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Towards a post-conflict tourism recovery framework ☆

Maharaj vijay reddy.

a Centre for Financial and Corporate Integrity, Faculty of Business and Law, Coventry University, CV1 5DL, United Kingdom

Stephen W. Boyd

b Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Ulster University Business School, Ulster University, Coleraine BT52 1SA, United Kingdom

Mirela Nica

Associated data.

While there is an increasingly extant literature on tourism crises and disasters, a lacunae exists regarding robust conceptual and theoretical frameworks for reviving tourism in a post-conflict context. Holistic frameworks that build tourism resilience in post-conflict destinations is still considered an emerging area in crisis management research. This paper aims to address this gap. An in-depth critique of research across leading peer-reviewed tourism journals, involving 102 individual papers; 63 on crises and disasters, and 39 on tourism recovery frameworks, was undertaken to develop a post-conflict tourism recovery framework. The framework proposed synthesizes complex relationships for post-conflict destinations operating “on the edge of chaos”, and enables consideration of key factors that influence their capacity to be resilient, adapt, and recover.

  • • State-of-the-art review on crises management for tourism
  • • Role of chaos, complexity, resilience and vulnerability to understanding crises
  • • Development of a conceptual framework for post-conflict tourism development

Introduction

Tourism is widely recognised as contributing towards Sustainable Development Goals ( Reddy & Wilkes, 2015 ). By year-end 2018, international tourism receipts annually accounted for USD 1.5 trillion ( World Tourism Organisation, 2020 ) and the growing importance of tourism has been globally acknowledged from an economic, socio-cultural and pro-environmental perspective. Tourism has become a major agent for pro-active change for destinations where impacts are internalised and managed.

However, tourism remains highly vulnerable to crises and disasters (e.g., 9/11 terror attacks, 2004 Asian tsunami, Fukushima nuclear disaster, and Coronavirus pandemic) and this has evoked considerable research that has focused on impacts, changing perception of travel, and destination image ( Armstrong & Ritchie, 2008 ; Butler & Suntikul, 2013 ; Faulkner & Vikulov, 2001 ; Granville, Mehta, & Pike, 2016 ; Henderson, 2005 ; Isaac & Ashworth, 2012 ; Lanouar & Goaied, 2019 ; Miller & Ritchie, 2003 ; Prideaux & Witt, 2000 ; Reddy, Shaw, & Williams, 2006 ; Ritchie, 2004 , Ritchie, 2009 ; Seraphin, 2018 ; Woosnam & Kim, 2014 ; Yang, Zhang, & Chen, 2020 ).

Specifically, scholars have focused their attention on the key aspects related to tourism industry's readiness and responses to crises and disasters. These include: crisis knowledge and risk intelligence ( Paraskevas, Altinay, McLean, & Cooper, 2013 ; Paraskevas & Quek, 2019 ); forecasting ( Page, Yeoman, Munro, Connell, & Walker, 2006 ; Prideaux, Laws, & Faulkner, 2003 ); destination image ( Avraham, 2015 ; Ketter, 2016; Zenker, von Wallpach, Braun, & Vallaster, 2019 ); perceptions of risk and risk management ( Liu-Lastres, Schroeder & Pennington-Gray, 2019 ; Tsai & Chen, 2010 ); crisis indicators ( De Sausmarez, 2007 ); post-crisis recovery strategies ( Campiranon & Scott, 2014 ; Scott, Laws & Prideaux, 2007 ); crisis signal detection ( Paraskevas & Altinay, 2013 ); stakeholder collaboration ( Hystad & Keller, 2008 ; Jiang & Ritchie, 2017 ); crisis communication strategies ( Henderson, 2003 ; Liu-Lastres et al., 2019 ; Wang & Ritchie, 2012 ); terrorism prevention ( Kılıçlar, Uşaklı, & Tayfun, 2018 ; Paraskevas & Arendell, 2007 ). However, it has been argued that more research is needed on crises (see Ritchie & Jiang, 2019 ), in particular those caused by conflicts and political instability ( Henderson, 2007 ; Seraphin, Korstanje, & Gowreesunkar, 2019 ; Sonmez & Graefe, 1998 ).

The impacts of violence, terrorism, political instability and armed conflicts remain a key challenge for tourism researchers as the vulnerability and resilience of destinations vary as a result of their spatial and functional connections with the physical, cultural, socio-economic, political and technological environments ( Leiper, 2008 ; Scott & Laws, 2005 ). Consequently, the focus of this review article is, firstly attributed to debating the relationship between conflicts and tourism, their theoretical underpinning and the issues of vulnerability and resilience; secondly, it focusses on conflict destinations and their implications for the development of frameworks for crises management while proposing a holistic framework for post-conflict destinations.

For the scope of this article, two methodological procedures were followed. First, a comprehensive review of tourism studies that considered the impacts of natural and human-induced disasters on tourism over the past 20 years (1999–2019) was conducted to understand their impact on destinations and the attempt made to understand the theoretical underpinning and issues of vulnerability and resilience. The review reflects a growing interest across the academic community in this research area given the major implications that crises have on the tourism industry. The authors acknowledge that extant research may have been undertaken on specific disasters and crisis published in journals worldwide and online, but the focus in this review was on 63 tourism studies specifically analysing natural and human-induced disasters that occurred in both developed as well as less-developed countries, and were published in peer-reviewed journals (see Fig. 1 and Appendix 1).

Fig. 1

Illustration of natural and human-induced disasters studies in tourism research.

Second, a structured review of tourism crisis and disaster management models and frameworks applied in tourism research was carried out. Disasters were included given that not all disasters are naturally occurring. This review was purposely limited to the top three academic tourism journals (based on UK's Chartered Association of Business Schools Journal Ranking 2018) namely Annals of Tourism Research, Tourism Management, and Journal of Travel Research. Between 1999 and 2019, some 39 articles (18 in Tourism Management, 9 in Annals of Tourism Research, 12 in Journal of Travel Research) discussed crises management. This was reduced to 14 based on the eligibility of: (1) a specific keywords search for “Crisis”, “Management” AND “Framework” in the journal article's title, abstract and keywords; (2) a 1999–2019 time frame; and (3) relevance of the paper to the analysis of tourism crisis management frameworks and models. In order to reflect the wide range of research in the field of crisis management and frameworks applied in tourism, a further six articles were identified from other sources following a “snowball” approach. The identification and selection of these six peer-reviewed articles was realised through a process of screening based on frequency of citations (e.g., McKercher, 2008 ; Mckercher & Tung, 2015 ) and relevance to the analysis. These included work by Evans and Elphick (2005) , De Sausmarez (2007) , Scott et al. (2007) , Sonmez and Graefe (1998) , Pennington-Gray, Schroeder, and Gale (2014) and Jiang and Ritchie (2017) (see Appendix 2).

Assessment of both data sets helped to inform the development of an integrated conceptual framework that is presented in the final part of this paper, which recognises three keys tenets of ‘adaptiveness’, ‘vulnerability’ and ‘resilience’.

Understanding tourism crises

Theoretical and empirical aspects.

It is well accepted that there exists a difference between crises and disasters ( Faulkner, 2001 ; Santana, 2004 ; Scott & Laws, 2005 ). The former is more often internal and manageable whereas the latter external and less predictable. Both, however, involve the management of risk and the impact that can bring to bear on society. This brings new challenges to the management of crises.

The question is thus not whether a crisis will happen but when and how the crisis will be handled ( Faulkner & Vikulov, 2001 ; Kash & Darling, 1998 ). Crises threaten the existence of any system, “whether it is a nation state, social community, government, organisation, natural environment, eco-system or some other established system (including tourism)” ( Ritchie, 2009, p.8 ). To a certain extent, there is a degree of ‘predictability’ with a crises. In contrast, Prideaux, Laws and Faulkner (2003, p.478) argue that a disaster is an “unpredictable catastrophic change that can normally only be responded to after the event, either by deploying contingency plans already in place or through reactive response”. As a result, in recent years, the response to a disaster or crisis has become increasingly proactive, predominantly focusing on risk reduction mechanisms that aim to reduce people's vulnerability to natural disasters or conflicts ( Hilhorst, 2013 ).

However, as Faulkner (2001, p.136) highlighted, “one of the reasons so little progress has been made in the advancing of our understanding of tourism crises is the limited development of the theoretical and conceptual frameworks required to underpin the analysis of this phenomena”. An analysis of current crisis management approaches in tourism demonstrates the need for a different perspective in managing tourism crises due to the likely complex and chaotic nature of these events. What is more, tourism seems to behave in a non-linear, non-deterministic and dynamic manner ( Baggio, 2008 ; McKercher, 1999 ), with a complex set of relationships existing between and within the tourism destinations. Hence, a complexity-based perspective on tourism crises as an alternative to a more conventional approach to tourism destination management may provide a better understanding of tourism crises management and planning.

Chaos and complexity

Chaos and complexity theory ( McKercher, 1999 ), refers to “a broad set of loosely related theoretical and meta-theoretical orientations to the behaviour of complex non-linear systems” ( Seeger, 2002, p.329 ), and is concerned with “how systems change and evolve over time due to interaction of their constituent parts” ( Manson, 2001, p.406 ). Although chaos and complexity theory have been used interchangeably in the literature ( Farsari, Butler, & Szivas, 2011 ; McDonald, 2009 ), Manson (2001, p.406) argues that complexity theory research contends several perspectives and approaches to complexity with “sometimes conflicting assumptions and conclusions”. The authors argue that those most relevant to the discussion presented in this paper include, ‘deterministic complexity’ (related to chaos and catastrophe theory) and ‘aggregate complexity’ (related to complex system theory and emphasizing holism and synergy resulting from the interaction of the system components). The former relates to chaotic systems that are characterised by features such as the butterfly effect, bifurcation, and feedback ( Manson, 2001 ). The latter concerns complex systems which are determined by the relationships rather than by its constituted components ( Farsari et al., 2011 ; Manson, 2001 ).

Chaos and complexity theory in tourism research

Traditionally, tourism research has been based on the 19th century Newtonian paradigm or deterministic model which focuses on aspects “that display a tendency toward linear relationships, equilibrium, and structural simplicity” ( Faulkner & Goeldner, 1998, p.78 ). This approach follows a reductionist position that perceives small changes in the initial conditions of a system as constantly being echoed in small changes in the final state of that system.

Many tourism academics, however, have argued that it is inappropriate to consider tourism as a stable and balanced system since tourism is in fact subject to constant fluctuation and uncertainty ( Baggio, 2008 ; Faulkner & Goeldner, 1998 ). McKercher (1999, p. 426) expressed criticism of conventional research and its consideration of systems as “expectable, stable, orderly, and conducive to linear change” and instead viewed them as “complex and uncontrollable, characterized by nonlinear, non-deterministic chaotic behavior”.

Accordingly, advocates of complexity and chaos theory suggest that more attention should be given in tourism research: to explore nonlinear and less linear (or quasi-linear) relationships; to unusual events that may initiate change rather than regular cases and situations; and to “turbulence” ( Faulkner, 2000 ) rather than stability ( Baggio, 2008 ; Farrell & Twining-Ward, 2004 ; Farsari et al., 2011 ; McDonald, 2009 ; Speakman, 2017 ). A destination is hence recognised as an unstable, dynamic system which is subject to non-linear relationships ( Scott & Laws, 2005 ). Any triggering internal and external events, either natural or human-induced, can challenge the existent structure of the tourism destination and redirect it into new dynamic paths. The characteristics of the dynamic systems thus make it impossible to accurately forecast any long-term future evolution, especially when the system is on the “edge of chaos” or moves from one phase to another ( Baggio & Sainaghi, 2011 ). Additionally, non-linear dynamic systems are capable of demonstrating self-organisation and chaos ( Baggio, 2008 ). This capacity occurs even though these systems are deterministic, which means that their future behaviour is entirely determined by their initial conditions without any random terms or elements involved. This behaviour is called deterministic chaos (or simply chaos) referring to this as “the irregular (chaotic) motion generated by a system whose evolution is governed by dynamic laws that uniquely determine the state of the system at all times from a knowledge of the system's previous history” ( Baggio, 2008, p.7 ).

In tourism research, complexity theory has been used to address non-linear relationships and complexities that are inherent in tourism destinations ( Baggio, 2008 ; Farrell & Twining-Ward, 2004 ; McDonald, 2009 ; Speakman, 2017 ). Thus, “complexity” as a concept has been explored in relation to sustainable tourism policies ( Farsari et al., 2011 ), and to crisis and disaster management ( Boukas & Ziakas, 2014 ; Faulkner & Russell, 1997 ; Paraskevas, 2006 ; Ritchie, 2004 ; Speakman & Sharpley, 2012 ). However, there is scope for new insights to be gained from adopting a complexity-based approach to the study of tourism destination development and management in contextual situations involving crises and disasters.

Tourism as a complex and chaotic system

As a complex system, tourism includes sub-systems of people (communities), institutions and organisations and physical elements (attractions, infrastructure, ecosystems) which are interconnected and influence each other ( Scuttari, Volgger, & Pechlaner, 2016 ). From a complexity perspective, a tourism system can be dislocated from its steady state condition by a triggering event and this situation is referred to as chaos, “which is as random and unpredictable as the outcome” ( Russell & Faulkner, 2004 , p.557). Several features of a chaotic system seem to be relevant to our discussion here, namely the ‘edge-of-chaos’, ‘bifurcation’, ‘self-organising’, ‘butterfly effect’ and ‘lock-in effect’ ( Boukas & Ziakas, 2014 ; Faulkner, 2000 ; McKercher, 1999 ; Russell & Faulkner, 2004 ).

