How do tourists actually die?
Some of the countries that were home to the Arab Spring in 2011 used to rely heavily on tourism: Egypt and Tunisia are striking examples. However, the unrest that followed, combined with the rise of Islamic radicalism in those areas, proved to be a severe blow to the tourism economy of this area. Indeed, most tourists tend to shun unstable areas: who in their right mind would spend their hard-earned vacations in a country that might actually go off in a civil war?
In 2015, there were two major terrorist attacks in Tunisia: in the Bardo National Museum attack, on 18 March 2015, 24 were killed including 20 foreign tourists, while more than 50 were injured. On 26 June of the same year, the Sousse attack targeted a tourist resort, with a total of 39 deaths and 39 injuries. In Egypt, smaller scale attacks have taken place in 2016, specifically targeting tourists.
Clearly then, tourists do happen to die because of terrorist attacks. But how do they compare with other tourist death causes? According to an article aptly titled How Americans Die Abroad published in March 2016 in TIME, “it turns out Egyptian drivers are responsible for far more American fatalities than Egyptian terrorists”. The journalist proceeds to dig into the US State Department’s registry of American deaths abroad to identify the main causes of death. And it turns out that among the tens of millions of US citizens who travel abroad each year, very few die of terrorism, which actually ranked below drownings and suicide.
American tourists mostly die of transportation accidents : cars, bikes, trains and planes account for almost a third of US deaths abroad between 2012 and 2015. Drownings, Suicides and drug-related deaths are common as well. And while homicide is indeed a cause of death among tourists, it is more often than not related to lawlessness or drug wars.
Terrorism appears to be successful at inspiring fear in the hearts of potential tourists; but it is only a very small part of all the dangers they may encounter during their stay abroad, namely, cars and water.
