Tourism, Terrorism and Security
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Writen byHugues Seraphin (editor) - PublisherEmerald Publishing
- Year2020
This book examines the evolving relationship between terrorism, global risk, and the tourism industry, emphasizing how tourism—now a globally dominant economic sector—has increasingly become a symbolic and economic target for violent actors. Through multi-disciplinary contributions, the volume explores how terrorism shapes traveler perceptions, destination image, and policy responses, arguing that tourists often serve as inadvertent cultural ambassadors whose presence represents the values terrorists seek to attack. The book critiques the traditional economic and security-centric models of analyzing tourism threats, proposing instead a more nuanced understanding of tourism as a socio-cultural system deeply embedded in global power structures and identity politics. Its relevance has only grown in today’s environment of hybrid threats, increased geopolitical volatility, algorithmic radicalization, extremist messaging targeting “soft” global mobility systems, and intensified climate-related crises. Post-COVID recovery, heightened security anxieties, and renewed attacks on soft civilian targets make this work exceptionally pertinent. The volume also resonates in 2024–2025 as destinations worldwide struggle with compounded crises: political instability, polarization, climate shocks, cyber-attacks on travel infrastructure, and the global weaponization of mobility and migration narratives.The book makes a significant contribution by reframing terrorism in tourism not merely as economic sabotage, but as an attack on cultural representation and global mobility. It invites scholars to rethink tourism security beyond economic metrics and towards socio-cultural analysis.

