Post crisis tourism: attitudes and perceptions of the risk society traveller

This paper investigates a tourist segment which has been created out of Ulrich Beck’s Risk Society (1989, 2009). These travellers have been dubbed ‘Risk Society Travellers’. The paper follows Beck’s arguments of a society in which everyday life is increasingly governed by risks that have become incalculable, uncompensatable, unlimited, unaccountable and, most important of all, invisible to our senses. The contention is that people live with permanent non-knowing or with the simultaneity of threats and non-knowing and cannot grasp which concerns one should have and in what situations. These problems of risk and uncertainty pose dilemmas for us all (Mythen and Walklate, 2006). Therefore the nature of the tourism experience is investigated, which this study is trying to connect to post crises tourism in order to gain further understanding of the people that travel to such destinations. During the current times of crisis, in which headlines of terror and catastrophes are predominant in the media, each and every one of us still has to make choices, whether to travel and where to travel. The historical discussions and theoretical development in tourism suggests that catastrophes, such as terrorism and natural disasters impact negatively on tourists’ perception of a destination and therefore have a negative impact on the demand for such destinations. However, tourism numbers are still rising and are forecasted to rise in the future (WTO, 2012). This paper sheds light on the travellers within today’s risk society by use of a case study from Morocco’s post terrorist incident that occurred on 28th April 2011, where the ambivalence by the traveller to the notion of risk contradicts these earlier concepts and research findings. The tourists visiting destinations post-crisis are truly ‘Risk Society Travellers'

This paper investigates a tourist segment which has been created out of Ulrich Beck’s Risk Society
(1989, 2009). These travellers have been dubbed ‘Risk Society Travellers’. The paper follows Beck’s arguments of a society in which everyday life is increasingly governed by risks that have become incalculable, uncompensatable, unlimited, unaccountable and, most important of all, invisible to our senses. The contention is that people live with permanent non-knowing or with the simultaneity of threats and non-knowing and cannot grasp which concerns one should have and in what situations. These problems of risk and uncertainty pose dilemmas for us all (Mythen and Walklate, 2006).
Therefore the nature of the tourism experience is investigated, which this study is trying to connect to post crises tourism in order to gain further understanding of the people that travel to such destinations. During the current times of crisis, in which headlines of terror and catastrophes are predominant in the
media, each and every one of us still has to make choices, whether to travel and where to travel. The historical discussions and theoretical development in tourism suggests that catastrophes, such as terrorism and natural disasters impact negatively on tourists’ perception of a destination and therefore
have a negative impact on the demand for such destinations. However, tourism numbers are still rising and are forecasted to rise in the future (WTO, 2012). This paper sheds light on the travellers within today’s risk society by use of a case study from Morocco’s post terrorist incident that occurred on 28th
April 2011, where the ambivalence by the traveller to the notion of risk contradicts these earlier concepts and research findings. The tourists visiting destinations post-crisis are truly ‘Risk Society Travellers'