Tourism, Security and Safety From Theory to Practice

Toward a Theory of Terrorism and Tourism
The Italian social-commentator, Giovani Sartori has brought the relationship
between modernity and internationalization to the forefront. Sartori suggests that
living in the age of television has turned 
homo sapiens
into 
homo videns
. By con-
necting the idea of 
homo videns
with that of the global village, Sartori reminds us
that in a postmodern world any place is every place, that fear can now be trans-
mitted at the speed of life, and that a careful manipulation of the media is essen-
tial in postmodern warfare. Terrorism seeks worldwide publicity and tourism
centers act as magnets for such publicity. If postmodernity is centered around the
concept of global village than tourism is the social glue that unites this village. In
the world of images, terrorism is transformed from the horrendous event into the
iconic event.
A Social Theory of Terrorism and Tourism
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Terrorism is much older than modern mass tourism. Terrorism has been drawn
to tourism for a number of reasons. Because tourism is a modern to postmodern
industry, there are those who see it as an evil in and of itself, in addition to the eco-
nomic damage that a terrorist attack can cause. Here are a number of reasons why
terrorism has often attacked tourism areas.
■
Tourism officials have often been afraid to take creative steps to stop terrorism
fearing that such hardening of their targets will frighten customers away. The end
result has been that tourism often provides very soft (easy) targets.
■
Tourism is big business and terrorism seeks to destroy economies.
■
Tourism is interrelated with multiple other industries; thus an attack on the tourism
industry may also wipe out a number of secondary industries.
■
Tourism is highly media oriented and terrorism seeks publicity.
■
Tourism must deal with people who have no history, thus there are often no data-
bases, and it is easy for terrorists to simply blend into the crowd.
■
Tourism must deal with a constant flow of new people, thus terrorists are rarely
suspected.
■
Tourism is a nation’s parlor that it is the keeper of a nation’s self-image, icons, and
history. Tourism centers are the living museum of a nation’s cultural riches.
■
Terrorists tend to seek targets that offer at least three out of the following four pos-
sibilities and these same possibilities often exist in the world of tourism:
●
Potential for mass casualties;
●
Potential for mass publicity;
●
Potential to do great economic damage; and
●
Potential to destroy an icon.
A study of tourism and terrorism permits the following postulates to be developed.
■
Terrorism is the opposite of a predictable peace
. If Hegel is correct that social
movements often result in counter social movements, then an industry based on
relaxation, freedom, and open borders may well produce people who see the world
in opposite colors. Thus, those who hate freedom of travel and peaceful coexis-
tence and who foster xenophobia are bound to see tourism as a destructive agent
that ought to be destroyed.
■
Tourism is a competitor with terrorism for the nostalgia
. Much of tourism is based
on a nostalgic view of the past. In the world of tourism, reality is often presented
in the least realistic terms and truths are often sacrificed on the altar of marketing.
Terrorists have learned from the tourism industry. Although their story is different
and the purpose is destruction for the sake of destruction, both industries appeal to
the non-factual realities. In a strange sense both are at opposite ends of the social
poles held together by the gravitational pull of fantasy portrayed as reality.
■