“ Edge-of-chaos ” implies an extreme readiness for radical change as the system has reached a point of tenuous equilibrium ( Russell & Faulkner, 2004 ), creating a sense of uncertainty which leads to a ‘bifurcation’ stage of chaos and disequilibrium within the system. “ Self-organising ” involves self-referencing, increased capacity, and interdependent organising ( Lichtenstein, 2000 ) where the system becomes more “suitable” to deal with internal or external difficulties as it benefits from more optimised available resources ( Baggio & Sainaghi, 2011 ). If successful, the crisis enters a resolution stage, returning to a state of ‘business as usual’ ( Paraskevas, 2006 ). However, new and coherent structures and patterns may emerge ( Speakman, 2017 ), and thus a return to normality is not necessarily feasible or desired. “ Butterfly effect ” refers to situations when minor changes can lead to a chain of reaction that culminates in larger outcomes ( Faulkner, 2000 ; Russell & Faulkner, 2004 ; McKercher, 1999 ). An example of this being Eyjafjallajökull eruption in Iceland in 2010 and the impact it had on global aviation industry. According to McKercher (1999) , in a tourism context, the butterfly effect explains how similar destinations can evolve in different ways, reflecting the unpredictable nature of tourism development where small changes in the initial conditions can lead to completely different outcomes. Lastly, ‘ lock-in-effect ’ relates to the persistence of certain inherited innovations regardless of the changes in the system. For example, why certain heritages in the past have survived despite changes in the original conditions that made them necessary ( Faulkner & Russell, 1997 ; McKercher, 1999 ). Chaos theory has utility for better understanding the turbulent and challenging relationships that can form during a crisis and disaster (see Boukas & Ziakas, 2014 ; Speakman & Sharpley, 2012 ).

There is the need for a multi-disciplinary and holistic approach to crisis management research in tourism ( Ritchie, 2004 ). Santana (2004) and Scott and Laws (2005) emphasised the conceptualisation of crisis and disaster in terms of a systems perspective considering that tourism networks are interconnected. In this context, the influence of unintended events or crises on tourism systems can create tensions that lead to systemic restructuring ( Boukas & Ziakas, 2014 ; Faulkner, 2000 ). Although the plausibility of a chaos-complexity approach is still under debate ( Speakman, 2017 ), tourism destinations functioning “on the edge of chaos” could deal with and be better prepared to reduce the impacts caused by crises through “self-organisation”, “learning” (innovation) and “transformation to a more desirable trajectory” ( Davoudi, Brooks, & Mehmood, 2013, p.307 ), as a means to improve destination resilience. A ‘desirable trajectory’ is perhaps being over-optimistic here and perhaps one should be approaching resilience from a standpoint of ensuring some future ‘realistic trajectory’. For destinations that have faced long-protracted conflict such as Northern Ireland and Sri Lanka; compared to a short-term period of turbulence such as Egypt during the Arab Spring, that realism is often driven by what is best to save and where the focus must be, namely maintaining a lower level of accommodation stock and protecting heritage assets ( Boyd, 2019a ). In light of this view, there is much merit in examining the role that resilience theory and thinking offers to facilitate any ‘realistic trajectory’, especially as they offer scope to reduce vulnerability in any given system, in this case, the tourism destination region.

Resilience and vulnerability

Resilience is a concept that is useful in exploring crises, as it provides a way to improve the ability of a system (i.e., tourism destination) to adapt to stress, cope with change and the effects of crises while retaining integrity and ability to continue to function ( Berbés-Blázquez & Scott, 2017 ; Butler, 2017 ). It takes on different forms, including engineering, ecological and evolutionary resilience ( Davoudi et al., 2013 ; Folke et al., 2010 ; Hall, Prayag, & Amore, 2018 ).

Engineering resilience dominated much of early developments in ecology and reflected a rather narrow notion of the stability properties of systems by measuring the speed at which a system returns to its previous equilibrium or steady state after a disturbance. The more resilient the system is, the faster it bounces back ( Davoudi, 2012 ). Engineering resilience focuses on the “attributes of efficiency, constancy and predictability” of complicated systems ( Hall et al., 2018 , p.41). Ecological resilience focuses on the “core attributes of persistence, change and unpredictability” of complex systems and considers the magnitude of the disturbance that can be absorbed by a system before it changes its structure ( Hall et al., 2018 ). This is, how much disturbance a system can take in order to remain within its critical thresholds. Evolutionary resilience challenges the entire idea of equilibrium by suggesting that the system can change over time with or without an external disturbance ( Davoudi et al., 2013 ; Folke et al., 2010 ). It is based on Holling's (2001) adaptive cycle comprising four distinct phases (see Fig. 2 ).

Fig. 2

The adaptive cycle.

After a full cycle, a new growth phase starts where the different configurations and possibilities compete to form something new or a version of the previous cycle ( Berbés-Blázquez & Scott, 2017 ; Hall et al., 2018 ).

Applying ‘adaptive cycle’ thinking to crises has great utility, namely, the ability to react to external stimuli and modify behaviour accordingly. Shocks, disturbance and changes are seen as important factors in unlocking opportunities for the reorganisation of any system ( Biggs, Schluter, & Schoon, 2015 ), where governance and management can enhance resilience and allow adaptive responses to unexpected events. Biggs, Schluter, et al. (2015) argue that systems with particularly high levels of diversity tend to be more resilient than those associated with low diversity, although this also implies an increasing complexity and inefficiency that may reduce the capacity to adapt to slower and ongoing change. Accordingly, the application of resilience and resilience thinking offers new opportunities for the management of crises. Destination managers can learn the lessons from those destinations that have faced long-term conflict (wars, terrorism and civil unrest) and apply their decision-making processes including developing crisis communication strategies (e.g., Liu-Lastres et al., 2019 ; Möller, Wang, & Nguyen, 2018 ) to rebuild destination image and recover markets.

The framework proposed in this paper illustrates that such action taken by management involves a holistic assessment of the industry and its ability to be adaptive to the crises and accept that some aspects will be lost or reduced and that resilience requires decision-making around key priorities such as protecting a basic level of service provision and attraction offer. Boyd (2016) on Northern Ireland noted that prior to conflict the region had a substantial mix of heritage attraction and that little was lost during the conflict era allowing for new development that was heritage-focused, in particular dark heritage attraction.

The authors make the argument that understanding vulnerability, and its relation to resilience is also important in crises management thinking ( Adger, 2000 ; Calgaro, Lloyd, & Dominey-Howes, 2014 ). Adger (2006) refers vulnerability as the predisposition of a system to disturbances, its exposure and sensitivity to perturbations and its capacity to adapt. In this respect, vulnerability is seen as “a loose antonym” ( Adger, 2000, p.348 ) to resilience. Moreover, Miller et al. (2010) argue that resilience and vulnerability, although linked, are two different approaches to understanding the response of systems and actors to change. The existing differences in approaches come from their origins in ecological theory (resilience) and social theory (vulnerability), respectively. The former being a systemic approach while the latter involves community prefering an actor-oriented approach ( Miller et al., 2010 ). Resilience studies focus on the interaction between slow and longer term changes and drivers of change (e.g., climate change) and rapid changes (political and economic crisis). On the contrary, vulnerability researchers focus on human agency and often short-term threats. More recently, researchers have looked to combine resilience and vulnerability in examining socio-ecological systems ( Hall et al., 2018 ).

Resilience and vulnerability in tourism research

Resilience has, of late, received greater attention within the tourism academic community ( Lew, 2014 ; Prayag, 2018 ). Two aspects of resilience thinking have emerged. The first refers to the use of the ‘adaptive cycle’ ( Berbés-Blázquez & Scott, 2017 ; Cheer & Lew, 2017 ) and its utility in explaining how tourism systems undergo different periods of growth, breakdown, and reorganisation. However, the application of resilience thinking and adaptive management have been somewhat limited to the ability of a destination to recover from natural disasters ( Biggs, Hall, & Stoeckl, 2012 ; Orchiston, Prayag, & Brown, 2016 ), or focused on economic and security-related shocks ( Biggs, 2011 ; Liu & Pratt, 2017 ) or achieving sustainability (see Table 1 ). Resilience thinking requires further consideration and application to destinations that have experienced crises such as conflicts.

A synopsis of resilience research in tourism.

The second aspect refers to the scale of change occurring: slow change (gradual variations and changes over time) and fast change (disasters). Adaptive capacities and the actions required for each type of change needs a tailored response. Consequently, resilience needs to deal with a specific set of issues depending on the type of changes and level of tourism involvement. This is evidenced in Lew's (2014) scale, change and resilience model for tourism and resilience planning. The model is centred on the idea that different groups (private entrepreneurs, local and regional governments) have a different focus in addressing resilience issues. Their perception and implicit management of slow change is different than under sudden major shocks to these systems. This results in the need for different modes of response and planning within affected tourism destinations.

Vulnerability in tourism research has focused on risk perception, safety and security. Liu and Pratt (2017) , examined the relationship between resilience, tourism and terrorism, and found that terrorism does not have an adverse impact on tourism demand in the long run. However, they found that a country's political regime, its dependence on tourism and level of national income do have an influence on tourism destination resilience to terrorism. Crouch and Ritchie (1999) outlined a series of determining factors that can affect a destination, usually beyond the control or influence of the tourism sector. These include the location, cost of a destination and dependencies between destinations, as location cannot be changed and cost is largely driven by socio-economic and global forces. The effects of war in one part of the world can affect and disturb tourism industries far from the origin of conflict. Adger (2000) found that the disruption to livelihoods and loss of security for local communities due to war or civil conflict accentuate social vulnerability.

Prayag (2018, p.135) advocates for a shift in tourism research from crisis management to resilience, considering that “if a system is resilient, it is implicit that it has the ability not only to overcome crises but to better adapt to change overall”. Berbés-Blázquez and Scott (2017, p.13) also argue that “resilience thinking” is needed to understand processes of change and stability in social-ecological systems. This involves adopting ‘complex adaptive systems lens’ and an understanding of tourism systems as combined social-ecological systems.

Certain destinations seem to be more resilient than others both in terms of their ability to adapt to change and their speed of recovery from a crisis. A system's vulnerability to crises and also the effectiveness of its recovery efforts may differ in ways, and for reasons which are yet to be fully understood ( Scott et al., 2007 ). However, a resilient system adapts to change by building adaptive capacity in the face of unanticipated and anticipated disruptions. This is a critical ability for a tourism system since conflicts, and respectively political instability, unlike natural disasters, impact the tourism industry and the image of a destination more significantly and for longer periods of time ( Pizam & Mansfeld, 2005 ). They affect the capacity of tourism destinations to adapt to changes and ‘bounce-back’ from crises. Hence, it is vital to better understand the relationship between resilience, tourism crisis and tourism recovery in conflict-ridden areas ( Issac, Cakmak, & Butler, 2019 ), concepts that have shaped the development of the conceptual framework are presented later in the paper.

Crisis management frameworks and models in tourism

Although crisis management has been a recognised practice and concept since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, emerging from the field of conflict resolution and diplomacy (Frei, 1978 in De Sausmarez, 2004 ), in a tourism context, crisis management research is more recent and dates back to the 1980s ( De Sausmarez, 2004 ). Over the years, research has mainly focussed on producing prescriptive models describing the stages of a crisis in order to assist understanding in proactive and strategic crises management ( Ritchie, 2009 ). Moreover, Hall (2010) argued that tourism crisis management has concentrated on economic and financial crises, and crisis events such as 9/11 or unexpected oil shocks. This raises the question as “to the reactive nature of tourism research versus the development of greater predictive capacity and theory generation” ( Hall, 2010, p.406 ). While the focus pre 2010 was selective, researchers over the past decade have addressed environmental crises from the standpoint of environmental sustainability, environmental change and adaptation ( Kutzner, 2019 ) and building organizational and enterprise resilience ( Biggs, Hicks, Cinner, & Hall, 2015 ). Other scholars have examined particular environmental catastrophes such as oil spills from the Deepwater Horizon ( Pennington-Gray, London, Cahyanto, & Klages, 2011 ) and the challenges of conservation regarding the Great Barrier Reef ( Biggs, Ban, & Hall, 2012 ). The latter evidence of research suggests movement towards being more proactive and predictive.

The early thinking by Faulkner (2001) and Ritchie (2004) who developed more generic and strategic models for tourism crisis management were cognizant of the need for theory and framework generation that was both proactive and have predictive capacity. Referring to these models, De Sausmarez (2007) recognises their applicability to any destination in the event of a crisis. As a result the framework developed by Faulkner (2001) has been extensively employed, with and without amendment in many differing situations (e.g., Henderson, 2003 ; Miller & Ritchie, 2003 ; Peters & Pikkemaat, 2005 ; Novelli, Gussing Burgess, Jones, & Ritchie, 2018 ).

