European Tourism and Terrorism | World Defense

European Tourism and Terrorism

DancingLady

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Tourism is a significant business in much of Europe and has been for decades. I know a lot of people who have traveled to Europe at least once for vacation. Lately, there have been a number of terrorist attacks in Europe. I work in the tourism industry in the US, so one of the first things I think about is how that will affect tourism in that country.

I don't hear much about this topic though, it seems like the news generally doesn't bother to mention economic impacts of these events like cancelled travel plans and a downturn in hotel bookings.

Those of you from Europe, have you seen any changes in the general flow of tourists in the last year?
 

mattattack

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I think tourism will be affected minimally. Within days of the London 7/7 attacks things were back to normal, and presently tourism is a big factor of the UK economy. I don't think the Charlie Hebdo attacks will affect tourism in Paris because, well, because it's Paris! One of the most visited cities on earth. Further, the Charlie Hebdo attacks were targeted at a specific publisher, it's not like the Indonesia night club bombings which really put a stop on tourism to Bali for a while.
 

missbishi

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I'm in the UK too and can't say I've heard any reports suggesting that the rest of the world perceive Europe to be unsafe right now. The truth is, nowhere is really safe from ISIS et al. Nobody would ever go anywhere if they worried too much about terrorist attacks.
 

Gabriel

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This isn't a European issue, but a world issue. Tourism anywhere in the world is a target. Europe isn't a country it's a continent. I think people are more afraid to go to the USA because they know it is a huge target. Consider the Boston bombers and the attack in Australia. This isn't limited to Europe and the recent attacks in Pakistan and Yemen show that terrorism is everywhere.
 

Rowe992

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Europe is a continent that consists of many countries which mostly don't have any terrorist activity. The last attack was against a news paper office in France in what can be described as local terrorism which was an act in revenge of what the newspaper printed about the Islam prophet. I don't think tourism will be affected significantly in Europe because of that attack.
 

pwarbi

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While its probably true that terrorist attacks may dampen the tourism industry slightly, I don't think it will have any long term effect or lasting damage.
People, however bad this sounds, have learnt to go about their business with the threat of a terror attack hanging over them.
From my point of view, a terrorist attack on a certain country or city wouldn't stop me from going there.
 
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Haven't seen any terrorism related changes in tourism. I have noticed a lot less Russian tourists but that is mainly because of the weak ruble, it's just too expensive for Russians to have a vacation in Europe at the moment.
 

TinVanMan

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I am from the U.S. but have lived in Europe for about 5 years now. I have lived in large tourist cities mostly (Dublin, Barcelona, Krakow...) and have only noticed an upswing in tourism in all those places. I don't know the statistics but it seems like every year there are more people in the street. I have no doubt that there is a certain amount of terrorism that could not be ignored and would cause a downswing, but I think other economic factors would be more likely to make that happen. Having so many international borders nearby is a huge temptation to cross them all.
 
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What about terrorism tourism? Visit sites of terror attacks (such as ground zero in NYC) Or thrill seekers visiting potential targets? And we know that terrorists often make sight-seeing trip out of it, as did the 9-11 terrorists, sight-seeing and partying before the big day. How long before the tourist industry sees the potential?
 
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What about terrorism tourism? Visit sites of terror attacks (such as ground zero in NYC)

Well, I can imagine that one day this will happen but not in a large scale. Kind of like tourists are visiting the Nazi concentration camps nowadays. As far as I understand it's quite a limited branch of tourism but there are certainly people who would be interested in visiting such places.
 

Corzhens

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Just my thoughts. When there is an issue of security in a country, tourists will shy away although temporarily only. When a busload of Hongkong tourists was taken as hostage by a berserk Manila cop and several of those Hongkongites died and were injured, our country was in the blacklist of travel agencies. But the blacklisting did not last long because after a few months, the tourism industry got back to its usual number of arriving tourists.
 

CrowdedHighways

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I am from Latvia, and, as far as I am aware, there have not ever been any terrorist attacks in this country. So I would say that there is no impact on tourism because of this issue at all.
 
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