The Disaster as a Factor in the Development of Modern Tourism. A Study Case Based on the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant

Abstract

The destination which attracts tourists is the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone established in the area of radioactive contamination within a radius of 10 to 30 km around the plant. The main tourist attraction of the zone is the infrastructure of the inactive nuclear power plant, notably reactor no. 4 covered with a concrete and steel sarcophagus. The abandoned city of Pripyat, called the "ghost town", is also of unique value to tourism. The "Duga" radar station (also dubbed "The Eye of Moscow"), an artefact of the Cold War, also lies within the zone accessible to tourists. These sites, with their mysterious and dark history, are a magnet for an increasing number of tourist groups. In 1995 the zone was visited by 900 tourists. Subsequent years have brought a regular annual growth in the number of visitors to 17,800 in 2013. A decline came in 2014 (8400), which was caused by the political situation in Ukraine (e.g. Euromajdan). The last five years (2015-2019) are characterised by a very large annual increase in the number of tourists, and in some years, an almost a doubling of the humbers compared to the previous year (2015 – 16,400, 2016 – 35,100, 2017 – 46,136, 2018 – 71,869, 2019 – 124,001).

Mapping terrorism in the academic landscape of business field of study: a bibliometric study of the past 30 years

“…We then removed articles related to natural or human-made disasters (Momani, 2010;Yasuyuki et al, 2019), where terrorism was not the main research focus. Human-made disasters that were removed fell under the categories of war (Sudduth, 2021;Yi et al, 2020), political unrest (Al Khattab et al, 2007Saint Akadiri et al, 2020), economic (Alvarez-Galvez et al, 2019Bartz and Winkler, 2016;Huhtala et al, 2014), industrial (Bakota et al, 2020;Pek et al, 2018), technological (Choong et al, 2018;Shen and Hwang, 2018) and biological disasters (Ghuman and Olmstead, 2015;Harris and Powell, 2009). After undertaking these exclusion steps, 1,582 articles were excluded and 1,865 articles remained in the database for further consideration and analysis.…”

Radioactive contamination in feral dogs in the Chernobyl exclusion zone: Population body-burden survey and implications for human radiation exposure

“…Prior to the invasion by Russian forces in February 2022, the exclusion zone was an active work-site with an electrical switch-yard and extensive cleanup and stabilization activities [ 12 , 13 ]. Due to the notoriety of the site, there has existed a large tourist presence in the last decade, with visitors numbering in the tens of thousands visiting Pripyat and the exclusion zone every year [ 14 ]. While the dogs in the exclusion zone are popular with invited visitors and locals, there are long-running concerns about the risks the feral dog may pose to workers and tourists [ 15 ].…”

“…These personnel safety programs had the additional benefit of producing data on animal radioactivity that may be more widely applied to radiation protection outside the clinical setting. These efforts to characterize the transfer of radioisotopes from the animals may be of growing importance as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone seeks to increase its industrial capacity and develop a solar power station [ 14 , 18 ]. These activities will dramatically increase the instances of interaction between humans and the feral dogs of Chernobyl.…”

Radioactive Contamination in Feral Dogs in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone: Population Body-Burden Survey and Implications for Human Radiation Exposure

“…Prior to the invasion by Russian forces in February 2022, the exclusion zone was an active work-site with an electrical switch-yard and extensive cleanup and stabilization activities [15,16]. Due to the notoriety of the site, there has existed a large tourist presence in the last decade, with visitors numbering in the tens of thousands visiting Pripyat and the exclusion zone every year [17]. While the dogs in the exclusion zone are popular with invited visitors and locals, there are long-running concerns about the risks the feral dog may pose to workers and tourists [18].…”

“…These personnel safety programs had the additional benefit of producing data on animal radioactivity that may be more widely applied to radiation protection outside the clinical setting. These efforts to characterize the transfer of radioisotopes from the animals may be of growing importance as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone seeks to increase its tourist footprint and develop a solar power station [17,21]. These activities will dramatically increase the instances of interaction between humans and the feral dogs of Chernobyl.…”