Tourism, Terrorism, Morality, and Marketing: A Study of the Role of Reciprocity in Tourism Marketing

Introduction

In 2015 when I first wrote this chapter the number one issue in tourism security was how to handle terrorism’s multiple forms. Terrorism had gone through several mutations since the 1960s. The terrorism of 2015 was very different from that of September 11^th 2001, and in reality even more different from the acts of terrorism against the tourism industry that had begun in the 1960s. Despite the fact that the face of terrorism had changed and in 2015 was often intertwined with the illegal narcotics trade there was a certain consistency about it. Tourism continued to suffer from acts of terrorism that had occurred throughout the world. By 2015 the tourism industry was learning (and in some ways had learned) to deal with terrorism’s challenges. Although each act of terrorism hurt the industry, massive damage on the macro scale had not occurred in the nine years from 2001- 2015, or in the years prior to 2001. In many locations despite crimes and acts of terrorism much of the industry thrived and even as late as the forth quarter of 2019 a major issue facing the tourism industry was not a lack of tourists due to acts of terror but rather what came to be known as “overtourism”. Cities such as Venice, Italy and Barcelona, Spain struggled to balance tourism with their city’s quality of life. They struggled to maintain their cultural integrity, to allow a quality of life for their residents, and at the same time to permit tourism to flourish. The most common issue, prior to the Covid -19 crisis was not tourism’s survival but its sustainability in places filled with an excess of visitors.

In early 2020, everything changed. Tourism went from one of the world’s strongest and most successful industries to one of the world’s weakest industries. Not only did tourism face a crisis but also multiple industries that were dependent on tourism or connected to the tourism industry had to fight for their survival. For example, a possible unforeseen consequence of the fall of tourism was the collapse of the oil market. The April 20^th, 2020 headlines from the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) “US oil prices turn negative as demand dries up” (BBC, 2020). would have seemed ludicrous just a few months prior. An industry that worried about overtourism in 2019 now just a few months later worried that it might not survive. The “culprit” for this freefall and near collapse was the coronavirus, later called Covid-19. The virus, soon to become a worldwide pandemic, seemed to emerge almost from nowhere. Covid-19 has destroyed thousands of lives and in tsunami fashion it has economically swept away everything that came before it. In Europe the virus wiped out tourism in such major tourism nations as: France, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The Covid-19 medical and economic infection “migrated” to the Americas and by late March of 2020 most travel and tourism as we had known it just a few months prior had ceased to exist. If the terrorism attacks of 2001 were a major wave that knocked the tourism industry to its knees, the Covid-19 virus was an economic tsunami that will take many months until we know the full extent of virus’ economic impact. Even a superficial perusal of world’s media provides insights into the depth of this problem. For example the March 17^th edition of Forbes notes that: “International travel has since taken a plunge, amid the Coronavirus pandemic. Flights have been grounded. Borders have been closed. The spread of COVID-19 has dramatically derailed businesses, communities, and livelihoods across the globe. Now the questions seems to be: What will travel and tourism look like, and how will it influence the global economy, once the dust settles and being mobile is safe again” (Forbes, 2020).

Such a major health and economic crisis was bound to make people wonder: Did the virus occur out of nothing? Was its occurance accidental or purposeful? Can or is it likely that such an occurance might happen again? Part of the issue surround the Covid-19 outbreak is its cause. Currently, (April 2020), there are three major theories surrounding the cause for the Covid-19’s outbreak: These are:

• 1.

  that the consuming of a sick animal purchased at the Wuhan wet market infected someone and then the virus “jumped” from one human being to another,

• 2.

  The virus accidently leaked at the Wuhan Biological Lab. The lab was studying corona viruses at the time and is located in close proximity to the “wet market”

• 3.

  the virus was intentionally leaked as an experiment in biological warfare.