According to general theories, a crisis advances in stages. For instance, Fink (1986) considered that a crisis follows four stages that are categorised prodromal (warning), acute (at the height of the crisis), chronic (aftermath), and resolution. Faulkner's (2001) tourism disaster management framework is a composite set of stages based on earlier research of Fink (1986) and Roberts (1994) . The latter identified specific stages of responding to a flood. According to Faulkner (2001) , a crisis follows six stages. The process commences with a “pre-event phase”, when action can be taken to prevent or mitigate the consequences of a disaster, followed by a “prodromal” state in which the disaster is imminent. The “emergency phase” refers to the time when actions are taken to protect life and property, followed by an “intermediate phase”, a “long-term recovery phase” and a “resolution phase” in which routine is restored or a new improved state emerges. His tourism crises management model also includes a list of responses to each of these phases alongside management strategies, updated risk assessment and contingency plans.

Faulkner's (2001) model remains one of the most cited crises management frameworks. Since Faulkner's model, there has emerged a body of scholarly work on frameworks and models that have a broad research focus, addressing a multiplicity of concepts and aspects (see Fig. 3 ). Some of the models analysed consider crises as having a distinct start and finish with a desirable end of a crisis as a return to normality. This idea is supported by the use of crisis stages to divide time into a before (pre-crisis) and after (post-crisis). Scott and Laws (2005) and Scott et al. (2007) argue that an alternative systems perspective offers a better representation of a crisis. A crisis is thus seen as an evolving system where change (both positive and negative) is endemic and not limited to only its immediate temporal or geographic locality. In addition, these changes cannot be planned as part of a strategic management as they also may lead to different stages. As a result, the subsequent system may be different than the previous one and, consequently, a return to normality is not always the required endpoint ( Scott & Laws, 2005 ).

Fig. 3

Tourism crisis management frameworks and models reviewed: empirical approaches.

Also, crises require a flexible and unplanned response since “routine solutions applied to an abnormal situation tend to aggravate rather than alleviate a problem” ( Santana, 2004 , p.306). They have what Faulkner (2001, p.137) termed as having “…transformational connotations, with each such event having potential positive (e.g., stimulus to innovation, recognition of new markets, etc.), as well as negative outcomes.” Alternative thinking has been to consider destinations as networks of stakeholders, where these can be reconfigured into more effective structures following a crisis ( Scott et al., 2007 ).

Many of the tourism crisis management models offer only a prescriptive viewpoint, providing check lists or information on what managers should do before, during or after crises ( Burnett, 1998 ; Ritchie, 2004 ). Their focus is on developing cautionary or preventive capacity as a measure for crisis coping or management ( Shrivastava, 1993 ). Nonetheless, it is important to recognise the fact that considerable advances have been made in order to help the industry overcome crises and disasters by providing pre-planning strategies to avoid or to mitigate future disasters ( Scott et al., 2007 ).

Managing tourism crises as a result of conflicts and political instability poses additional challenges for tourism managers and policy planners. The task here can vary from developing survival strategies during conflicts to finding creative ways for post-conflict recovery. What is more, political instability and the absence of peace challenge the development of tourism as a “conflict-free” environment is often seen as a prerequisite for attracting tourists ( Boyd, 2019b ; Pizam & Mansfeld, 2005 ). In order to develop models and a framework that focuses on tourism and its recovery for conflict-ridden destinations, a wider understanding of the relationship between tourism and conflict first needs to be explored.

Tourism and conflicts

The role of tourism in conflict-ridden destinations and the relationship between conflict (i.e. war, armed conflicts) and tourism have been investigated by the academic community with an increasing understanding that tourism plays a positive role in socio-economic development and in reconciliation among different communities and cultures ( Issac et al., 2019 ; Koleth, 2014 ; Pizam, Fleischer, & Mansfeld, 2002 ; Upadhayaya, Müller-Böker, Sharma, & Umar Upadhayaya, 2011 ). Thus, tourism acts as a “force for world peace”( D'Amore, 1988 ). Some researchers, however, have questioned the role of tourism in areas affected by conflict and as a result, two types of research studies have emerged. There are studies advocating tourism as an agent for creating and facilitating rapport between divided communities ( Causevic, 2010 ; Sonmez & Apostolopoulos, 2000 ) and as a confidence building measure encouraging cooperation ( Simone-Charteris & Boyd, 2010 ). Conversely, opponents to tourism as a contributor to peace argue that tourism is a beneficiary of peace, rather than grounds for peace ( Pratt & Liu, 2016 ). Tourism by itself does not implicitly contribute to tourists' positive attitudinal changes or prejudice attenuation. This only happens under certain conditions, such as a quality tourist experience ( Pizam et al., 2002 ), a situation that may not be always scalable from individuals to whole nations ( Pratt and Liu, 2016 ).

As for the relationship between conflict and tourism, it has been shown that while conflict usually prevents tourism in the affected areas, it often initiates or even stimulates the development of tourism in areas which are safe from conflict. For example, Sri Lanka (see Butler & Suntikul, 2013 ; Buultjens, Ratnayake, & Gnanapala, 2016 ). Tourism can also develop, to some extent, during a conflict in areas that are involved but are separated from the conflict itself. For instance, researchers have examined this for Pattaya, Thailand ( Suntikul, 2013 ) or areas that are part of an ongoing conflict, such as Israel ( Mansfeld, 1999 ). Political conflict can occasionally materialise in the creation of new countries and thus provide new tourism destinations ( Butler & Suntikul, 2013 ). Moreover, the resultant political change in the aftermath of a political conflict may recognise tourism as an opportunity and as a newly found source of national income (e.g., Vietnam). In situations when the socio-economic well-being of a destination is under threat from hazardous events or global restructuring, many countries (and implicit destinations) come to realise and appreciate the economic and social contributions made by the tourism sector to their economies ( Butler & Suntikul, 2013 ; Crouch & Ritchie, 1999 ).

However, research has demonstrated that political instability as a result of war or conflict has a major impact on the tourism industry ( Causevic & Lynch, 2013 ) and can lead to negative effects such as decreased revenues, falling numbers of tourists and overnights and increased costs. It also often takes decades for tourists to return to a country following a conflict event and some countries never fully recover from perceptions of violence and instability (e.g., Israel, see Pizam & Mansfeld, 2005 ), whereas others recover quickly through a strategy that downplays their war-torn image (e.g., Croatia and Slovenia, see Naef & Ploner, 2016 ). A strategy to dissociate the country's image from its war heritage by removing any vestiges of the recent war ( Arnaud, 2016 ; Rivera, 2008 ) may come at a cost as destinations fail to differentiate from others nearby and may exacerbate political tensions at home.

Research considerations on post-conflict tourism

Over the years, scholars have focused their attention on several aspects of tourism in post-conflict environments.

First, it has been argued that in the aftermath of a conflict many tourism attractions are reinvented in the form of political, military and physical heritage ( Boyd, 2000 ; Butler & Suntikul, 2013 ), with some of the political sites and attractions being promoted under a wider umbrella of cultural and heritage tourism ( Boyd, 2019b ; Naef & Ploner, 2016 ). For instance, the legacy of the Yugoslavian wars contributed to the production of local cultural heritage through the “touristification” of war memory as found in Sarajevo ( Causevic, 2010 ). In Rwanda, the 1994 genocide memorial sites are increasingly incorporated into the country's tourist product in order to bring a sense of common heritage and a shared purpose between former conflictive parties and help reconciliation and healing ( Friedrich & Johnston, 2013 ). In the case of Northern Ireland, many private sector tourism providers offer educational background to visitors to learn about the conflict and the effects of peace in a divided society ( Boyd, 2000 ; Boyd, 2019b ; Simone-Charteris & Boyd, 2010 ) by connecting the tourist with dark sites and dissonant territory that often divides communities ( Boyd, 2016 ).

Second, research has developed around the phenomena of dark and political tourism (e.g., Lennon & Foley, 2000 ; Miles, 2002 ; Cohen, 2011 ; Simone-Charteris & Boyd, 2011 ; Stone, 2012 ; Isaac & Ashworth, 2012 ), examining them from both supply-side (conflict sites as key attractors) and demand-driven perspective (reasons for visiting including, educational, peacekeeping, rebuilding, commemorative, showing empathy, authenticity, curiosity and thrill of political violence).

Aspects of dark and political tourism that are relevant to our wider discussion, include, how cultural politics has been integrated into the production and consumption of tourism sites ( Light, 2017 ; Logan & Reeves, 2009 ) and how this “difficult” or “dissonant” heritage (different meaning for different groups) is presented and interpreted ( Tunbridge & Ashworth, 1996 ). Interpretation can shift the attention from the sites, to the experience and the sentiments they evoke, and to solving the dilemma of how to satisfy the competing demands of both remembering and forgetting ( Boyd, 2016 ; Friedrich & Johnston, 2013 ; Light, 2017 ; Logan & Reeves, 2009 ; Rivera, 2008 ; Simone-Charteris & Boyd, 2010 ). Causevic and Lynch (2011, p.783) stressed that “in post-conflict settings it becomes very challenging to achieve a balance between ownership, power and interpretation”. Dissimilar interpretations of the conflict can perpetuate the differences between the affected communities and as a result, Ashworth (2015) raises the question as to the role of heritage tourism in the aftermath of a conflict and to whether political and dark tourism actually contributes negatively or positively to the resolution of a conflict.

Another aspect of research has focused on the immediate stage of recovery in the aftermath of a conflict, resulting in the emergence of Phoenix tourism. According to Causevic and Lynch (2011) , tourism in post-conflict areas undergoes a stage of “transformation of the feelings”, the so-called “phoenix” phase that attempts at reconciliation between communities and normalisation of social relationships. This places greater emphasis on local communities and their role in re-creating and deciding how heritage in post-conflict areas is presented ( Zhang, 2017 ). Others view Phoenix tourism as a distinct early stage in post-conflict tourism development, where tourism products are deliberately and commercially developed for economic benefit ( Boyd, 2016 , Boyd, 2019a , Boyd, 2019b ). As such “Phoenix” thinking is part of the wider process of tourism development in post-conflict areas, and forms part of a wider post-conflict recovery ( Boyd, 2019a , Boyd, 2019b ). Table 2 illustrates how certain development ‘criteria’ change from pre-conflict to post-conflict, where the Phoenix phase has distinct characteristics.

Destination change over time: pre-conflict to post-conflict.

Key elements are considered including safety and security, destination perception, infrastructure and entrepreneurial climate, attraction mix and the size of the industry. The nature of development changes from an early form of tourism development in the pre-conflict times, to considerable development loss (albeit with some industry resilience) during the years of conflict. Early recovery of tourism centres around dark and political products (post-conflict Phoenix) but overtime ‘normalisation’ of tourism development occurs where product range has diversified beyond that of dark and political ( Boyd, 2019a , Boyd, 2019b ).

Tourism crises as a result of political conflicts, like most crises, unfold in ways that cannot be forecast and overcome, which tourism has little influence. As Faulkner (2001, p.137) argued “… good management can avoid crisis to some degree but must equally incorporate strategies for coping with the unexpected event over which the organisation has little control”. Despite the development of research in this area, there remains notable gaps.

First, there is a need for a shift towards a multidisciplinary approach and towards use of descriptive models that better explain how crises can be more effectively managed ( Pennington-Gray, 2018 ). Second, while adaptive systems thinking has been applied to tourism management ( Farrell & Twining-Ward, 2004 ; Ritchie, 2004 ), it has not been considered in situations of conflict and political instability. Such an approach enables a deeper understanding of the change process. Third, with a few exceptions (e.g., Novelli, Morgan, & Nibigira, 2012 ; Boukas & Ziakas, 2014 ; Dahles & Susilowati, 2015 ; Buultjens et al., 2016 ), there has been a notable absence of consideration of complexity theory and resilience thinking to situational cases of political instability and armed conflict. Resilience from a tourism perspective, has been predominantly linked to natural disasters and economic crises, sustainability and climate change research. There is, however, scope to explore the synergy between the application of complex adaptive systems and resilience theory and then apply these to crises. Fourth, there is a lack of research that examines crises from a nonlinear perspective. Too much emphasis has been on the development of ‘deterministic models’ ( McKercher, 1999 ). Crises involve different stages and are often unpredictable and evolving phenomena that can cause restructuring of entire tourism systems. This requires a different approach, offering new paradigms and theoretical frameworks to be developed that conceptualise a tourism crises as a dynamic phenomenon. Fifth, there is an absence of crises research that is holistic (supply and demand focused) and integrative (more involvement needed with stakeholders who feel marginalised; e.g., local communities). Finally, while research has examined the use of the label ‘Phoenix tourism’, much of this has been descriptive and conceptual allowing scope for more theoretical and empirical research to be undertaken.

A conceptual framework for post-conflict tourism destination development

In light of the foregoing comments, an integrative conceptual framework is proposed ( Fig. 4 ). This framework brings together concepts from chaos, adaptive systems theory, resilience and vulnerability, offering new thinking of how a destination operates on the ‘edge of chaos’, and has the capacity to adapt, and recover from crises.

Fig. 4

A conceptual framework for post-conflict tourism destination development.

