoiled”
and the economic loss cannot be recovered. The same is true of a hotel room, a room on a cruise line, or the lost attendance at an attraction. The opportunity-lost phenomenon also
Table 6.2: Restorative and reflexive nostalgia.
Type of nostalgia Restorative Reflexive
Stress Action of going home The longing
Push for homecoming Quickens it Delays it Way it thinks of itself Truth and tradition Faces modernity Dealing with absolutes Protects the absolute truth Questions absolute truth
Politics National revivals How do we inhabit two places at the same time
Emphasis on Symbols Details
Memory National and linear Social and varied
Plots Restore national origins Past is dealt with, with irony and and conspiracy theories. A humor. Mourning mixed play paranoiac reconstruction of pointing to the future.
“home” based on rational delusions (p. 41)
Relationship to tourism Negative, sees visitors as May become a basis for increased industry intrusion on nation sales and holds marketing value
Adapted from Boym (2001).
occurs when terrorism warnings are increased. For example, the United States Conference of Mayors estimated that in the 15 months from September 11, 2001 until December 31, 2002 the cost of raising the code level from yellow to orange four times was over US$2.6 billion (Johnson, 2003). These estimates do not take into account lost or spoiled tourism dollars. Thus, from the perspective of terrorists who seek to create economic destruction, simply the reaction to terrorism functions as a secondary form of terrorism.
This reaction is often based on perceptions and fears. Tourism professionals know all too well that perceptions are real in their consequences. Terrorists understand that they merely have to create an atmosphere of fear in order to successfully damage a tourism industry. Fear-production is a very potent weapon in the hands of terrorists. The fear of ter- rorism need not even be based on terrorism. The SARS crisis in Toronto, Canada is an example of such an incorrect perception that turned into a tourism crisis (see Chapter 4).
Alfred Hitchock’s famous statement that: “There is no terror in the bang, only in the fear of it” well describes the Toronto SARS crisis. In reality there was no SARS tourism crisis, but due to irrational fears Toronto’s tourism industry was decimated. Tourism fear is closely related to issues of terrorism. Terrorists develop fears that can continue long after the real or perceived threat has past. To accomplish this task, terrorists merely need to understand the cultural anxieties of a society and be media savvy. An informed terrorist will be aware of the fact that to travel is to have at least some anxieties and that what hap- pens in tourism is almost always a media event. Furthermore, terrorists who seek “horror re-enforcement” through the media are well aware of the fact that a tourism scare will re- enforce itself. Tourism professionals can be sure that the media will show people suffer- ing, and that this information will be repeated constantly on the 24-h news stations. The repetition serves to increase the fear (see Glassner, 1999). Furthermore, the scare will pro- duce the terrorists’ desired effect of economic destruction.
Still another reason why tourism is vulnerable to terrorist attacks is that tourists are hard people to track and tourism is an easy industry to attack. People on vacation often do not wish to think about the world’s problems. Instead, being on holiday, they have a tendency to let down their guard, to dress strangely, to pay little attention to their surroundings and to keep strange hours. These normative social irregularities are the basis by which terrorists can easily infiltrate a tourism industry prior to an “event” and disappear after the “event.”
Terrorism may seek out tourism for a number of additional reasons. For example, tourism is connected to major transportation centers. Transportation functions as the veins and arteries through which modern economies flow. If one of terrorism’s goals is the destruction of these economies then attacks at airports, seaports, and bus terminals make sense. Each time a transportation center’s activities are forced to cease, not only are peo- ple made aware of the terrorist’s power but also great economic harm will occur. This clos- ing of transportation centers will then become a media event serving the needs of a terrorist to broadcast his/her message. Tourism is also interconnected to a myriad of other indus- tries. For example, there is a close relationship to the food industries and tourism (see Chapter 10). Millions of dollars are spent at restaurants each year and if restaurant sales decline so does the farmer’s ability to make a profit.
Tourism is highly media oriented and terrorists, as opposed to criminals, seek publicity.
Terror cannot be successful if no one has heard about the act of terror. Tourism centers tend to be places that market themselves. These are places that, with a few exceptions, want to
be known. They often provide good media access and can assure a terrorist of almost instant exposure.
Furthermore, tourism centers do not take personal histories of their clients. In most cases, tourism is an industry of anonymity. People come and leave at will. Because tourists are most likely from somewhere else, no one is alerted to different accents or languages, unusual hours, or different dress codes. Such differences are the norm in tourism and often celebrated. These same differences mean that tourism can be a perfect cover for terrorist activities. Furthermore, tourists are not only often anonymous but also often in a hurry.
People working in the industry are not only trained to deal with unusual behavior but accommodate such behavior as a form of good customer service. People coming to take pictures of national icons are not viewed with suspicion. The tourism business’ raison d’être is based around the icon. The resulting sociological patterns make tourism an extremely easy target for someone seeking to attack the industry for reasons of terrorism.