The Industry of Cruises

This chapter discusses critically the modern definition of hospitality and mobility. As a social institution, hospitality encourages contact with strangers. This creates a latent risk because host and guests are not familiar with the intention of the other. In the luxury of shipping lines and cruises, the sense of hospitality as an inter-tribal pact of protection is neglected. Reducing the displeasure to zero degrees, cruises are disciplinary mechanisms of control and indoctrination that hide “the other” who is not legally authorized to be on board. This discussion is not new in tourism fields, from the inception of bubble tourist literature. However, disasters are only a question of time whether the risk is ignored. From Titanic to Costa Concordia, despite the sentiment of omnipotence cruises wake up, any human error or technical failure may lead the ship to the collapse. This suggests that the quest of zero-risk society not only is a fallacy but a dangerous path to follow.

The Deep Roots of Fear

This chapter can be seen as the corollary of the book. The authors summarize the main findings of an ethnography that took five long years in the main bus stations and airport of the country. The four schools of risk perception were placed under the critical lens of scrutiny because of methodological limitations. The current chapter presents a rich empirical research, which though not statistically represented, helps in the expansion of the current understanding of risk perception. The ways risks are conceived in laypeople and experts notably vary. The authors finally found a clear correlation between trauma and risk aversion in professionals while bad working conditions are the preconditions to perceive further risks in laypeople.

Tourism Security

The chapter explores the problem of terrorism and security in tourism fields. Certainly, plans and policies provided by guidebooks are not being followed in disasters. Simply chaos and disorder are the nature of emergencies. Beyond any protocol, crises and security are not properly defined by scholars. In this essay-review, the authors do not define what tourism security means. Instead, they view it through the lens of three senior scholars, Sevil Somnez, Abraham Pizam, and Peter Tarlow, who have accomplished this task. They have explored not only the roots of terrorism but also security over 20 years. Despite the criticism, they deserve recognition for this legacy. Based on substantial point of divergence, these specialists are concerned by the financial dependency of societies respecting mass media and its coverage of terrorist attacks.

Security, Dark Consumption, and the End of Tourism

This chapter deals with the paradoxes of security as well as the rise of global risks which today places the tourism industry in jeopardy. Terrorism, lethal viruses, and natural disasters not only affect tourism activity but also changes tourism as we know it. Some voices warn of the end of tourism while others feel fascination for the emergence of new morbid forms. Whatever the case may be, this reflects the failure of risk perception theory and the precautionary principle to protect the industry. Dark tourism offers a unique way for individuals to understand who they are in the world. The premise is that the wisdom gains will liberate people. This liberation is a triumph over the institutionalized versions of liberalism offered by modernity. A content analysis of the visitor records at various dark tourist sites will attest to this. Our fascination with others' death also corresponds with a Darwinist attempt to adapt based on what survived. By means of “thanaptosis,” sites or communities obliterated by natural disasters, catastrophes, traumatic stories, or even terrorism may very well be reconstituted in order for survivors to make senses of these events.

The Theory of Risk Perception Geared to Tourism and Hospitality Fields

In this chapter, the author lays the foundations to a new debate about risk perception and the securitization process within the constellations of tourism fields. The chapter represents not only a critical insight on the already-established paradigms but also to the ethnocentrism of English-speaking scholars who have developed an economic-based paradigm of risk perception. The chapter explores the dichotomies and differences among risk, threat, danger, security, and fear while gives a new fresh insight to forge a new sub discipline in tourism: the anthropology of tourism security. While the economic-based theories enthusiastically accept quantitative-related methods, this position reached a state of stagnation. Qualitative-led methodologies as ethnography and analysis content would fill the gap in the years to come. Today, the emergence of some alternative theories as post disaster or post-conflict theories evinces that the doctrine of precautionary principles rested on shaky foundations.

The Epistemology of Tourism Security

The act of traveling needs higher levels of trust in view of the fact that the traveler is unfamiliar with the visited topography. The “sacred law” of hospitality not only reduces the anxieties in hosts and guests but also gives a veil of trust in order for the risk to be controlled. It is unfortunate that terrorism affects notably the organic image of the tourist destination. After hard work, policymakers see how their work of years evaporates in seconds. For this reason, scholars are captivated to present an all-encompassing model to understand risks and its impacts on the tourism industry. Somehow, theorist of risk perception enthusiastically embraced quantitative methodologies in detriment of qualitative ones. The authors review all conceptual and methodological limitations of the risk perception literature and lay the foundations to a new (more) qualitative definition of risk. This chapter explores the issue from a qualitative viewpoint introducing ethnography as a valuable instrument of research.