Tourism destinations are viewed as complex adaptive systems where development and management can be shaped by two contributing factors, vulnerability to crises and resilience to respond. The authors have taken an approach based on adaptive cycle theory ( Holling, 2001 ; Walker, Holling, Carpenter, & Kinzig, 2004 ) that accommodates growth, stability, reorganisation and transformation of any tourism system. The outcomes that can be triggered by major disturbances are characterised as high magnitude and of long duration (e.g., conflicts and political instability). The framework also adopts a systems approach towards understanding a tourism system, its sub-systems (socio-ecological, socio-technical and socio-political) and the interactions between these responding to change (positive or negative) by self-organising. This self-organising can be either through adoption of a Phoenix state directly after conflict has ceased, a state where there is openness to new approaches, innovation and learning or it can be through reorganisation which leads to a tourism system with characteristics that resemble mature destinations that have never experienced conflict (see Boyd, 2019a , Boyd, 2019b ). The self-organising in the framework refers to the system's adaptive response to change in a post-conflict environment.

Previous studies, discussed earlier, have highlighted the importance of capturing and understanding the interconnected relationship between resilience and vulnerability (e.g., Calgaro et al., 2014 ). The proposed framework emphasises the necessity to understand both a destination's vulnerability to disturbances and its resilience ( Farrell & Twining-Ward, 2004 ). In the framework, vulnerability is determined by three dimensions: exposure (the degree to which a destination is exposed to disturbances and stressors as a result of its particular characteristics); sensitivity to impact (reflected in the pre-existing economic, human, socio-political capital), and its adaptive capacity (e.g., Adger, 2006 ; Calgaro et al., 2014 ).

For many conflict-ridden destinations, building resilience has added particular challenges due to negative perceptions of safety and security and socio-political and economic vulnerabilities, particularly in developing countries or so-called “fragile states” ( Novelli et al., 2012 ) (e.g., Egypt, Haiti and Kashmir). Mapping the complexities of the post-conflict tourism development cycle enables a better understanding of the critical factors that influence a destination's resilience, vulnerability and adaptive response to crises.

The proposed framework addresses the research gap of understanding the dynamics involved in non-linear tourism development, often as a result of conflicts and political instability, and offers tourism authorities of post-conflict destinations a roadmap to assist them in recovery from crises. This framework is designed for destinations that have suffered from long-term crises as opposed to short-term turbulence and unrest, where the interim Phoenix phase of recovery may be more relevant for some destinations over others that have chosen to position recovery around re-development of past tourism assets that the region was known for pre-conflict. The former applies to Northern Ireland where the focus was on development of a dark heritage product of murals and dissonance community heritage that as a product base contrasted with a more diversified tourism offer by tourism bodies, which would later see niche development normalise around food tourism, screen tourism and golf tourism ( Boyd, 2019b ). A Phoenix phase of development can also be noted for Medellin, Colombia, with its focus on narco heritage, the development of new tourism products such as comuna tours (peripheral neighbourhoods), and the dark romanticism of Pablo tours ( Naef, 2018 ). This narrow Phoenix base contrasts with wider opportunity to develop bird-based (avian) tourism in Colombia recognised to have the greatest bird diversity of any country in the world.

The authors view the framework as having utility for those destinations that look to transition directly from conflict back to a normalised tourism environment that existed prior to conflict. In this instance, post-recovery requires adaptiveness in developing proactive policy that avoids a Phoenix phase, for example, establishing tourism development zones, and a deliberate strategy of niche product branding (e.g. Sri Lanka) ( Boyd, 2019a ; Buultjens et al., 2016 ).

Overall, the wider utility of the framework is the potential to highlight the various recovery characteristics involved with post-conflict tourism development whether that involves the interim Phoenix phase or direct transition to a normalised tourism environment.

Crisis, in particular tourism-related, is an area that has received limited attention within the scholarly community. This paper therefore offered the opportunity to first present a review of the scope of this research field, but second to put forward the case to reconceptualise our understanding of the nature of a crises from a multi-perspective, drawing from systems theory, chaos, complexity theory, and utilising concepts from ecological (resilience) and social (vulnerability) theory. Adopting this broad-based perspective offers scholars the opportunity to view a destination that has faced, or is facing, a crisis as an adaptive system that highlights its capacity to respond to change, overcome vulnerability and be resilient.

This new approach has been put forward as a conceptual framework. While it has been specifically applied to one sub-type of crises, that of conflict, it has wider utility to other types of crises. Key here is how a destination adapts (adaptive capacity), moves directly to exhibit the characteristics of mature destinations that have never faced any past major disturbance, or adopts a transitory ‘Phoenix’ phase of initial recovery. What is important in the framework is the role that vulnerability and resilience play. As discussed previously, the framework offers considerable scope for new research to test empirically the nature of relationships that exist between different component parts. The authors invite scholarly research into investigating casual linkages as well as operationalising the framework in varied conflict–ridden destinations. For instance, those that have faced a long protracted image crises and subsequent conflict (e.g., Jammu & Kashmir, and Palestine) compared to those that have faced the re-emergence of short-duration conflict (e.g., Egypt during the Arab Spring, and recent Easter violence and unrest in Sri Lanka). The authors are cognizant that crises vary in their duration and their intensity and that the wider applicability of some aspects of the framework will vary according to the destination and conflict under study. Destinations where conflict has re-emerged but where that has been short in duration can be examined from the standpoint of their ability to be adaptive, resilient to and quickly recover to a condition similar to what they enjoyed prior to conflict. In contrast, for destinations that have been torn apart by protracted civil war, there exist greater scope to research how such destinations began their recovery and the extent to which this relied on an interim Phoenix stage.

A multi-perspective approach to understanding crises has practical implications for many stakeholders involved in destinations that are looking to recover. Policy makers need to be able to explore different strategies of response, where a ‘Phoenix’ phased recovery is favoured or not. This may involve developing appropriate crisis communication strategies that help to facilitate repositioning as well as evaluating tourist reactions on how successful they see those recovery strategies to be, and how they shape the type of tourism development taking place. Local communities and their voices need better understanding, especially if the recovery strategy is to have some deliberate association with the past conflict. The inputs from these different stakeholder groups will inform researchers of the characteristics of a Phoenix type destination or one that normalises around its recovery and renewal. Crises are unwelcome events facing tourism. Regarding conflicts as crises, adopting a holistic and multi-perspective framework offers researchers with much needed insight into how destinations can develop and manage post-conflict.

Acknowledgement

The authors express their gratitude to the British Council and the University Grants Commission of India for their financial support (Grant No: IND/CONT/G/18-19/28), under the umbrella of the UK-India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI). This paper, research project and the Doctoral Studentship behind it would not have been possible without the support of Ms. Suruchi Pareek (British Council, New Delhi), Professor Nigel Berkeley and Ms. Tanya Liguori (Coventry University), Professor Joëlle Fanghanel, Mr. Matthew Snowden and Ms. Neelam Kaushal (University of West London). The authors also would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers and Dr. Martin Selby (Coventry University) for their helpful comments.

Biographies

Maharaj Vijay Reddy is an Associate Professor in Tourism and Marketing at Coventry University. His research focuses on disaster management and sustainable development.

Stephen W. Boyd is a Professor of Tourism in the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Ulster University. His research focuses on post-conflict tourism development and heritage tourism.

Mirela Nica is a PhD student at Coventry University, pursuing research on post-conflict tourism development in Northern Ireland.

☆ Associate editor: Ritchie Brent

Appendix A Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2020.102940 .

Appendix A. Supplementary data

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Research Article

Does proximity to conflict affect tourism: Evidence from NATO bombing

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Project administration, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation The Institute of Economics, Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Methodology, Visualization, Writing – original draft

* E-mail: [email protected]

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  • Marina Tkalec, 

PLOS

  • Published: October 20, 2021
  • https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258195
  • Reader Comments

Fig 1

Although conflict, war, violence, and terrorism affect tourism, research that identifies possible channels of these effects is scarce. We explore if the adverse effects are channelled through proximity to conflict areas. We use the conflict in Kosovo in 1999 and the country Croatia as a quasi-natural experiment and take advantage of the specific north-west to south-east orientation of Croatian Adriatic counties to identify the effect of NATO bombing in Kosovo on tourism outcomes as well as the potential proximity channel. Using data on the population of Croatian firms and the difference-in-differences identification strategy we find that tourism companies’ revenues decreased significantly due to NATO bombing, especially in accommodation services and in companies with 50 or more employees. However, using a synthetic control approach we find that the adverse effect is only transitory. Analysing heterogeneous effects with respect to the distance of the firm from Kosovo—using a linear and a more flexible model—we find compelling evidence that within-country proximity to conflict is not a significant channel through which the negative effect propagates.

Citation: Tkalec M, Žilić I (2021) Does proximity to conflict affect tourism: Evidence from NATO bombing. PLoS ONE 16(10): e0258195. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258195

Editor: Shihe Fu, Xiamen University, CHINA

Received: December 18, 2020; Accepted: September 21, 2021; Published: October 20, 2021

Copyright: © 2021 Tkalec, Žilić. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: The data on firms and their balance sheets have been extracted from public registries, but the data itself is not freely available nor easily accessible. Both authors are employed at the Institute of Economics, Zagreb who purchased the data from a processing company Zenlab, to gain legal access to this data. Therefore, the data is owned by a third party, so we cannot share it publicly. Essentially the data is available from the company Zenlab, or from the official sources of data (the Croatian Statistical Business Register, and the Croatian Financial Agency FINA) for researchers who meet the criteria for access to confidential data. For more information on how to obtain the data please visit the web pages of Croatian Financial Agency FINA ( https://www.fina.hr/en/homepage ) or Zenlab ( https://www.zenlab.eu/ ).

Funding: MT and IZ have been awarded TVOJ GRANT@EIZ grant for this research. TVOJ GRANT@EIZ is an internal grant for researchers working at The Institute of Economics, Zagreb. Details of the grant and the project can be seen here: https://www.eizg.hr/projects/past-projects/what-causes-tourists-to-flee-conflict-proximity-or-perception-proper/2680 The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

1 Introduction

Tourism—an activity largely based on pleasant experiences—is fundamentally incompatible with conflict, war, violence, and terrorism. While the 21st century has so far been statistically the most peaceful one, numerous violent conflicts and comprehensive media coverage have brought dreadful events into the cities and homes of many people. For example, according to the [ 1 ] the number of countries experiencing a terrorist attack in 2015 amounted up to 92 with 29,376 people dying during these terrorist events. When wars and other sorts of conflict are added, the number goes up by a high degree. While these horrific events are important issues on their own, it remains to see how they affect tourism. Recent crisis events in popular tourist destinations—for example, attacks in Tunisia, Turkey, France and Spain—might shift tourist demand towards places which are perceived safer.

While the literature on the nexus between violent conflict and tourism is (unfortunately) growing, the empirical evidence on the channels of these adverse effects is scarce. In this paper, using a dataset on the universe of Croatian firms and the difference-in-differences identification strategy, we explore how the NATO bombing of Kosovo and the rest of the Yugoslavian (note that in 1999, Yugoslavia was composed of Serbia and Montenegro only, and that Kosovo was a part of Serbia [ 2 – 4 ]) territory in 1999 affected revenues of firms in the tourism sector in Croatia—which, at the time, was a neighbouring country of the conflict-infected Yugoslavia.

Given that firm-level data contain information on firm location, we are able to explore not only the magnitude, sign, significance and persistence of the effect, but also analyse a potential channel of within-country proximity to conflict. In particular, we are interested if the adverse effect is stronger if the firm in the tourism sector is closer to the bombing site. In order to answer this question we use the north-west to south-east orientation of the seven Croatian Adriatic counties. The utmost north county, Istria, is less than 100 km away from Venice, while the utmost south Dubrovnik-Neretva county bordered with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and was only 160 km from Kosovo (where most of the NATO bombings took place). If a heterogeneous effect with respect to proximity is established—tourism firms closer to conflict (ones on the south) suffered more in 1999—we can argue that within-country proximity to conflict is a significant channel of this adverse effect.

We find compelling evidence that revenues of firms in the tourism sector in Croatia decreased significantly due to NATO bombing, especially in accommodation services and in companies with 50 or more employees. The magnitude of the effect is around -16.6 percent and this result is stable across numerous robustness checks. In addition, applying the synthetic control approach from [ 5 ], we find the the adverse effects was only temporary. However, constructing a measure of distance between the municipality of the firm’s headquarters and NATO bombing site (Kosovo), and using this proximity as an intensity of exposure to conflict, we do not find any evidence that closer firms experienced more adverse effects. Results of both linear and a more flexible specification yield the same conclusion: within-country proximity to conflict does not significantly affect the magnitude of the negative effect.

The contribution is twofold. First, we document the effect of the Kosovo conflict and the NATO bombing in 1999 on Croatian tourism thus following the line of literature established in [ 6 – 11 ]. Second, we use the conflict in Kosovo and the country of Croatia as a quasi-natural experiment and take advantage of the specific north-west to south-east orientation of Croatian Adriatic counties to identify and estimate a potential within-country proximity channel. While the results established in this paper are certainly context—i.e. Croatian-specific, they argue that, given the violent conflicts in popular tourist destinations, this research can facilitate understanding of negative effects of conflict on tourism and their channels.

The rest of the paper is organised as follows. In the second section we review the literature, from conflict and terrorism studies to tourism research, in order to motivate our research idea, while section three provides details on the NATO bombing of Yugoslavian territory. Section four describes the data, methodology, and the identification strategies, while in section five we present our baseline results. This is followed by a discussion on the channel of adverse effects, while the last section concludes the paper.

