Tourism, Security and Safety From Theory to Practice

Tourism and terrorism view women from opposite perspectives
. Terrorism may use
women to gain power, but in most cases women are never given power. Seen from
a Freudian viewpoint, those cultures that repress women and keep men in a psy-
chologically infantile state have a higher probability of spawning terrorism.
Tourism is an industry filled with working adult women and often these women
hold the most powerful and prestigious of jobs. From the terrorist perspective then,
tourism undercuts the idea that women are incapable, and forces men to deal with
women on a one-to-one human basis rather than as infants demanding service from
their mothers.
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Tourism and terrorism know no borders
. Tourism is a universal phenomenon; it
seeks to obliterate xenophobia and it brings peoples together. Tourism is a celebra-
tion of the distinct and the other. Such a philosophy is counter to that of terrorists
who seek the establishment of apocalyptic restorative nostalgic states that may
never have existed.
■
In a world in which the media believes in balanced news, terrorist strikes on inno-
cent civilians and tourists are a “logical act of war.”
Much of the Western media
seeks to delineate causality for terrorism attacks. Based on the classical liberal idea
that all people are intrinsically good, the media seeks to understand the frustrations
and anger expressed by terrorism. This lack of moral clarity means that terrorist
attacks, especially against the innocent, make a great amount of sense. Terrorist
attacks against tourism locations not only spread the terrorist’s message but at the
same time encourage other terrorist actions, cause a lessening of personal inter-
changes, and in the end undercut the economy upon which the media depends.
Tourism is an integral part of globalization. Tourism not only mixes people and cul-
tures but is a major source for the dissemination of information. Using the words of
Ralph Peters we can see that tourism helps to bring about an “onslaught of informa-
tion—a plague of ideas, good and bad, immune to quarantine or ready cures, under
whose assault those societies, states, and even civilizations without acquired resistance
to information disorders will shatter irreparably” (Peters, 2002, p. 140). Terrorism fears
the onslaught of a free flow of human interaction and information for which tourism
stands. Tourism requires globalization, while terrorism cannot live with globalization;
tourism promotes cultural and information interchange, but terrorism dies from such
interchanges; tourism requires caring and human kindness, and terrorism promotes the
principle that only one’s own are true human beings. Under the terrorist rubric, tourism
can be seen as the instrument by which much of the world will be infected and as such
to attack tourism is not only seen as fair play but as a positive step. If terrorism must
depend on the beliefs of the ignorant, then non-group tourism undercuts such beliefs by
allowing people to interact on the micro- and personal levels.
Tourism seeks stability and tranquility, while terrorism seeks to undercut that stabil-
ity. Few people, other than the extreme allocentric tourist, seek out war zones as places
to visit. Tourism seeks peace. All forms of violence, be it violence in the form of crime
or terrorism, tend to destroy a tourism industry. It then follows that groups that seek to
control information, humble women, maintain men in an infantile state, and turn their
societies into what they believe was rather than is, will use any form of violence to
undercut and then destroy a local tourism industry.
Summary
The postulates given above means that the industry must go through a major par-
adigm shift if it is to survive. In order for this paradigm shift to occur, the travel
and tourism industry will have to take the following into consideration.
The fact that terrorism will target the tourism industry and that the industry can-
not afford to ignore the threat is widely accepted. The targeted list may include:
■
Airlines
■
Cruise ships
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Buses;
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Restaurants and outdoor cafes
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Major events, or sporting or cultural institutions
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Places where people congregate
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Wherever people are carefree and happy.
The realization that travelers and tourists, for the most part, will seek out places
where there is a sense of security and safety. Although there is a small minority of
travelers who seek out the dangerous, most visitors want to know what the indus-
try is doing to protect them, and how well prepared a local industry is in case a
security or safety issue should occur.
The merging of security and safety concerns into tourism surety concerns every-
one. Classically security has been defined as the protection of a person, site, or repu-
tation against a person or thing that seeks to do harm. Safety is often defined as
protecting people against unintended consequences of an involuntary nature. In the
case of the travel and tourism industry, both a safety and a security mishap can destroy
not only a vacation but also the industry. It is for this reason that the twenty-first cen-
tury paradigm will combine these two fields as “tourism surety.” Tourism surety is
more than merely the point where safety, security, and economic viability meet.
Surety refers to a lowering of the probability that a negative event will occur.
Surety does not promise perfection, but rather improvement and takes into account
that to live is to risk. Because few industry people work according to strict aca-
demic guidelines, the remainder of this chapter will use the terms surety, security,
and safety interchangeably.
This paradigm change will not come about easily. Many CEOs of attractions,
hotels, and regional, state (provincial), and national tourism offices along with
other tourism professionals will continue to see security as adding nothing to their
bottom line. Terrorism is often perceived to be a unique occurrence and/or some-
thing that will happen to the other person or at the other’s location. Other tourism
officials may misdiagnose terrorism as a form of crime and thus believe it to be a
manifestation of psychological, economic, or political frustration, rather than a
tool used by highly trained and calculating professionals. If the above social ills
were the cause of terrorism then countries such as those in sub-Saharan Africa and
Bangladesh would be the world’s great terrorism exporters. In a like manner, no
people had more right to be frustrated than Jews living in Nazi occupied Europe,
yet there are no recorded incidents of actions taken against innocent civilian
population centers.
Poor economic conditions, lack of educational opportunities, and/or political
frustration may well be the cause of criminal acts, but rarely if ever are they the
cause of terrorism.
The problem becomes a question of how the tourism industry balances security
and profitability. This matter is not easy, as much terrorism tends to take security
out of the hands of tourism officials and place it into the hands of government offi-
cials. An example of this phenomenon can be seen in a 
Houston Chronicle
head-
line. The headline reads: “Tighter security squeezing out tourists” (
Houston
Chronicle
, 7/a, April 22, 2004). Quoting Secretary of State Powell, the 
Chronicle
reports his having said in reference to foreign student visas, “People aren’t going
to take that (tighter security regulations) for very long, and when the word gets out
they will start going elsewhere. Despite the fact that this article mixes foreign
students seeking advanced academic degrees with leisure tourists, the article does
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make several important points. The article highlights the following theoretical
concepts:
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There is a difference between security measures and hassle measures.
■
Tourism requires both good security and good service. Half the equation is not
enough.
■
Tourism security is different from other forms of security. It depends to a much
greater extent on the quality of personnel training. Machines and passive measures
are not a substitute for a well-trained employee.
Although the change is not an easy one, tourism officials may have no other
choice. For example, a major publication of the Meetings and Planners Association
dedicated its entire March, 2004 edition to tourism security issues (March 2004
edition of 
CMI (Corporate Meetings and Incentives) Magazine
). When corporate
meeting planners choose a site at least partially by the level of tourism security that
it offers, then it is clear that the paradigm shift is under way.