Does International Tourism Affect Transnational Terrorism?

Abstract

Studies focusing on the relationship between transnational terrorism and tourism examine the effect of terror on tourism, while this study looks at a different question: does international tourism affect transnational terrorism? We hypothesized that the higher the number of international tourist arrivals to a country, the higher the number of terror attacks, and examined this effect from four distinct aspects: perpetration by foreign attackers against local victims, perpetration by local attackers against foreign victims, perpetration by foreign attackers against foreign victims, and perpetration of terror attacks against foreign private parties. We conclude that there is an inverse U relationship between number of arrivals and number of attacks perpetrated by foreigners, and also a robust significant relationship between number of arrivals to a country and terror attacks in which both the attacker and the victim are foreigners. However, it is not unequivocal whether this is a positive linear or an inverse U relationship.

The tourism-led terrorism hypothesis – evidence from Italy, Spain, UK, Germany and Turkey

“…Research results are also in line with the research conducted so far, which maintains that terrorism affects the number of international tourist arrivals (Bassil, 2014;Buigut & Amendah, 2016;Drakos & Kutan, 2003;Enders et al, 1992;Enders & Sandler, 1991), but they also pointed to the need to appreciate the possibility that the number of international tourist arrivals affects terrorism, which, according to the authors' findings, was only investigated by Goldman & Neubauer-Shani, (2017). The latest results from WTTC, (2017) are in favour of the tested hypothesis, saying that in 2016, global tourism grew by 3.3% despite ongoing terrorist threats.…”

“…According to the literature available to the authors, so far only one piece of research has focused on whether tourism is the one that affects terrorism, and whether strong tourist destinations attract terrorist activities (Goldman & Neubauer-Shani, 2017). Their main hypothesis was that the higher the number of international tourist arrivals to a country, the higher the number of terror attacks.…”

“…In addition to the fact that each country has its own distinctiveness, the influence of terrorism varies, depending on whether it is a rich, large and diversified economy, or a small, poor and more specialized economy (Bandyopadhyay et al, 2015). The major difference from the already mentioned (Goldman & Neubauer-Shani, 2017) research is seen in the fact that this work did not separate domestic and international terrorism (Ahlfeldt et al, 2015;Buigut & Amendah, 2016), but it used aggregate terrorism incidents. The reason for this is that the image of a safe destination builds on an overall stability in the country, not just the influence of domestic or international terrorism (Arana & León, 2008;Johnny & Jordan, 2007).…”

“…The survey was conducted on the data of five selected European destinations in the period from 2001 to 2015, with the largest number of international tourist arrivals falling in 2015 (UNWTO, 2016). The goal was set up following the Goldman & Neubauer-Shani (2017) research which proved that international tourist arrivals have a positive impact on international tourism.…”

Noite de terror na cidade luz: os atos terroristas em Paris e a avaliação da imagem de destino por turistas brasileiros

“…O terrorismo é considerado desde o século XX, e mais precisamente no século XXI, o principal problema que o mundo contemporâneo está lidando (Goldman & Neubauer-Shani, 2017). Por diversas vezes os agentes terroristas conseguiram propagar ao mundo seus ideais, principalmente religiosos, através da disseminação do medo, terror e provocando muitas mortes e perdas (Nye Jr., 2005;Frey, Luechinger & Stutzer, 2007).…”