“TOURISM TIDBITS”

Posted on May 22, 2025

“TOURISM TIDBITS”

FROM

TOURISM & MORE, INC.

The goal of “Tourism Tidbits” is to provide travel professionals with a monthly, easy-to-read overview of creative ideas. With proper referencing, we invite you to quote or reproduce “Tourism Tidbits” and to pass it along to friends.

“Tourism Tidbits” is published monthly in English. Spanish, and Portuguese. The Spanish translation is from Ferran Anguera of Barcelona, Spain. The Portuguese translation is by Lillian Donati Godinho of Lisbon, Portugal.

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Tourism & More’s

Tourism Tidbits

for May 2025

United States Tourism Month and Tourism Security & Safety

Although September 27th is International Tourism Day, the United States celebrates its Tourism Day on May 7th. Both dates are important and serve to remind our political and business leaders not only that tourism is a major part of many economies, but that there is an interconnection between good tourism security and a successful tourism industry. The Covid-19 pandemic and the world’s many wars and crime waves should remind us that visitors will not choose to travel to places where people are afraid for their lives, where crime is rampant, and where they are concerned about their health due to pandemics and unsanitary conditions. Tragically, too often in both the far and recent pasts tourism officials have shown more concern for spin than for problem solving.

This last sentence is not meant to be read as an accusation, but rather a challenge. In a constantly changing world, one in which life seems to become both increasingly more challenging and dangerous, it is the responsibility of the tourism industry to protect its guests and to find ways for them to enjoy themselves without fear of disease, food poisoning, physical assault, or terrorism.

Although there is a small minority of travelers who seek out the dangerous, most travelers and tourists seek out places/experiences where there is a sense of security and safety. Our visitors and guests wish to know what our industry is doing to protect them, how it cooperates with law enforcement, and how well prepared a local industry is in case a security, health, or safety issue were to occur.

In the not too distant past many tourism professionals avoided addressing issues of tourism security and safety. Some took the position that police should not be seen nor heard. There was a common feeling among these professionals that visitors might wonder if overt security indicates a problem and therefore should be afraid. The general pattern that still exists among some tourism marketers is that when it comes to visitor safety and security the less said the better and often the only communication between tourism professionals and both public (police) and private security professionals was kept to a bare minimum. This non-cooperative spirit has not only hurt our visitors but also the industry’s bottom line. Visitors do not fear well-trained security professionals, but feel safer in their presence. Tourism security police often add to the tourism industry’s profitability and enhance its locale’s reputation.

To help make your community or attraction safer and at the same time to improve your marketing efforts, Tourism & More suggests that you consider some of the following ideas.

Understand the complexity of the term tourism security. This is a term that not only encompasses both safety and security but is also the point where economic and business interests interact with a community’s reputation and best marketing practices.
Attend or start a conference on tourism security. Prior to the Covid -19 pandemic the city of Las Vegas was the capital of tourism security. With the discontinuation of the annual Las Vegas International Tourism Safety and Security conference, not only has Las Vegas lost that title but new opportunities have developed around the world for new and innovative tourism security conferences.
Embrace the fundamental paradigm shift toward travel safety and security. From a business perspective venues that provide good security mixed with good customer service will flourish. Those parts of the travel and tourism industry that refuse to embrace security for travelers will see major losses.
Work with your police department to establish a TOPPs (Tourism Oriented Policing/Protection Services) Unit. Tourism policing is very different from other forms of policing and considers the interrelationship between the visitor and the locale’s economy. Simply changing uniforms or calling someone a tourism police officer without proper training can even be counterproductive. Tourism police units within police departments are an essential part of a tourism community’s safety and protection plan.
Involve your local police department. A local police department should not have to learn where things are in a resort after an incident has taken place. Regular visits and meetings can save both time and lives and reduce what might have been a major incident into a minor one. If police are used correctly they can become an economic development tool for a tourism community. Police officers who work in tourism areas should be highly trained professionals who are paid the same wages of any other well-trained professional.
Never forget that tourism security begins with a sense of hospitality and caring. Those tourism centers with high levels of good customer service tend to be the safest tourism centers. On the other hand, tourism centers that provide poor customer service send out a message that they do not care about the well-being of their guests. Creating an environment of caring is the first step toward good guest safety and security procedures.
Be mindful that a tourism community is an ecological system in and of itself. What happens outside of your community impacts what occurs within it. For example, tourism managers and government officials need to be keenly aware of the crime issues that are found in tourism communities. If the location is suffering from a high level of crime, it is unrealistic to believe that this crime wave will not impact its tourism areas.
Develop an evacuation plan for visitors in the case of emergencies and be prepared to provide for your guests’ communication and evacuation needs. Make sure that your guests are provided emergency contact lists with the telephone numbers of medical personnel, police, resort security and even translation services. Guests should also be told what to do in case something is lost, where the lost and found is located and its hours of operation.
Remember that both safety issues such as food hygiene and security issues such as assaults can impact the reputation of your tourism community and your bottom line. From the visitors’ perspective, a ruined vacation is a ruined vacation. If a restaurant serves food that makes tourists sick and this information enters into the media, the location’s reputation might well be ruined. Tourism security and safety are as much about perceptions as it is about reality. Food safety means making sure that food preparation areas are secure, and that there is a close working relationship between your security department and your food preparation services. Food safety in today’s world also means that background checks need to be performed on all employees who handle food and to train these employees in pertinent aspects of resort security.
Review your tourism areas to decide where security cameras and additional lighting are necessary. This review of equipment should take place on a yearly basis in order to decide what changes may be necessary. In an age of terrorism and high crime, tourism centers need to protect not only the areas that are seen by the public but also such areas as where trash is disposed, and deliveries are made.

