Tourism, Security and Safety From Theory to Practice

A Dynamic Risk Management Framework Based on a
Proactive Platform of Security Information 
Following the theoretical discussion to this point, it is evident that destinations
affected by security situations suffer from a major crisis-management flaw. Simply
put, they are not engaging their public and private tourism sectors in providing any
kind of balancing proactive security information and communication to tourists,
travel agents, tour operators, the mass media, and travel advisories in the generat-
ing countries. Had they created such an information platform, and had they com-
municated security information to all the above stakeholders in the generating
markets, they could have much more effectively balanced the risk perception
among those generating markets—risk that at present is predominantly shaped by
the mass media and by the travel advisories. Moreover, as was thoroughly
explained in this chapter, risk perception does not stop influencing travel behavior
once a destination is chosen by tourists. Therefore, this imperative security infor-
mation source must be aimed at tourists at all four stages of the travel behavior
sequence.
Figure 2 illustrates a proposed functional framework of such a security informa-
tion platform. First, it depicts the components that should generate, process, and
interpret the currently missing security information. Second, it differentiates between
two security information clients: on the one hand, tourists in the four possible stages
of the travel behavior sequence; and on the other hand, public and private tourism
sectors, travel advisories, and the mass media in the generating markets.
One of the challenges of such security information platforms is to produce and
deliver security information based on a variety of characteristics. It has to be balanced,
objective, comprehensive, integrative, evaluative, interpretive, and, furthermore,
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supply relevant information that can better enable tourists and prospective tourists on
the one hand, and the tourist industry in the generating countries, on the other, to con-
struct a balanced risk perception. The framework suggested here advocates filtering
the crude security information through two prisms, each confronting the security data
with its tourism as well as its spatial implications. Thus, it is important to evaluate to
what extent security situations can influence the freedom and safety of movement in
a given geographical region. Furthermore, to what extent do affected regions overlap
spatially with the location of tourism attractions? By the same token, it is important to
assess to what extent a given security situation can hamper the operation of tourism
facilities and services in the affected regions and in their surroundings. Once these two
evaluations are made, the filtered security information moves to the phase of con-
structing an overall risk assessment, which is then conveyed to the wide array of
information clients (see Figure 2).
In terms of the 
communication medium
preferred for this information platform,
the Internet would seem to be the most appropriate option. This medium is an opti-
mum solution since it can be updated frequently and kept up-to-date as security
and risk assessments change on the ground. The Internet is highly accessible to the
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