Safety and Security in Tourism: Formalizing Uncertainty at the Destination Level

Introduction

Modern tourism is a common phenomenon. Considered as a combination of activities, carried out on the occasion of tourist trips and meeting the needs of the tourists, tourism is seen as an important industry. With the development of tourism after 1841 and Thomas Cook, the opportunities for recruiting staff are still developing, stimulating the expansion of other economic sectors accompanying tourism activities. Since the beginning of the new century, millions of people have traveled every day relying on high-quality services, comfort, and rapid transportation. Travel and tourism appear to be deeply involved in the human way of life, either directly or indirectly. The stimulus for their development after the Second World War made them into a main source of income for the economy and work for big portions of the population of Europe, Asia, USA, the Caribbean, and other regions (Stankova, 2003). The knowledge of the specifics of the tourism industry assumes consideration of many different tourist activities such as transport, hotels, restaurants, tour operators and agents’ activity, planning and development of tourist destinations, rest, and relaxation. However, an especially important aspect of these activities is the provision of security to people who work in tourism. Their life, health, and safety during the provision and consumption of tourist services are at constant risk. For this reason, one of the main goals of tourism providers is to prevent possible risk situations for employees and any other people involved.

The last two years have shown that global health and safety issues and work conditions are crucial, especially for the tourism sector. In fact, the right of every person to live and work in a fair and favorable environment has been an important priority of the Organization of the United Nations (UN) since 1948. It is also protected by the International Labor Organization, among whose official documents more than 40 standards specifically deal with occupational safety and health issues, with over 40 Codes of Practice adopted over the years. Nearly a half of ILO instruments regulate the occupational safety and health issues directly or indirectly (International Labor Standards on Occupational Safety and Health, https://www.ilo.org/safework/info/promo/WCMS_151736/lang--en/index.htm).

Occupational safety and health (OSH) is an important part of the European idea of unification. It has been at the heart of the European project from the beginning, with the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community. In essence, the common principles and risk assessment in the European Union (EU) are set in Directive 89/391/EEC – OSH known as the Framework Directive – the major milestone for OSH in EU legislation (Directive 89/391/EEC – OSH, 1989).

In light of this, the study of security, health, safety, and work conditions in tourism is a topic of particular interest. It should, in fact, be placed in a different context, because in tourism the work environment has different dimensions. These dimensions are related on one hand to the tourist service consumption and on the other to the territory of the tourist destination. They involve many different participants – managers and employees in tourism and transport companies, guides, local people, medical specialists, public administrations, and many more. They also include the tourists, who are an integral part in the process of tourism work operations.

Therefore, it is of great importance to discuss the possibilities for ensuring the health and safety of the persons serving the tourists and the tourists themselves during the process of tourism consumption. With that in focus, emphasis is placed on the clarification of the tourism industry specifics using a multidisciplinary approach for the formalization of uncertainty at the tourism destination level, in order to create conditions to cover the real processes and situations regarding safety, health, and security of all the people involved, which are usually subject to various impacts and whose full and exhaustive systematization, classification, and formalization is very difficult to achieve.