A good overall security program is much more that simply hiring a few extra guards. Tourism surety, a concept that combines safety and security, along with the guarding a locale’s economic wellbeing and reputation, is a highly professionalized plan that permits the protection of everything from the site to the visitor, to the community’s very reputation. While good security programs do not promise total safety and security, they do lessen the risk of negative events, prepare a location to minimize negative effects should an incident occur, and produce the political will to permit the community to recover. SEE THE TEXT HIGHLIGHTED BELOW IN THE LIST OF PUBLICATIONS WHERE I FIXED SOME TYPOS, ETC.

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The Art of the Assessment Study
Assessment studies are to tourism what medical check-ups are to people. Every locale needs to have a full assessment study to determine both tourism strengths and weaknesses, to build a better industry and to avoid future problems. Please contact Tourism & More for details.
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TOURISM AND MORE’S WIDE RANGE OF SPEECHES AND TRAINING SEMINARS

For a complete listing of topics and information, please check our web page http://www.tourismandmore.com/contact or e-mail us at ptarlow@tourismandmore.com

Please contact us at ptarlow@tourismandmore.com for more information regarding costs and available dates.

All seminars and speeches can be presented in English, Portuguese, or Spanish.

1) Tourism challenges in a post-Covid world.

2) Political advocacy through tourism: Using tourism to change the perception of your locale, business, or nation

3) New forms of tourism: from agro-tourism to dark tourism

4) Tourism and Heath: Surviving the Next Pandemic.

5) Surviving man-made and natural disasters

6) Successful and failed tourism marketing strategies.

7) Avoiding tourism crises by using good risk management techniques

8) Dealing with over- and under- tourism, how to match the number of visitors to your locale’s capabilities

9) Tourism Confronts Terrorism: What You Need to Know to Maintain a Viable Industry in the Face of Terrorism

10) Training Your Police: Tourism Oriented Policing (TOPPs), how it works and why it is essential for a viable tourism industry.

11) Generational Marketing: How to market tourism to diverse age groups

12) Medical tourism: its advantages and the challenges

13) Something from Nothing: The Art of Creating New Attractions.

14) Dealing with the Media: Transforming the Media into your friend

15) Selling to the Latin American Tourism Market: No, they are not all the same!