2 Tourism and conflict

Existing tourism and conflict literature mostly just documents events that cause tourism to tumble and on occasion tries to measure the size of the effect, the geographical reach, and the time it took tourism to stabilize after the unagreeable event(s). However, a large body of research focuses on tourism management in periods of crisis, conflict, and war. For example, [ 10 – 12 ] explore the tourism of Bali, while [ 13 – 15 ] focus on Israel. Other Asian case studies include [ 16 ] for Nepal and [ 17 ] for the Persian gulf, while [ 18 ] analyse tourism development challenges in post-conflict sub-Saharan Africa. Finally, there are three studies done for Europe, [ 19 , 20 ] for Cyprus and [ 6 ] for Bosnia and Herzegovina.

[ 7 ] argue that a terrorist attack in Spain caused tourist arrivals to drop by more than 140,000 and that the effects lasted for at least three months [ 8 ]. Explore a number of terrorist attacks over a long period of time. They show that terrorist attacks deter tourism as revenues in the tourism industry fall even six to nine months after the attack [ 21 ]. Describes the impacts of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the US economy. He argues that the tragedy had been particularly adverse for the airline industry and the manufacture of airplanes. The hotel industry was also seriously damaged as during the first three months hotel bookings declined by 20 to 50 percent. Other economic sectors that were also hit were casinos, sports tourism, etc. He also found that some states suffered more than others as tourism is more important for their economy (e.g. Florida, California, and Nevada) [ 22 ]. Analyse terrorism events and their impact on tourist destinations and the tourism industry. They find that in three-quarters of terrorist events that occurred between 1985 and 1998, the acts caused a decline in tourism demand with the median length of 1 to 3 months, with more than one-third causing a decline of 4 to 6 months. On a broader note, Wall (1996) finds that instability and violence affect not only locations under conflict but also wider parts stretching to the whole region, country and neighbouring countries.

The only study in tourism research that uses firm-level data and explores the influence of terrorist events is the one by [ 9 ] who build a supply and demand model of the Israeli hotel industry where they measure how foreign tourists respond to terrorist events. Their results, although only marginally reflecting the effects of terrorism on tourism, show there is a large and statistically significant negative effect of terrorism in Israel on foreign demand quantity measured by overnight stays. Our research is probably closer to [ 23 ], who were the first to use firm-level data to study effects of war in Sierra Leone. They use the geographical variation in the magnitude of conflict to estimate the effect of violence on firm growth. They find that firms in areas that were more exposed to civil war were smaller firms.

3 Background of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavian territory

In the spring of 1998, the autonomous province of Serbia—Kosovo—populated by up to 90 percent ethnic Albanians, was hit by conflict between the Albanian guerilla movement, the Kosovo Liberation Army, and the Serbian police. In the aftermath of the demise of Yugoslavia and wars in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the UN was on standby to stop a new war in the region. After the mediation broke down, in March 1999, NATO started the three-month long aerial bombardment of Yugoslavian territory (mostly Kosovo and Serbia). In June 1999, NATO and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia agreed a withdrawal of Serb forces from Kosovo [ 24 – 29 ]. At the time, Croatia directly bordered with the Republic of Serbia on the east of the country, while on the south, the Dubrovnik-Neretva county bordered with the Republic of Montenegro ( Fig 1 ).

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Source for original data: Google Maps.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258195.g001

Although there was no direct border with the autonomous province of Kosovo, the instability in the region at the time influenced the Croatian economy to a large extent, tourism in particular. The conflict captured international attention. For example, The Economist featured a story on the bombings, while the [ 30 , 31 ] warned against possible adverse effects on Croatians tourism. And indeed, aggregate data suggest that tourist arrivals in 1999 dropped by 725 thousand and overnight stays by 4.726 million (almost entirely attributed to foreign tourists, which can be seen from Fig 2 ) when compared to the previous year. The following tourist season, 2000, in which the Kosovo-Serbia conflict ceased and 12 months after the NATO bombing, the number of tourist arrivals and overnight stays not only surpassed the level of 1999, but overshot the level of 1998, resulting in an annual increase in overnight stays amounting up to 12.057 million. To sum up, after the end of the war in Croatia in 1995, arrivals and overnight stays have been growing, except in 1999. When exploring possible reasons for such an irregularity in the data, one can think only of the NATO bombing of Serbia as it is a known fact that instability, wars, and terrorism significantly affect tourism. Data for other economic sectors in Croatia at the time do not share the same pattern, which is reason more in favour of our hypothesis.

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Source: Croatian Bureau of Statistics.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258195.g002

4 Methodology and data

In order to estimate the effect of bombings on tourism, we use a universe of limited liability firms in Croatia across the 1993–2008 period, obtained from annual balance sheets and profit and loss reports, self-reported for the tax authorities. The dataset contains firm ID, NACE industry codes, county of headquarters, year of incorporation and exit, complete balance sheets, and profit and loss statements. The dataset has a longitudinal component as we can follow a particular firm throughout time. Given that we have access to the pre- and post-bombing period, we can identify the magnitude as well as the persistence of effect. First, we establish the effect of NATO bombing on the whole Croatian tourism sector, using two strategies: difference-in-differences [ 32 ] and synthetic controls [ 5 ].

Using the 1993—1999 subsample and the difference-in-differences strategy we estimate the short-term effect of NATO bombings on Croatian tourism. Intuitively, DD compares the differences between outcomes of a treated unit—in our case revenues of firms in the tourism sector—before and after the treatment (NATO bombing), with the outcomes of control units—firms in the manufacturing sector—before and after the treatment. Using this method we are able to control for the overall momentum of economic activity, thus extracting only the causal effect of NATO bombing on tourism.

conflict in tourism

  • Y istl is the log (1+ revenues ) of a firm i in sector s in time t in location l .
  • treat is is an indicator if a firm i is in sector s which is treated. If a firm is in the tourism sector, treat is takes value 1, and if the firm is in the manufacturing sector, treat is takes value 0; therefore β reflects differences in log revenues between the two sectors.
  • post it is an indicator if a firm i is operating in treated time t . If a firm is operating in 1999, post it takes value 1, and 0 otherwise; therefore γ reflects a common time change in log revenues of both sectors.
  • treat is × post it is an interaction term which identifies the treatment. If a firm i is in the tourism sector in 1999, this interaction takes the value 1, and 0 otherwise—if any of the two conditions is not met. Hence δ DD is the causal parameter of interest—effect of NATO bombing on log revenues of firms in the tourism sector.
  • X it , ζ l and η s are time-variant firm-level controls (employment, assets, and debt), location fixed effects, and sector fixed effects, respectively.

Table 1 presents the summary statistics, while Fig 3 presents the histogram of log revenues of data used in this estimation.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258195.t001

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Source: The Institute of Economics, Zagreb.

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In order to explore the long-run consequences of bombing and use other sectors apart from manufacturing as a potential control, we also use a synthetic control approach introduced by [ 5 ]. Synthetic control argues that a combination of units constitutes a betters control group for the unit exposed to the treatment than any single unit alone. This combination is a proxy for what the single unit would have experienced in the absence of the treatment. In our case, the treatment group is the tourism sector, while other sectors build the synthetic group. The synthetic tourism sector is constructed as a weighted average of the control sectors represented by the remaining 18 sectors. The weights are determined so that the synthetic tourism sector is most likely to resemble that sector in case there was no NATO bombing at the time. This is achieved using a set of predictors, same as in the DD estimation, of tourism sector outcomes in the years before the treatment. Other examples of the application of the method can be seen in [ 33 – 36 ].

4.1 Identification

A crucial assumption for identification of causal effects of NATO bombing on Croatian tourism outcomes is the parallel trend assumption. Intuitively, treated units—firms in the tourism sector—and control units—firms in the manufacturing sector—should have parallel pretreatment trends in terms of outcome. If this assumption holds, one can infer what an outcome of a counterfactual treated unit—outcome of a treated unit had the treatment not occurred—would look like. Therefore, the estimation of a causal effect would be a simple comparison of the outcome of the treated unit and the counterfactual outcome of the treated unit.

We take firms in the manufacturing sector as control units as we argue that manufacturing should not be affected directly by the NATO bombing. In order to reinforce the decision to take manufacturing as the nontreated sector, we show Fig 4 which clearly indicates that firms in tourism and manufacturing do follow a pretreatment parallel trend in terms of log revenues. Furthermore, Fig 5 shows more formally that parallel trends assumption is likely to hold: the coefficients next to the interaction terms of prebombing time dummies and the indicator for the treated sector are not statistically significant.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258195.g004

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Notes: Dots present point estimates of time-specific difference in outcomes between a firm in the treated and in the non-treated sector (tourism vs. manufacturing). The bars present 95% confidence intervals based on standard errors clustered at the firm level.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258195.g005

Although the validity of parallel trends enables us to estimate the causal effect of interest, we argue that the estimated object is in fact a lower bound of the effect of NATO bombing on Croatian tourism. Although the manufacturing sector should not be affected directly by war proximity, there are a number of general-equilibrium channels which could adversely affect the manufacturing businesses. For example, lower revenues from tourism might decrease internal demand for manufacturing products. Therefore, if the control units are adversely affected by the NATO bombing, then the estimated effect is actually lower than the true effect. Hence, as we argue that war proximity did not affect manufacturing in a positive way, the true effect of NATO bombing on tourism-firm performance is at least equal to the estimates we present.

Our identification strategy also uses two interesting characteristics of the quasi-experiment we explore. First, the NATO bombing of Serbia due to the Kosovo conflict happened exactly three months before the peak of the tourist season, from March to June 1999. This was a one-off event that appeared only in 1999 and that could affect only the tourist season of 1999. In the years before and after the conflict, tourism was growing steadily. Second, Croatian Adriatic counties (in which most of Croatian tourism is concentrated) have an interesting geography. The seven counties are stacked one on top of another starting with Istria on the north-west, reaching all the way to the Dubrovnik-Neretva county on the south-east. The distance between the utmost north and the utmost south point is more than 450 kilometres, which gives us substantial variation in proximity to NATO bombing sites ( Fig 1 ).

These two characteristics enable an analysis of not only the size of the effect for different firms but also an analysis of potential channels through which conflict operates. Mainly, we are interested if the adverse effects are channelled through geographical proximity to the conflict-inflicted area.

5.1 Difference-in-differences

In this section we establish the effect of NATO bombing on revenues of firms in the tourism sector. Table 2 presents the results of estimating Eq 1 using different model specifications and time frames. In particular, models in columns (1) to (3) use a larger data sample—from 1993 to 1999, while models in columns (4) to (6) use a two-period model with only 1998 and 1999 data. Within the specific time frame, the models differ in terms of covariate inclusion: models in column (1) and (4) use no covariates, (2) and (5) include location and subsector fixed effects, while models in column (3) and (6) also include the number of employees, assets and debt (which could be viewed as bad controls as they could be affected by the treatment—bombing). We present results from different specifications in order to automatically embed robustness checks, but our preferred specification is presented in column (5).

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258195.t002

Table 2 provides compelling evidence of severe significant adverse effect of NATO bombing on revenues of firms in the tourism sector. For example, our preferred specification, presented in column (5), indicates that tourism experienced a 16.6 percent drop in revenues due to NATO bombing. This effect is statistically significant at the 5 percent level and other specifications indicate that the effect is indeed adverse and significant, ranging from -16.6 percent to -23.4 percent. As already mentioned in section 4.1, we view this estimate as the lower bound of the true effect as the control units—firms in the manufacturing sector—could also be adversely affected by NATO bombing via general-equilibrium channels. These inferential conclusions hold even if we cluster standard errors on a different level. For example, clustering standard errors on the three digit NACE sector, on the county, municipality, municipality and three digit NACE sector level yields the same set of conclusions. You can find these results in the Table 7 in S1 Appendix .

In order to document the effect in more detail, we also explore whether this overall effect is coming either from: (i) accommodation or (ii) food and beverage service activities (which are subcategories of the tourism sector according to the Croatian NACE classification). Tables 3 and 4 , which present results using our preferred specification (Model (5)), indicate that overall adverse effects came mostly from accommodation activities, especially hotels, where revenues dropped by 33.6 percent. On the other hand, the effect on food and beverage service activities, although negative, is not statistically significant. The negative effect on beverage activities, i.e. bars and coffee shops, is statistically significant though, implying that adverse effects are dominantly coming from hotels, and alternatively from beverage activities. The result that the adverse effect in tourism is driven by a drop in revenues of accommodation business and not restaurant businesses could probably be explained by the fact that accommodation establishments are mostly frequented by foreign tourists while restaurants are visited by both domestic and foreign tourists, and for reasons other than tourism, e.g. business, leisure, everyday nourishment.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258195.t003

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258195.t004

Fig 6 explores heterogeneous effects with respect to the pretreatment firm size in terms of employment. The results indicate that larger firms (50 or more employees) experienced the most drastic drop in revenues. Note that the absence of a significant effect for firms of smaller size might come from larger standard errors due to reduced sample sizes. We also inspect the heterogeneity of the effect with respect to ownership type (private vs. mixed/state-owned) and do not find any significant differences (Figure is omitted due to brevity).

