Forward to Tourism, Terrorism, and Security
Posted on May 22, 2025
Ever since September 11, 2001 there has been a plethora of books published in the field of terrorism. Many of these books were written quickly and with little regard to methodologies and research needs. The study of terrorism, however, is not merely another area of academic scholarship. The terrorism literature deals with issues of life and death and the consequences of errors might result in tragedy, loss of property, economic viability, or even life.
To make matters even more difficult for the researcher there are numerous challenges in methodologies used to research this field. In fact there still is no one common definition of terrorism nor is there a clear general delineation between issues of crime and issues of terrorism. In this matter the field of academic tourism is slightly ahead of other aspects of academic terrorism research. The tourism industry has long understood that criminal acts seek a parasitic relationship with tourism. That is to state, that the criminal needs the tourism industry’s success if s/he is to benefit from his victims. From the perspective of crime, criminal actions are nothing more than a (illegal) business. Terrorism is another matter. Terrorism is political in nature and vis-à-vis the tourism industry it seeks to destroy it by causing the maximum amount of harm to a location’s economy and reputation. To accomplish this goal terrorism starts by destroying a tourism locale’s facilities, causing death to the industries workers and clients, and creating reputational destruction
Furthermore, the researcher has to be careful to be objective. All too often researchers permit personal biases to creep into their analysis and thus important details are omitted so as to present the terrorists’ actions from the biased perspective of the researcher.
Doing terrorism research then produces multiple challenges. I present below some of the difficulties in my years of studying the interaction and intersectionality between tourism and terrorism
- International terrorism is not locale specific, nor is it time specific. Western researchers tend to have very short time “analysis time spans”. For example western researchers consider several centuries to be a considerable amount of time. Other parts of the world, and especially those cultures that are based in the Middle East or in Asia do not view time in the same way. Their languages use a different tense frame and their cultures tend to think of time as a continuum rather than as specific and independent blocks of time that can be divided into past, present and future. In many cases these languages see a future action as having already started. What this means to the researcher is that he or she will need not only verbally to translate texts but also culturally.
- Secondly the researcher must view primary documents or materials with a great amount of caution. Often pronouncements by terrorist organizations are for purely propaganda purposes. This differentiation between verbiage and truth means that terrorist organizations publish what they believe their enemy wants to hear, rather than what they truthfully mean. The researcher who accepts what he or she is told at face value might well be publishing a false analysis. All to often those of us who have worked in the field of terrorism and tourism have discovered that our subjects believe that the ends justify the means and that words are merely words. Put another way: this is my opinion, truth or fact until I change it.
- Western researchers are often at a loss due to language difficulties. In my experience I have found that statements made in languages such as English, French, Portuguese, or Spanish are merely for show. In order to understand the subject matter one must know the actor’s language and thought pattern.
- Researchers are also hampered by western governments unnecessarily classifying many documents as “top secret” and thus not only is it difficult to understand the terrorist’s mindset but without clear documentation it is also difficult to understand how western governments might have reacted to terrorism attacks.
- What is true for government documents is also true for many in the tourism industry. Major parts of the tourism industry have at times downplayed the extent of terrorism in order not to scare their customers. This means that terrorism organizations often exaggerate the extent of their destructive power while the tourism industry has tended to downplay these same actions.
The interaction between tourism and terrorism then is an organically changing field, What might be true today may well be disproven tomorrow., Researchers are well advised to approach this subject not only with caution but also with great humility What we believe to be true today might well be false tomorrow
Dr. Peter Tarlow,
Faculty of Humanities in Medicine, Texas A&M University and President of Tourism & More Inc.