16) Selling to the US Market: One country and lots of niche groups

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Books on Tourism in English

In alphabetical order by title. Most of these books are available at Amazon.com or from the publisher

(see below for Spanish and Portuguese language books)

1) A Supply Chain Management Guide to Business by Betty Kildow; BettyKildow@comcast.net

2) Beach Safety and the Law, Edited by Jeff Wilks published by Queensland (Australia) Law Society

3) Challenges to US and Mexican Police and Tourism Stability: Peter E. Tarlow, Emerald Publishing. Available at the Emerald Book store or at Amazon https://books.emeraldinsight.com/book/detail/challenges-to-us-and-mexican-police-and-tourism-stability/?k=9781803824062

4) Event Risk Management and Safety (ISBN 0-471-40168-4) by Peter E. Tarlow, published by John Wiley & Sons. Presenting theory and practical applications. To purchase this book, visit http://www.wiley.com or http://www.amazon.com. If you would like Dr. Tarlow to speak or train people in this area, please contact him at ptarlow@tourismandmore.com

5) Leisure Travel: A Marketing Handbook, by Stanley Plog, Pearson Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2004. Available through the website of Pearson Prentice-Hall for $25.

6) Marketing for Hospitality and Tourism (7th edition) by Philip T. Kotler (Author), John T. Bowen (Author), James Makens Ph.D. (Author), Seyhmus Baloglu (Author). Available on Amazon.

7) Media Strategies for Marketing Places in Crisis, by Eli Avraham and Eran Ketter Published by Elsevier

8) Personal Reconstruction, by Peter E. Tarlow, Tom Marrs, Nathaniel Tarlow & Eduardo Leite. How to prevent or recover from a personal crisis. Available at Amazon.

9) Personal Resilience, by Peter E. Tarlow and Séverine Obertelli, Quest Publishing, Miami, Florida

10) Restoring Tourism Destinations in Crisis by Dr. David Beirman: Published by Allen & Unwin (Australia & SE Asia) and CABI Publishing North America/ Europe 2003. For more information contact david.beirman@uts.edu.au

or go to: https://au.sagepub.com/en-gb/oce/tourism-crises-and-destination-recovery/book256475

11) Sports Travel Security by Peter E. Tarlow, published by Elsevier

12) Terrorism and the Economy, edited by Karin W. Glaser, For more information please go to: http://www.elevenpub.com/law/catalogus/terrorism-and-the-economy-1#

13) The Economics of Tourism Destinations, by Norbert Vanhove, Published by Elsevier

14) The Ethics of Terrorism: Innovative Approaches from an International Perspective. Eds Thomas Albert: Publisher: Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Il; USA.

15) The Sage Encyclopedia of Travel and Tourism; Three Volume Series, Published by Sage

16) Tourism Crises and Destination Recovery, by David Beirman, Published by Sage Australia. For more information contact David Beirman at David.Beirman@uts.edu.au

17) The Tourism Gaze 3.0 by John Urry and Jonas Larsen. An all-new updated version of a great classic. Published by Sage.

18) Tourism: Principles and Practices, by John Fletcher, Alan Fyall, David Gilbert, and Stephen Wanhill. Published by Pearson

19) Tourism and Mobility, Burns, P. and Novelli M. eds. (Wallingford: CABI)

20) Tourism Development: Growth, Myths and Inequalities, Burns, P. and Novelli, M. eds. (2008). (Wallingford: CABI)

21) Tourism Safety and the Security for the Caribbean, Drs. Andrew Spencer and Peter E. Tarlow, Published by Emerald

22) Tourism in Turbulent Times. Toward Safe Experiences for Visitors. Edited by Jeff Wilks, Donna Pendergast, and Peter Leggart. Published by Elsevier.

22) Tourism Management: Analysis, Behavior and Strategy, edited by Woodside and Martin, published by Cabi, London, England

23) Tourism-Oriented Policing and Protective Services, Peter E. Tarlow, published by IGI

24) Tourism Security: Strategies for Effectively Managing Travel Risk and Safety by Peter E. Tarlow, Elsevier, ISBN: 978-0-12-411570-5

25) Tourism Security & Safety, from Theory to Practice. Edited by Yoel Mansfeld and Abraham Pizam, published by Elsevier.

