How does Terrorism affect the Travel Industry?

With the recent terror attacs in Nice the topic of terrorism is more present than ever. Once again, a popular tourist destination was the targeted by terrorists. After the attacs in Paris, it was the second big terroristic act in France in a relatively short period of time. Among many others, this raises the question, if and how these attacs will impact the image of France as a tourism destination.

In 2014 David Mc A. Baker aimed to clarify the complex relationship between terrorism and tourism in his paper „The Effects of Terrorism on the Travel and Tourism Industry“. He based his analysis on Tourists risk perception associated with terrorism and used data from previous studies related to terrorist attacs such as 9/11 in New York or the attacs in Egypt and Bali.

In order to examine how terrorism affects tourism, firstly, it is important to understand what tourists base their travel destination decision on and how the element of risk comes to play. To understand their perceptions and attitudes, the distinction between real and perceived risk is crucial. Mainly due to the high media coverage of international terrorism, perceived risk is a lot higher that the actual probability of beeing targeted by terrorists. This risk perception may cause anxiety towards a destination.

Findings also showed that some tourists who perceive terrorism risk in one country tend to presume the entire region to be risky and attribute risk of terrorism to neighboring countries which are not directly affected by terrorism. This development was also noticable after the recent attacs in France, Germany and Belgium, as Americans were generally shying away from Europe as a travel destination. Recent data shows that searches by travelers considering Europe are down 13% so far this year, compared to the same period last year.

In some countires, persistent terrorism has completely tarnished the destinations positive image and jeopardized ist entire tourism business. This, for instance, was the case in Egypt and Tunesia. Tourism suffers in particular when prolonged terrorist attacks affect tourist perceptions and when terrorist organizations specifically target the travel and tourism industry.

But interestingly this does not apply to France, where, with the exception of Paris, tourism is still blossoming. Visitor numbers declined briefly for several weeks after the attacks, but then normalized quickly. France as a country remains a popular tourism destination and even though Paris is noticing some declines in arrivals, the numbers are not remotely comparable to the situation in Turkey, Egypt or Tunisia.