Tourism, Security and Safety From Theory to Practice

Comparisons with Other Tourist Safety Issues
Negative wildlife encounters share a number of similarities with other tourist
safety issues such as crime, terrorism, and natural disasters. Firstly, there is the
issue of media coverage of negative wildlife encounters. Animal attacks, in partic-
ular, are often given substantial and inaccurate media coverage (Gordon, 1997;
Rosenberg, 2001). One media monitoring study, which reviewed coverage of
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (GBR) in local, regional, and national newspapers
over a 4-month period found that 16% of all reef stories were about wildlife attacks
on tourists and 24% were about sightings of dangerous animals. In addition, all but
one of the front-page headlines about the GBR were about dangerous animal sight-
ings or attacks. Further analysis of these stories indicated that most were generated
from a single instance (CRC Reef, 2000).
Secondly, there has often been reluctance on the part of local and regional tourist
associations and relevant government authorities to provide tourist education on
these safety issues (Peach and Bath, 1996; Rosenberg, 2001). Attempts to develop
tourist safety education programs in this area have been hampered both by concerns
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over the potentially negative effect on tourist numbers by advertising the existence
of a tourist safety threat (Roberts, 2001), and by a lack of evidence about the effec-
tiveness of various education options and approaches. These are also problems
encountered in other tourist safety issues such as crime (Dimanche and Lepetic,
1999; Schiebler et al., 1996), transport accidents (Prideaux, 2003), political violence
(Hall and O’Sullivan, 1996), and natural disasters (Tilson and Stacks, 1997).
While negative wildlife encounters are similar in some ways to other tourist
safety issues, this risk to tourist safety also has some more unique features that
need to be considered. Firstly, it is certainly the case that dangerous and threaten-
ing wildlife can be a major tourist attraction. For example, in the critical incidents
study described in a previous section, many of the animals reported in the best
wildlife experiences were those also listed in the negative encounter descriptions
including kangaroos (10%), birds (14%), and crocodiles (10%). Ryan and Harvey
(2000) also report that despite research suggesting that there is some ambivalence
in attitudes toward saltwater crocodiles, they are a major tourist attraction in
Northern Australia. Other potentially dangerous animals, which are generally seen
as attractive to tourists, are bears, large cats such as lions and tigers, and sharks. In
a study by Woods (2000) many of the animals listed as favorite or preferred
included those generally seen as dangerous, such as tigers (ranked 7th), lions
(ranked 12th), sharks (ranked 14th), crocodiles (ranked 15th), snakes (ranked
17th), and bears (ranked 20th). In addition, many of the other animals listed as
favorites were also those involved in the negative critical incidents reported in a
previous section including kangaroos (ranked 8th), monkeys (ranked 13th), and
birds (ranked 5th). This research is part of a tradition of studies exploring prefer-
ences for, and attitudes towards, different wildlife and domestic animal species
(Adams et al., 1986; Bixler et al., 1994; Gray, 1993; Kellert, 1989). It appears that
a number of factors are associated with these attitudes and preferences but gener-
ally it seems that humans prefer animals that are larger, seen as attractive, seen as
possessing intelligence, and that have positive symbolic attachments such as rep-
resenting wilderness and courage (Glickman, 1995; Kellert et al., 1996; Reynolds
and Braithwaite, 2001; Woods, 2000). On the other hand, spiders, rodents, and
most insects are seen as unattractive and are rarely used in tourist attractions
(Bixler et al., 1994; Gray, 1993; Kellert, 1989; Woods, 2000).
In short, it appears that wildlife can be classified into three categories. There are
those animals that are recognized as potentially dangerous but which are also
attractive to some tourists, such as bears, crocodiles, lions, and tigers. There are
those that are attractive and not seen as dangerous but which can be involved in
negative incidents, such as birds and kangaroos, and there are those that are poten-
tially dangerous and unattractive, such as spiders and insects.
In the first instance there is some commonality with adventure tourism activi-
ties in that some tourists are likely to actively pursue risky situations as the risk is