26) The 2020 Election: A Survivor’s Guide; Peter E. Tarlow and Steve Vincent, Doppler Printing

27) Twenty Years of Tourism Tidbits: by Dr. Peter E. Tarlow and Dr. Tom Marrs. Available now on Kindle and Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/TWENTY-YEARS-TOURISM-TIDBITS-ebook/dp/B004Q9TIWW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=books&qid=1299276788&sr=1-2

28) 24 Sustainable Cultural Tourism: Small-Scale Solutions by Susan Guyette, Ph.D. ISBN: 978-0-9858788-0-1, On Amazon.com

29) 25 Marketing Strategies to Build Your Outdoor Recreation Business by Evanne Schmarder and Peter Pelland. Published by Train Rec Productions. Please contact E. Schmarder at evanne@roadabode.com to purchase this book or find it on Amazon

Libros en español/ Livros em Português

1. Abordagem Multidisciplinar dos Cruzeiros Turísticos (A Multi-disciplinary Approach to the Study of Cruises) por Dr. Peter E. Tarlow, Ericka Amorim, Cyntia Andrade, Nina Cardona Valéria Mariotti. Por favor contato Ericka Amorim: erickaaa@msn.com.

2) Antropologia e Turismo. Teorias, métodos e praxis, por Xerardo Pereiro e Filipa Fernande. Para comprarlo dirijase a

<http://www.pasosonline.org/es/colecciones/pasos-edita/151-numero-20-antropologia-e-turismo?

3) Desarrollo del turismo en América Latina: fases, enfoques e internacionalización por Wallingre, N. Disponible en http://eyapublicaciones.web.unq.edu.ar

4) Geografía y Turismo. Aspectos territoriales del manejo y gestión del turismo. Editorial Félix Varela. La Habana, 2013, 295 páginas. Autor: Eros Salinas Chávez, contacto: esalinas@ftur.uh.cu

5) Inversión Hotelera, por Alfredo Ascanio. http://etrillas.com.mx/trillas/busqueda/php

6). La Nueva Fiebre del Oro. Las otras ciudades del turismo en el Caribe (Varadero, Bavaro-Punta Cana). Para obter uma copiea deste livro, visite: GGU-AGE: http://www.uib.es/ggu/publicaciones.html OCDS UIB:http://cooperacio.uib.cat/digitalAssets/221/221991_Las-otras-ciudades-del-turismo-en-El-Caribe.pdf

7) ¿Ocio o….Neg-Ocio? por Abelardo Pagani

8) Principios, Organización, y práctica de turismo, por Ramón Martín, Editorial Felix Valela, Havana, Cuba

9) Productos Turísticos, por Medina, Santamarina, y Salinas, Escuela de Altos Estudios de Hoteleria y Turismo, La Habana, Cuba

10) Turismo en el Caribe, por Jesús Manuel González Pérez y otros. Contacto Dr. Gonzalez por información adicional jesus.gonzalez@uib.es

11) Turismo Sustentable, por Alfredo Ascanio y Marcus Vinicius. http://etrillas.com.mx/trillas/busqueda/php

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About the Author:
Peter E. Tarlow, Ph.D. is the President of Tourism & More, Inc., a founder of the Texas chapter of TTRA, and a popular author and speaker on tourism. Tarlow is a specialist in the areas of the sociology of tourism, economic development, tourism safety and security. Tarlow speaks at governors’ and state conferences on tourism and conducts seminars throughout the world and for numerous agencies and universities.

If you know of anyone else who might enjoy “Tourism Tidbits,” please send his/her email address to ptarlow@tourismandmore.com, Please let us know of any topic that you would like to see covered by “Tourism Tidbits.” We invite others to submit articles for consideration for publication.

You are welcome to reproduce “Tourism Tidbits” or any part of “Tourism Tidbits” with proper referencing. We hope that you will see “Tourism Tidbits” as a place where tourism, visitor, and travel professionals exchange ideas and information. “Tourism Tidbits” does not offer or provide specific legal or financial advice. Our goal is to provide a “review” for industry personnel and discuss provocative issues. We remind all readers that every specific business decision should be made only after you have done the proper research. The authors accept no responsibility for any loss due to any information published in “Tourism Tidbits.”

All articles sent to “Tourism Tidbits” and accepted for publication are owned by “Tourism Tidbits” and may be subjected to editorial review and rewriting (with permission of the author). All questions about “Tourism Tidbits”, suggestions, or cancellations should be addressed to Dr. Peter E. Tarlow at ptarlow@tourismandmore.com.