Risk, Terrorism, and Tourism Consumption: The End of Tourism

Introduction

Although tourism seems to be a globalized and growing industry dotted of a great resiliency to face disasters as earthquakes, floods, virus outbreaks and even terrorist blows, no less true is that some indicators show that we are next to the end of tourism. Policy-makers today not only are urged to answers problems generated in other geographical points or by other agents who are external to tourist system, but also are tested to offer innovative solutions to slippery matters. Tourist experts have no real solution to deter terrorism, but should deal with the idea a next attack can suddenly happen anytime and anywhere, which means that the urgency of policy makers to present competitive products is conducive to the attractiveness these places cultivate for terrorist. Security and safety have been posed as the main interests for international demand. This happens because of two main reasons. At a first glance, unlike our grant-parents, we are accustomed to follow our curiosity at time holidays. The quest for novelty or something new has transformed in the primary motive of holidays. Secondly, quite aside from these heritage seekers, tourism has consolidated as one of the most important industries of the world. As a result of this, some cells have acknowledged that the fact of killing tourists is a useful tool to create political instability. Once the credibility of state is seriously affected, their demands would be echoed in an easier way. Sociologically speaking, the anatomy of nation-state was based on welfare paradigm, where officialdom understood that intervention was an efficient instrument to prevent risks, and uncontemplated dangers, leading society towards a zero-risk atmosphere.

From the end of WWII, industrial societies appealed to the conception of risk-zero programs, which proclaimed that rational planning aimed at protecting the citizenry may eradicate risks to make from our neighborhoods a safer place to dwell on. Not only this not happen, but the decline of Soviet Union, the globalization of economies accelerated the complexity of a system which shows serious problems to mitigate the negative effects of risks, even these risks are generated by the introduced technology by West. A type of Run-away modernity in terms of Giddens (1999) paves the ways for new fears and problems that affected the functionability of tourism industry as never before. The experts and planners devoted considerable attention to promotes programs or models that help nuancing the effects of sudden disasters (Pforr & Hosie, 2009; Ritchie, 2004; 2009; Korstanje, 2011b; Blake & Sinclair, 2003; Cohen & Neal, 2010). In view of the limited time and space, this essay review does not focus on the connection of globalization with modernity, but explores to what extent risk perception is enrooted in the process of communication. In the discussion the goals are twofold, on one hand, we review the existent literature in risk perception theory applied in tourism, but at the same time we alert on the exhaustion of tourism. As Gale (2008) noted, we are living in a world where tourism is dying. Since this is an essay, a conceptual piece which does not need further methodologies, we opt to avoid any methodology (qualitative or quantitative) to pose the issue in the tapestry. Rather, the discussion is aimed at stimulating the debate on the possibility tourism is declining as a result of risk inflation and the advance of terrorism.