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Notes: Dots present point estimates ( δ DD from Eq 1 ), while bars present 95% confidence intervals based on standard errors clustered at the firm level. Estimation is based on the model using the 1998–1999 sample, with municipality and 3-digit NACE fixed effects. Source: The Institute of Economics, Zagreb.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258195.g006

5.2 Synthetic control

In order to explore the long-run consequences of bombing, we combine the original DD estimation strategy with a synthetic control approach developed in [ 5 ]. We construct a counterfactual for the tourism sector by collapsing the dataset containing firms from all sectors onto a sectoral level [ 37 ]. Using the same set of covariates as in Table 2 (employment, assets and debt) and expanding the time dimension of our sample all the way to 2008, we construct our synthetic tourism sector using data from 18 other economic sectors. Fig 7 reports the results of this exercise which corroborates our baseline results. Apart from that, we also see that the effect is temporary in its nature as the total revenues in the tourism sector recover quickly, already in the following year.

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Notes: Total revenues are in billion Croatian kuna. The model is fitted using data from the 1994–1998 period, after which the synthetic tourism sector is constructed. The shaded gray area represents the time frame of 1999, when the bombings occurred. Source: The Institute of Economics, Zagreb.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258195.g007

Since the synthetic control was done for a longer time-dimension of the dataset, all the way to 2008 with nine years of post-treatment data, we can discuss the long-run consequences of conflict. Similar to [ 38 ] who study the effects of US bombing on long-run development in Vietnam, we also do not find evidence of a prolonged negative effect. A number of other similar studies done mostly for World War II bombings suggest that the negative economic effects vanished rather quickly and that the treated areas returned to their prewar growth trends [ 39 – 41 ].

6 Channel of adverse effect: Proximity or perception

So far we have established that NATO bombing has indeed adversely affected the business performance of firms in the tourism sector. As presented in the previous section, this adverse effect is mostly generated in the accommodation service business (hotels) and in firms with 50 or more employees.

conflict in tourism

Before presenting the results of estimating Eq 2 , we present a scatter plot with histograms of log distance from Kosovo in kilometres and percentage change in revenues of firms in the tourism sector from 1998 to 1999 ( Fig 8 ). Distance ranges from 230.5 kilometers, or 5.44 in logs, (Konavle in the Dubrovnik-Neretva county) to 682.5 kilometres (Umag in the Istria county), or 6.53 in logs, both of which are municipalities largely engaged in tourism activities. The spikes in the mass observed in Fig 8 come from the concentration of economic activity in particular locations. For example, firms are concentrated in and around the largest three cities in Croatia: Split (389 km distance, 5.96 in logs), Zagreb (540 km distance, 6.29 in logs) and Rijeka (615 km distance, 6.42 in logs) which is reflected by spikes in the histogram of distance. Fig 8 already indicates what Tables 5 and 6 will show in detail—distance within Croatia is not the channel of an adverse effect.

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Notes: The red line represents a local linear estimation of the relationship between the percent change in revenues and the log of distance from Kosovo. Gray bars are histograms of percent changes in revenues and log of distance from Kosovo. Source: The Institute of Economics, Zagreb.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258195.g008

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258195.t005

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Results for Eq 2 are presented in Table 5 . Columns (1) to (3) present the results for whole Croatia, while columns (4) to (6)—where we exploit the northwest-southeast orientation of the Croatian coast—contain only models which use the seven Adriatic counties. Models also differ in the inclusion of covariates. The results indicate that the intensity of the effect of NATO bombing on revenues of firms in the tourism sector does not significantly vary with distance from the bombing sites. The estimated effect cannot be statistically distinguished from zero in either of the specifications. Estimation of the intensity of the effect with respect to the distance from Kosovo based only on the tourism sector—presented in Table 6 —corroborates these findings.

In order to further explore the nexus between the proximity and the adverse effect, we split our sample according to the distance from Prishtina and run our preferred specification. This enables us to explore this channel in a more flexible manner. Results for whole Croatia and for the Adriatic Croatia are presented in Figs 9 and 10 , and they indicate that no significant heterogeneity, with respect to distance, is recorded. (we actually run the analysis for NATO’s first targets: Prishtina in Kosovo, Belgrade—the capital of Serbia and Yugoslavia—Kragujevac in Serbia, and Podgorica in Montenegro as detected in [ 42 ]. The targets were airports, military barracks, an aircraft factory, radar stations, an air base and an arms factory. All four estimation results are similar to the Prishtina case and are available upon request from the authors). Although point estimates do differ, indicating that the strongest adverse effects were experienced by firms with headquarters 300 to 400 kilometres from Prishtina, the fact that the 95 percent confidence intervals overlap in each case suggests that we cannot reject the hypothesis that proximity is not relevant in explaining the intensity of the effect. While this might come from relatively high standard errors, we argue this evidence is compelling enough to conclude that within-country proximity to conflict is not a significant channel of the adverse effect.

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Notes: Dots present point estimates ( δ DD from Eq 1 ), while bars present 95% confidence intervals based on standard errors clustered at the firm level. Estimation is based on the model using the 1998–1999 sample, with county and 3-digit NACE fixed effects. Source: The Institute of Economics, Zagreb.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258195.g009

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Notes: Dots present point estimates ( δ DD from Eq 1 ), while bars present 95% confidence intervals based on standard errors clustered at the firm level. Estimation is based on the model using the 1998–1999 sample, with county fixed effects. Source: The Institute of Economics, Zagreb.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258195.g010

Other evidence of the claim that proximity is not a significant channel of the adverse effect comes from outside Croatian borders. It seems that only one other competitor country (out of a pool of countries for which we have data) suffered losses during 1999. That country was Slovenia and in that year it lost around 45,000 tourists ( Fig 11 ). Although the size of the impact in Slovenia was much smaller than in Croatia, we have to take into account that Slovenia is not as big a tourist destination as Croatia. All other countries from our sample recorded significant increases in the number of tourist arrivals and nights spent. These developments suggest that Slovenia as well as Croatia was perceived as an insecure destination, possibly as both countries were part of Yugoslavia (a country then being bombed by NATO) just eight years earlier.

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Source: Eurostat.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258195.g011

Fig 11 also corroborates the absence of the 1998 Russian financial crisis effect on tourism in general. According to the figures for Spain, Cyprus, Greece, France, Italy, and Portugal, the Russian financial crisis did not have an adverse influence in 1998 as the recovery was swift.

7 Conclusion

In this paper we have tried to illuminate the impact of conflicts on consumer behaviour on the tourism market. Although we do a single-country study and explore the Croatian tourism sector, we find that our study is relevant in an international context as well. Due to frequent crisis events in popular tourist destinations (e.g. attacks in Tunisia, Turkey, France, Spain, etc.), we believe our research can provide useful insights, despite the fact that we explore the impacts of a longer-term conflict that culminated in NATO military intervention.

The results we obtain are expected—there is a large negative effect of conflict on tourism—but we contribute to the literature by exploring whether the adverse effects within the country are channelled through proximity to conflict areas. By analysing heterogeneous effects with respect to the distance of the firm from Kosovo, we argue that within-country proximity to conflict is not a significant channel through which the negative effect propagates. This essentially suggests that conflict or possibly even war, or an act of terrorism, has far-reaching effects that go beyond simple geographical proximity to the conflict. There are obviously other channels that drive tourists away form certain destinations, one of which may possibly be perception. We speculate that foreign tourists could have perceived Croatia as part of an unstable region as only a few years had passed since 1991 and the violent breakup of Yugoslavia. This view, driven by conflict more than 600 kilometres away, potentially led them away from Croatia as a tourism destination. Unfortunately, there is not much information in support of our hypothesis, besides simple press articles. For example, an article from The New York Times from April 1999 argues that Croatia “faces a bleak summer of empty hotels and beaches” and that “the assaults appear to have shattered prospects for the country’s tourist industry this year” [ 43 , 44 ]. Reports a special analysis on the economic consequences of the Kosovo conflict for neighboring countries. It emphasizes that the crisis in Kosovo adversely affected investors” sentiment and that normal earning of tourism revenues in Croatia is jeopardized. Finally [ 30 ], reports that one of the main channels of the impact of the Kosovo crisis on Croatia is the damage to consumer and investor confidence that will result in a significant loss in tourist receipts. A report published four months later [ 31 ], in the aftermath of the crisis, argues that although the crisis deterred tourists from the region, it seems to be only short-lived as reports of a rebound in booking have already been reported (mostly in Bulgaria but also to a lesser extent in Croatia). Unfortunately, no specific surveys from that time target the region. We believe this is due to the fact that the NATO strike was sudden and short-lived so there was probably no time to implement the specific questions into the surveys.

Apart from the novel channel of adverse effect of conflict on tourism, we also find this type of identification-based empirical work useful in tourism research. Using the difference-in-differences and the synthetic control identification strategy enabled us to measure the causal effect on a tourism outcome, not just simple correlations, as is normally the case in tourism research. The approach taken here allows us to answer the “what if” type of questions, e.g.: “How many tourist arrivals would there have been if NATO had not bombed Kosovo?”. We believe that this research is just the beginning of extended use of identification-based empirical work in tourism research as the benefits are large—from valuable policy applications to deeper understanding of tourism.

Supporting information

S1 appendix..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258195.s001

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War-Inflicted Slowdown Ends Robust Year for Tourism in Middle East

Amid security concerns brought on by the Israel-Hamas conflict, international travel has shuddered to a halt in Israel and is falling in neighboring Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt.

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A waiter sits at an empty table at an outdoor cafe, looking at his mobile phone. There are no other people at the other tables.

By Christine Chung

The ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, which erupted in early October , has halted international tourism to Israel and severely blunted travel to neighboring countries in a ripple effect spreading across the entire Middle East. While the slowdown in international visitors is only one of the war’s economic repercussions in the region, it poses a significant threat to the economies of Egypt, Jordan and other nations heavily dependent on tourism and has swiftly reversed a banner year of travel in the Middle East.

The war has affected all segments of the travel industry, with international travel operators scaling back or postponing excursions, cruise lines redeploying ships and airlines dramatically reducing service. And many travelers, heeding government warnings and their own worries, are increasingly wary about visiting the region, prompting waves of cancellations.

Local tour operators fear what a protracted war would do to a promising and growing industry.

“We foresaw the Middle East evolving into the ‘New Europe’ with the Iran-Saudi Arabia rapprochement and Saudi Arabia’s integration into the tourism system,” said Khaled Ibrahim, a Cairo-based consultant for Amisol Travel Egypt and a member of the Middle East Travel Alliance . “We all hope that this war does not escalate and shatter the hopes that people — Arabs, Israelis and Iranians alike — have been holding onto.” Amisol Travel in Egypt has received only 40 to 50 percent of its typical bookings, he said, for the months between February and September 2024.

Hussein Abdallah, general manager of Lebanon Tours and Travels in Beirut, believes that “all of Lebanon is 100 percent safe,” but said he hasn’t had a single booking since the war started, prematurely ending a “very good year” for the tour business. Now, he said, tourist sites like the Jeita Grotto and the Baalbek Temples, a UNESCO World Heritage site , that normally receive thousands of visitors daily, are empty.

“Demand for most Middle Eastern countries is worsening,” said Olivier Ponti, a vice president at ForwardKeys , a data-analysis firm that tracks global air travel reservations. In the three weeks after Oct. 7, flight bookings to the Middle East dropped by 26 percent compared to the bookings made for the same time period in 2019. And inbound tickets to Israel fell below negative 100 percent, compared to the equivalent period in 2019, as cancellations exceeded the number of new tickets issued.

The Israel-Hamas conflict has also “dented consumer confidence in traveling elsewhere,” Mr. Ponti said. According to a ForwardKeys analysis , flight bookings to all regions of the world slumped, dipping 5 percent in the immediate weeks after the war, compared to the corresponding weeks in 2019.

Abrupt halt to a banner year of business

The war came at a time when tourism in the Middle East was on a robust uptick from the height of the pandemic. From January through July of this year, the number of visitor arrivals to the Middle East was 20 percent above the same period in 2019, making it the only region in the world to surpass prepandemic levels, according to the U.N. World Tourism Organization .

Just a week before the war, Ahmed Issa, Egypt’s top tourism official, told The Associated Press that there was “unprecedented demand for travel into Egypt,” with about 10 million people visiting in the first half of this year. The government, hoping for a record 15 million visitors in 2023, had been seeking to increase the number of hotel rooms and available airplane seats, in efforts to encourage increased private investment in tourism.

Now, the U.S. and Canadian governments are discouraging travel to Israel, Egypt and Lebanon. The U.S. State Department has recommended that American citizens leave Lebanon immediately while flights are still available. For Jordan, both the United States and Canada advise visitors to exercise additional caution.

Air service into Israel has been more than halved, with a little more than 2,000 flights scheduled this month compared to the approximately 5,000 flights that flew during November 2022, according to data from Cirium , an aviation analytics firm. Major U.S. carriers, which suspended regular service to the main international airport in Tel Aviv soon after the fighting began, have not resumed flights.

Airlines have also suspended flights to neighboring countries. The German airline Lufthansa paused flight service to both Israel and Lebanon. Wizz Air and Ryanair, budget carriers based in Europe, have temporarily stopped flying to Jordan .

Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan, geographically among the nations closest to the conflict, are also highly dependent on tourism. The sector contributes between 12 and 26 percent of total earnings from abroad to these three nations, according to a recent report from S & P Global Ratings , an international credit rating provider.

“These countries, immediate neighbors of Israel and Gaza, are more vulnerable to a slowdown in tourism, given concerns about security risks and social unrest amid high external vulnerabilities,” according to the report, published Nov. 6. “Further deepening of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza or a serious escalation in the West Bank could lead to a new wave of refugee flows that would burden economies in the region.”

