(travel advisory information and warnings). Pottorf and Neal (1984) note that all
these factors and issues are interrelated; even if only one component of a desti-
nation’s tourism or infrastructure is hit by crisis, other components will also expe-
rience consequences.
Tour operators have to follow government travel advisory information. For
example, a warning by a foreign office is usually soon followed by the govern-
ments of other countries alerting their tourists to avoid the country at risk of war.
Such was the case in Croatia in July 1991 when all tourists on tour packages had
to be evacuated and returned to their home countries. This
forced withdrawal
resulted in tour operators immediately stopping the promotion and sale of holidays
to the country, and led to the sudden halt of inbound tourism for the entire season.
In contrast to terrorist attacks, whose time and place of action cannot be predicted,
the borders between the regions affected by war and those nearby can be quite pre-
cisely drawn (as in the case of Croatia). Still, government warnings to potential
tourists always have very strong psychological effects on them and are the main
impediment in selling holidays even to parts of the country still safe for holidays.
Very often, the effect of a crisis also spreads to other parts of the country—or
even to the neighboring countries where no such problems exist. Safety and secu-
rity are inextricably connected to issues of international law and political relation-
ships, and so have a ripple effect that goes far beyond the destinations and parties
directly involved in the incident (Drabek, 2000, p. 352). Proof of this can be found
in the NATO bombardment of Serbia in late March 1999. The
war in Kosovo lasted
three months, but its impact on tourism in neighboring countries was felt for the
whole summer season. When the bombardment began, the repercussions on
tourism were felt from Rome to Athens and Istanbul, and from Prague to Budapest,
but nowhere more than on Croatia’s Adriatic coast. Therefore, the country’s
tourism in 1999 suffered a 15% drop in international arrivals compared to 1998,
while it had actually been estimated that it would achieve a rise of about 30% in
1999. When the bombardment started, tour operators of the main generating mar-
kets, like those in Germany and the United Kingdom, immediately cancelled their
charter programs to Split and Dubrovnik. A specialist British tour operator to
Croatia, beginning in early April, experienced a heavy
drop in bookings from a
previous level of 250 a day down to only 30 a week. Although bookings picked up
slowly after the war, the operator lost two thirds of its Croatia trade, as 1999 client
numbers fell from 18,000 to just 6,000 (Richards, 1999). Worse still, some tour
operators did not restore Croatia to their summer program for 2000. Those offer-
ing packages to Eastern and Southeast Europe also felt this Kosovo effect
(Richards, 1999). Many tourists were afraid to travel to Budapest, Prague, and
Vienna. Romania was also hit by the crisis, although it had recovered by early
August, thanks to the thousands of visitors who traveled to Bucharest to witness
the eclipse of the sun on August 11, 1999.
Alongside the serious practical difficulties that confront
receiving countries in
times of crises is the lack of sound geographical knowledge of many tourists. This
problem, for example, depleted Greece’s US market, but for the oddest of reasons.
Many Americans apparently confused the Greek island of Kos with the capital of
Kosovo. But the lack of this kind of knowledge can sometimes also have a positive
effect. This was the case with the island of Bali where tourism flourished during
the crisis in Indonesia, because most of the tourists did not know that Bali
belonged to Indonesia.
Tourism Security and Safety: From Theory to Practice
338
H7898_Ch18.qxd 8/24/05 8:54 AM Page 338
It has to be borne in mind that tourists nowadays have such a wide holiday
choice that they usually do not even consider traveling near places where they
might be at risk. One destination can easily be substituted by a similar or even a
completely different one elsewhere. Tourists prefer to wait
until the situation in the
respective country becomes normal again. This is simply the basic attitude of
tourists. Such a situation leads to negative economic effects from international
tourism flows in respective destinations. Since the crisis usually outlives the phys-
ical damage, the tourism community/industry has to find ways to manage the
disaster’s aftereffects (Sönmez, Apostolopoulos, and Tarlow, 1999).
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: 
