Tourism, Security and Safety From Theory to Practice

Health Hazards
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Possible infection by the following diseases:
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Cholera;
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Hepatitis A;
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Malaria;
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Tuberculosis;
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Typhoid fever;
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Mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever and encephalitis B;
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Rabies;
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Avian influenza;
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HIV/AIDS; and
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SARS.
Local Travel Safety
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Road and traffic accidents;
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Pedestrian accidents;
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Air accidents on internal flights;
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Incidents of overcrowded ferries, which sank resulting in the loss of lives; and
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Attacks of piracy (against private yachts) in the South China Sea.
Natural Disasters
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Earthquakes; and
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Severe rainstorms that can cause flooding and landslides.
Political Situation
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Restrictions on undertaking certain religious activities, including preaching and
distributing religious materials.
■
Regulations against any public demonstrations that do not have prior approval from
the authorities.
The authors conclude that the tourism industry in China was in the past nega-
tively affected by health hazards (i.e., SARS), changes in politics (i.e., Tiananmen
Square incident and the cross-strait relations), and economics, but only for a short
duration, after which it recovered quickly and continued to grow at an accelerated
pace.
Gianna Moscardo, Matthew Taverner, and Barbara Woods’ chapter discusses
the potential impacts of wildlife on tourist safety. It is based on the results of two
studies, one of which was a critical incidents study of the worst wildlife tourist
experiences, while the second was a survey of tourists’ perceptions of the risks
associated with different wildlife in the North Queensland region of Australia
and the impact these risk perceptions had on their travel behaviors. The study
found that different tourists react differently to the same species of wildlife.
Some see them as dangerous but attractive, others see them as dangerous and
unattractive, while for still others they can be perceived as attractive but not dan-
gerous. The study also discovered that although tourists overestimated the level
of risk associated with contact with wildlife, a large proportion of them did not
intend to change their behaviors in response to potential risks from wildlife
encounters.
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