In 2022, tourism accounted for about 3 percent of total earnings from abroad into Israel, making the nation considerably less reliant on the sector than neighboring countries. But international travel put some $5 billion into state coffers and indirectly employed about 200,000 people, according to the Israeli Ministry of Tourism.

Canceled cruises, changed itineraries

Many cruise lines and tour operators have canceled trips or revised itineraries that included Israel through the remainder of the year and it’s unclear when departures will resume. Intrepid Travel , a global tour company that offers more than 1,150 trips on every continent, shelved 47 departures to Israel this year, a company spokesperson said.

While Israel is a “fairly small destination” for Intrepid, the chief executive, James Thornton, said, that’s not the typical situation for other Middle East countries.

Normally, “Morocco, Jordan and Egypt would be in our top five destinations globally,” he said, adding that cancellations to these countries have spiked since the war began. About half of Intrepid’s customers who had booked trips to Egypt and Jordan scheduled to take place before the end of the year have since canceled or rescheduled, he said.

Late fall and winter is usually the peak season for Middle East cruises, but several major cruise lines have canceled all port calls in Israel through next year and pulled their ships out of the region.

Earlier this month, Norwegian became the first major line to cancel all 2024 sailings to and from Israel, saying that it would take time before people felt safe returning to the country even after the war ends. Royal Caribbean has also removed Israel from all of its 2024 itineraries and redirected two of its ships in the Middle East — Jewel of the Seas and Grandeur of the Seas — to the Caribbean, with departures planned from the United States. MSC Cruises, which has canceled Israel port calls until April is also skipping Aqaba, Jordan and Egypt on some of its itineraries. It will also redeploy two of its ships.

Some travelers, concerned for their safety and booked on cruises still scheduled to depart countries bordering Israel, have attempted to cancel or postpone their trips. Some have been unsuccessful in receiving refunds.

Rebecca Tarlton and her husband are booked on a 12-day cruise along the Nile River with Uniworld, scheduled to depart Dec. 30 from Cairo. Emails to their travel agency and the cruise line, requesting to cancel their trip and rebook on another future cruise, have gone nowhere, she said. Now, a lifelong dream could be a steep financial loss: The trip, which cost about $15,000 in total, has already been paid in full.

“We thought it would be really cool to go to,” said Ms. Tarlton, 69, of Hilton Head, S.C. “We are going to decide this weekend. We’ll bite the cost — it’s really a function of our unease, our anxiety.”

Other travelers are considering shelving trips planned for next year. Kristin Davis and her husband, Jason Glisson, of Fredericksburg, Va., have long wanted to travel to the Middle East. They intended to go to Egypt and Jordan in March, a second attempt at visiting the region after their planned honeymoon in Egypt was derailed by the Arab Spring anti-government protests that began in 2010.

The couple’s travel agency has been sending encouraging videos about traveling to these countries, with the messaging that it’s safe. But Ms. Davis said she worries about being a target for anti-American sentiment.

“It’s definitely a bucket list trip for us. It’s probably the top place that my husband has ever wanted to see,” said Ms. Davis, 42. “I felt comfortable going until this happened. Egypt will still be there. We have waited this long.”

With additional reporting by Ceylan Yeginsu .

Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram and sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to get expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places to Go in 2023 .

Christine Chung is a travel reporter for The Times. She previously covered breaking news. She joined The Times in November 2021. More about Christine Chung

Our Coverage of the Israel-Hamas War

News and Analysis

Hamas officials said that there had been no breakthrough in the mediated talks  with Israel aimed at pausing the war and freeing the remaining hostages in the Gaza Strip, one day after President Biden said he was hopeful that a cease-fire would be in place soon.

Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel appear to be increasingly at odds over the future of the battle in Gaza. Their diverging visions reflect the opposing political calendars  on which the two leaders are operating.

Jordan and France airdropped  food and other supplies to people in Gaza , a challenging effort that underlined the desperate need in Gaza as aid groups have warned of growing restrictions on their ability to distribute supplies.

Setting Their Sights on Politics: Inspired by the unity they experienced in the military, thousands of Israeli reservists returning from the front line in Gaza are organizing for political change .

In the West Bank: Right-wing ministers in the Israeli government are agitating to settle more land in the occupied West Bank. Homesh, a re-established settlement, symbolizes their resolve .

Stranded in Rafah: After months of telling residents in Gaza to move south for safety, Israel now says it plans to invade Rafah, the territory’s southernmost city. Two Gazans describe what it is like to live there right now .

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Partnerships for the Goals pp 1222–1234 Cite as

Sustainable Tourism: A Conflict of Interest

  • Svjetlana Miše 6  
  • Reference work entry
  • First Online: 01 January 2021

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Part of the Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals book series (ENUNSDG)

Growth paradox ; Spatial justice ; Sustainable development ; Tourism

Conflict of interest : A conflict of interest is a situation in which an agent gains by not acting in compliance with the principle of sustainability.

Sustainable tourism : Tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social, and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment, and host communities (United Nations Environment Programme and World Tourism Organization 2005 ).

Sustainable development : The betterment of present conditions without compromising the ability and means for future generations to meet their own.

Carrying capacity : The maximum number of people that can visit a tourist destination at the same time without causing destruction of the sociocultural, economic, and physical environment and an unacceptable decrease in the quality of visitors’ satisfaction (World Tourism Organization 1981 ).

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Conflicting logics for crisis management in tourism

Journal of Tourism Futures

ISSN : 2055-5911

Article publication date: 30 June 2021

Issue publication date: 30 November 2021

In tourism research, crisis management mostly refers to operational, on-location, chaotic measures taken as a crisis strikes a tourism destination. Related to COVID-19, this paper focuses on public initiatives representing strategic-oriented crisis management while showing that such initiatives may not help those needing support. More precisely, the paper discusses and exemplifies the conflict of logics between private sector interests and public initiatives related to crisis management in tourism.

Design/methodology/approach

The main data source is a structured newspaper review of COVID-19 and tourism as covered in the Swedish press, comprising more than 4,000 items.

Findings indicate logics manifested at different levels and a logic gap between small and large firms. Large firms are potentially better able to adapt but tend to wait passively for financial support rather than reformulate their business operations.

Originality/value

The paper contributes to research on crisis management in tourism by taking a public, societal-level view of crisis management juxtaposed against the local actors' sphere of operations. The conflict of logics proves how support needs to be improved to better help a sector in crisis. Thematic logics are introduced as a concept and captured in the conflicts between the present and the future, survival and change and operations and aggregates in crisis management. Broadly, the paper provides valuable insights into the future of tourism while indicating policy failures in the sector.

  • Private/public

Öberg, C. (2021), "Conflicting logics for crisis management in tourism", Journal of Tourism Futures , Vol. 7 No. 3, pp. 311-321. https://doi.org/10.1108/JTF-10-2020-0191

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Christina Öberg

Published in Journal of Tourism Futures . Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

Introduction

The tourism sector comprises large firms operating as travel, accommodation and entertainment providers and many small entrepreneurs producing various local offerings ( Linton and Öberg, 2020 ). Private initiatives are fundamental for tourism and endorsed as good ways to create business and growth, especially in geographical areas with limited opportunities ( Chi and Qu, 2008 ). Crises, such as the COVID-19 outbreak in 2019/2020 ( Radic et al. , 2020 ), have harmed most parts of the tourism sector, potentially over the long term: Travel bans disrupt most operations ( Gossling et al. , 2020 ; Hall et al. , 2020 ) and recession generally affects tourism negatively ( Papatheodorou et al. , 2010 ). While tourism operations rely primarily on private initiatives to stay afloat, such crises call for public support.

The public support focuses on how the sector might operate in future, including broad initiatives to develop relevant competencies to generate employment ( Martin and Scott, 2000 ; Audretsch, 2004 ) with less emphasis on individual firms. The private entrepreneurs focus on staying in business, with entrepreneurial initiatives possibly leading to a (temporary) refocus of operations. This gives rise to a potential conflict of logics ( Greenwood et al. , 2010 ) between, on the one hand, entrepreneurial firms' sudden requests for public support and, on the other, how public support albeit intended to support business life, would not necessarily help individual entrepreneurs.

What conflicts of logic have emerged as the consequence of attempted crisis management?

How can they be understood in terms of representations?

The paper contributes to previous research by addressing the conflict of logics related to crisis management in tourism. To date, research has concentrated on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism ( Farzanegan et al. , 2021 ) and how it is transforming the sector ( Gossling et al. , 2020 ; Hall et al. , 2020 ) now and beyond the pandemic ( Assaf and Scuderi, 2020 ; Brouder et al. , 2020 ). However, as indicated by the Journal of Tourism Futures special issue call, less is known about strategic-oriented crisis management related to the crisis. With most research describing COVID-19 and its consequences in specific regions, theorizing related to the crisis remains limited ( Cohen and Cohen, 2012 ; Nasir et al. , 2020 ). Zenker and Kock (2020) call for more structured and integrated approaches to studying tourism related to COVID-19, which aligns with how this paper illuminates the broader questions of public support logic, conflicts in orientation to tourism, crisis management related to conflicts of logic and how attempts to manage a crisis can actually exacerbate it. Research focusing on public support in tourism remains rare ( Dredge and Jamal, 2015 ; Shao et al. , 2021 ). Addressing the tourism crisis from the perspective of parties' logics is a response not only to the call for more interdisciplinary research related to COVID-19 ( Wen et al. , 2020 ) but also to the present special issue call that highlights the risk of overlooking policy failures and structural issues. Moreover, this allows to indicate how the structure itself may lead to remedies that, worst case, actually intensify a crisis. Theoretically, the paper contributes to research on crisis management in tourism ( Mair et al. , 2016 ) by taking a societal (public)-level view of a crisis juxtaposed against the local actors' sphere of operations. More precisely, the paper introduces the concept of thematic logics in crisis management and portrays it as conflicts between the present and the future, survival and change, and operations and aggregates. This theorizing contributes to research on crises beyond the current COVID-19 crisis in tourism. The conflict of logics manifests as contradictory forces, proving how public support and the expectations around it may need to be improved to better support a sector in crisis.

The paper is structured as follows: A brief overview of crises and crisis management in tourism follows this introduction. Next, the theoretical framing of logics is introduced. The research design follows thereafter. The empirical part of the paper is based on analyses of news items, and the findings are subsequently summarized and analyzed. The paper ends with conclusions, managerial and theoretical contributions and ideas for further research.

Context: crisis management in tourism

“Crisis” in tourism research refers to any sudden, unplanned disruption causing negative effects on the number of tourists or tourism income at a destination ( Blake and Sinclair, 2003 ; Hall, 2010 ). Typically, the management of such crises would be local, acute and a matter of reducing risks to life or nature. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic ( Radic et al. , 2020 ), research on structured or strategic crisis or disaster management in tourism is limited ( Faulkner, 2001 ). The literature tends to focus on the effects of natural disasters or political turmoil on tourism destinations ( Saha and Yap, 2014 ) and the operational handling of such disruptions as they occurred, which is mostly described as chaotic, unstructured management in the eye of the crisis ( Sonmez, 1998 ; Ritchie, 2004 ). Summarizing previous research on crisis management in tourism, Mair et al. (2016) exemplify such topics as lack of communication among stakeholders, sensationalism in the media, ineffective marketing messages, poor management, damage to destination image and reputation and changes in tourism behavior as post-crises effects. Hystad and Keller (2008) refer to the steps of preparedness, response and recovery in tourism crisis management, while Ritchie (2008) describes reduction and readiness as means to provide a more organized approach to crisis management in tourism. Moreover, there are attempts to integrate tourism research with crisis management from the broader organizational management literature to provide a structured, pro-active orientation to crises, highlighting the variation in the conceptualization of crises ( Papatheodorou et al. , 2010 ).

Following Papatheodorou et al. (2010) , and for the topic of this paper, the question of what kind of crisis COVID-19 represents for tourism deserves some attention. While being perceived as sudden, the crisis itself could be defined as long term, with new consequences emerging as the COVID-19 virus continues to spread. The crisis is global rather than local, while local (national) responses may themselves cause additional crises and/or deepen or reduce its effects which, ultimately, makes it difficult to determine the causes and the consequences. For tourism, the effects of the crisis would mostly have emerged as a consequence of the handling of the pandemic in terms of travel bans, restrictions on the number of people simultaneously visiting restaurants, exhibitions or other types of events, and potentially long-term paradigm shifts in how we travel. As a cause of the crisis manifested in tourism, the handling of the pandemic—together with the mental effects on consumers' notion of traveling—means that the suddenness of the crisis ( Blake and Sinclair, 2003 ; Hall, 2010 ) is partly replaced by continuous new causal drivers that, while affecting large portions of the tourism sector, would be unequally distributed among destinations, types of operations and individual firms.

Although some studies have dealt with crises in tourism related to pandemics prior to COVID-19— Wang (2009) , using examples including the SARS outbreak in Taiwan in 2003, points at how such crises reduce the number of tourists in a country, and Kuo et al. (2008) draw similar conclusions for avian flu and SARS in Asia—most of what we know about the impacts of a pandemic on tourism is found in more recent studies ( Assaf and Scuderi, 2020 ; Brouder et al. , 2020 ), leaving many questions unanswered.

Theoretical framework: logic

“Logic” refers to symbols and practices demonstrating assumptions, values and beliefs through which individuals create an understanding of their daily activities ( Friedland and Alford, 1991 ; Thornton and Ocasio, 1999 ), making individuals consider their way of acting as rational. Logics therefore comprise preferences and influence behaviors. Meanwhile, and in the shaping and manifesting of logics, individuals share logics and make sense of each other's practices through shared belief systems. As such, logics should be collectively understood: Multiple parties may adhere to a logic, which influences their behavior and guides them through social constructs.

The dynamic character of logics indicates how they are challenged and change over time ( Lounsbury, 2002 ). In the conceptualization of logics, researchers have taken the position that either there is a dominant logic that changes as society develops, or that various parties represent different logics which challenge each other. This leads to the assumption that there is a hierarchy of logics ( Marquis and Tilcsik, 2013 ; Geissinger et al. , 2019 ). For example, researchers refer to institutional orders to define the meta-level logics of markets, states and religions ( Thornton et al. , 2012 ); field-level logics describe the logics of, for instance, a group of individuals or an industry sector ( Nigam and Ocasio, 2010 ) and micro-level logics represent not only a firm or multiple actors existing under similar conditions ( Besharov and Smith, 2014 ) but also situation-specific cores, that is, including specific people or organizations as well as areas of foci or situations.

Together, and acknowledging that meta-, field- and micro-level logics may exist simultaneously, logics may be described as competing, co-existing, hybrids or bricolages. Here, the potential for conflict among logics comes to the fore ( Greenwood et al. , 2010 ) where competing logics implies that representatives of one logic try to make their logic the dominant one. Co-existing logics would allow for individuals to switch among logics. Hybrid logics refers to the bridging of logics, constructing a new, combined logic. Bricolage, lastly, means that individuals combine aspects from various logics to a micro-level logic entailing partly shared, partly different and potentially opposing logics.

Identifying conflicts of logic does not mean that this paper addresses how to solve issues related to crisis management in tourism per se , rather that it illuminates an area that, if neglected, would increase the risk that attempts to solve a crisis would only compound the situation or lead to problems being left unsolved. This makes it important to ask: What conflicts of logic have emerged as the consequence of attempted crisis management? How can they be understood in terms of representation?

Data capturing method

The empirical part of this paper is based on a structured newspaper review complemented with opinion from the tourism and public sector at a seminar on tourism in Sweden, which was the inspiration to write this paper. The newspaper review examines items published in the Swedish press. Although Sweden has taken a different approach to the lockdown experienced in most countries, the tourism industry has still been hit hard. By keeping businesses running—the Swedish approach to COVID-19—the country shows some early consequences of the crisis that other countries may experience later, and it therefore represents an interesting context in which to study crisis management in tourism. A few previous studies related to COVID-19 have used data from the media ( Chen et al. , 2020 ; Shao et al. , 2021 ), but these concern other regions of the world and raise different issues.

Published media data—all textual and online published media (including radio and TV broadcasts) from the major national and local Swedish newspapers and media houses—was drawn from a database ( Business Retriever ) over the period 2019–2020 to capture the COVID-19 outbreak to date. The last update of the review was conducted on October 30th, 2020. The following initial search string was used (translated from Swedish): (“ tourism ” or “ tourist ”) and (“ covid ” or “ corona ”) followed by the second search string “hospitality” and (“ covid ” or “ corona ”). The search for “covid” would include any reference to COVID-19, and various word combinations were tested to create a meaningful result for, and capturing content related to, the topic of this paper.

The first (“tourism”) search resulted in 3,123 newspaper items, representing short pieces to editorial features, with single items distributed over the period 2019 to January 2020 to a peak in the period May to July with an average of about 500 items per month. The remaining months from March 2020 onwards produced about 300 items per month. The second search (“hospitality”) produced 1,187 items, with a peak from March to June 2020 (approximately 200 items per month).

Newspaper items as a data source have their benefits and weaknesses. One of the claimed benefits is how they allow for capturing data at the time that events occurred ( Huber and Power, 1985 ). Another benefit is how newspaper reviews effectively manage to capture and systematize a large amount of data encompassing multiple perspectives ( Öberg, 2009 ). As the research was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, newspaper reviews provided empirical data that would have been difficult to capture from face-to-face meetings. That said, one of the weaknesses of capturing data from media sources is that journalists or editors are inevitably biased toward the extreme rather than the average. Moreover, as more and more newspaper items re-report directly from, for instance, firms' press releases, newspaper items would be biased by the senders' viewpoint.

Data analysis

To analyze the data, newspaper items were first categorized into a grid describing on the one hand the parties and, on the other, their activities and experienced consequences. The parties were categorized as: tourism firms (travel agencies, accommodation providers, exhibitions, museums, other tourist attractions and entertainment organizers), parties representing the public (municipal or state-level initiatives) or funds for business support, and based on their size of operations and geographical coverage (local, national, global). This allowed to compare the perspectives and logics of the various parties. Text items were incorporated into the grid and compared within each dimension to establish empirical codes ( Gioia and Pitre, 1990 ). They were subsequently condensed by comparisons among text items, while remaining connected with the raw material and publishing date for traceability and the ability to construct a timeline of development. To give voice to the parties involved, the analysis favored direct quotations to avoid media bias as much as possible. Together, this provided a content-oriented coding structure ( Krippendorff, 2004 ) where the descriptive codes were iterated from the documents and reduced in a number of processual steps ( Pratt, 2009 ). Aggregated codes within each cell of the grid were then compared across perspectives to help capture conflicts of logic in activities and experiences and to relate these to (characteristics of) parties. This comparison among perspectives based on rationales behind activities and experiences enabled the identification of various dimensional conflicts of logics described as thematical logics between the present and the future, survival and change and operations and aggregates. The findings are presented below in a timeline narrative with direct (translated) quotations from the newspaper items to illustrate points, while the different perspectives and characteristics are noted throughout. Central to the analysis is identification of not only the types of logic conflicts that emerged over the data capturing period but also the parties that represented the various logics.

The typical tourism firm, at least in the northern part of Europe, operates cyclically, that is, its business is highly dependent on the seasons. This means that it has in its DNA the need to cope with a low season while seeking to exploit business during the high season, or that it strikes a balance between tourists and business people, or tourists and locals as its customers.

As COVID-19 started to really affect businesses in March 2020, attention was focused early on the Swedish tourism sector as traveling restrictions emerged on the agenda. In early March, this affected foreign visitors to events and delegates planning to attend foreign trade fairs. However, by mid-March, claims were already being made about a downturn in the economy such that several tourism firms and event companies announced their intention to lay off staff, despite them operating locally and/or marketing to business people to offset low demand for leisure tourism. For example, large companies commonly took precautions or used the crisis to solve financial issues that had occurred before. They appeared to be driven by a logic of “if we do not get paid, we'll cancel,” which was evident in the cancelation of sports events and tournaments.

Meanwhile, representatives of the public sector pointed out the potential opportunities of the crisis, as captured in the following quotation: “This has positive consequences for the staycation. Rather than traveling abroad, people will have a vacation at home once everything has settled down. If an event is canceled, there are alternative activities” ( Norrköpings Tidningar , March 14th, 2020). In contrast, representatives of the private sector held a less optimistic view: “It is like a horror movie. It's pitch black, not least for hospitality. The business cycle has jumped on its brakes, and COVID is escalating fast.” Around the same time, calls were being made for a crisis fund, while the news reported on how predominantly small companies were trying to help one another.

Public intervention followed in the form of postponed tax payments and, later, temporary reductions in employer taxes. Loans were introduced but, from the viewpoint of small firms, they appeared to favor only larger firms: “Why introduce an expense loan? This is a really bad proposition” ( Länstidningen Södertälje, March 23rd, 2020). Small firms that were not eligible for these loans, reached out to their customers, begging them to continue buying their products and using their services, while asking for support through a fund providing seed money. Hence, small firms focused on remaining in business at any price, eventually meaning that they tried to challenge the broad-brush restrictions imposed across society.

A tourism governance association introduced support for training to help tourism firms adapt their operations, the idea being to help firms in crisis prepare themselves for the post-pandemic future by developing their workforce competencies: “The education will help them keep staff and be prepared for better days” ( GöteborgDirekt , March 28th, 2020). Meanwhile, firms described how they needed immediate support as the number of bankruptcies rose, while municipal representatives continued to argue that the summer would bring an upturn for businesses (April 7th, 2020). As noted by an entrepreneur in the tourism sector: “There is a crisis package, but it is of no use in this sector. It does not matter if you reduce employer tax if you have no income. The crisis intervention is truly standardized … Laying off staff is not a solution since the firms pay for this in the short term … it is the lack of cash that breaks firms” ( Falköpings Tidning , April 9th, 2020).

The government tried to conceive various ways of keeping the economy running more generally, which meant that certain parts of the tourism sector experienced partial relief while others felt that government initiatives were unfair (April 23rd, 2020). The month of May came, and those representing both the public sector and the tourism industry had high expectations for the summer. However, further travel bans were imposed within Sweden and limits were placed on the number of people allowed to congregate in one place. Shortly afterwards, local events including concerts and exhibitions were canceled (May 7th, 2020). Since Sweden had decided to keep the economy running, foreign countries' respective bans on travel to Sweden over the summer significantly reduced the number of customers in the tourism sector. Private and public sector spokespeople continued to disagree: “For the firms in the tourism sector, this is a catastrophe” (private firm) versus “In the wait for the record summers of 2021 and 2022, creativity should generate new solutions” (public sector representative) ( GotlandsAllehanda , May 9th, 2020).

Small firms operating locally tried to change their business models, focusing on residents rather than tourists, concluding that it was a matter of survival rather than profits (May 23rd, 2020). This meant that, among other things, they withheld their salaries to remain in business. Governmental support was increasingly directed at the sector (May 26th, 2020), while the focus continued to be on providing training for laid-off staff and enhancing competencies while firms struggled to survive. Hence, the focus was on preparing firms for the post-crisis future rather than helping them survive the crisis (June 1st, 2020). In early June, some national travel bans were lifted for the summer, and initiatives were introduced to promote safe traveling and tourism. A restriction of 50 people congregating in one place was maintained and monetary support started to be directed at the sector, including municipal tourism organizations. Museums opened up while events continued to be canceled. Public sector support continued to be directed partially at education and partially at life after COVID-19: “Make Sweden a need-to-go-there destination for foreign visitors. It is about being innovative, daring and progressive in the communication” ( Besöksliv , July 2nd, 2020).

In August, it was reported how Swedish residents had not only spent their vacations at home, visiting attractive destinations in Sweden, but also how they had disregarded restrictions. In an effort to avoid the anticipated crowds, more Swedes than normal traveled to the mountains, but this only led to overcrowding in those areas. Some tourism companies tried to refocus operations to provide events online or take extra precautions in delivering their services. Overall, the number of COVID cases in Sweden declined over the summer season. Nevertheless, companies continued to go bankrupt and it was clear that the crisis was not over (August 20th, 2020).

As the autumn arrived, the prospect of a new wave of COVID infections presented itself. Meanwhile, media reported on the summer—its losers and winners (October 6th, 2020)—and a notion of “the new normal” ( TT , October 8th, 2020) was introduced to claim how tourism patterns had changed and how the tourism sector had shrunk: “We will continue to travel, but not as before. For those daring or being able to see the new horizon, there is the potential for a new future,” reported a public sector representative ( TT , October 8th, 2020). Increasingly, the focus was on monetary support, while the tourism firms asked for fewer restrictions, especially the limitation on how many individuals could meet in one place at the same time.

As this is written, a new wave of COVID infections is being reported, with several city areas in Sweden going into lockdown, and any easing of restrictions has ended. Meanwhile, October is by no means a popular tourist season in Sweden.

As the findings section indicates, there are differences between how various parties make sense of the COVID-19 crisis and how they believe it should be managed ( Hystad and Keller, 2008 ; Ritchie, 2008 ), which conveys different—and indeed conflicting—logics between parties ( Friedland and Alford, 1991 ; Thornton and Ocasio, 1999 ; Besharov and Smith, 2014 ). More precisely, the findings point out a number of conflicts, which are dominated by the conflict between the private and the public sectors, but where certain groups of private firms may adhere to the public sector logic.

Looking first at private firms, these are focused on handling the present, surviving and, as the crisis evolves, redefining their business models. The tourism sector, though, is diverse in terms of those firms operating within it ( Linton and Öberg, 2020 ). Among the private firms, there is a logic gap between small and large firms. Large firms are potentially better able to adapt but tend to wait passively for financial support rather than reformulate their business operations, which could be seen in how many of them canceled their operations or events before the crisis had really taken hold. The “if we do not get paid, we'll cancel” logic was evident among these firms from the early stages of the pandemic. However, as the crisis developed a shift could be seen among all firms—but especially small ones—from going it alone to demanding public sector support ( Webster and Ivanov, 2016 ), something that the large firms claimed right from the start.

As for the public organizations, they first focused on identifying opportunities arising from the crisis for the sector as a whole rather than its individual firms. From the start they believed that tourism would fuel the sector and create new opportunities (such as the staycation) within it. Later, support came in the form of reducing financial burdens for firms across all sectors but following the logic of large firms (e.g., the reduction in taxes and the launching of loans). Thereafter, the public sector engaged in the refocusing of operations, promoting the idea of the crisis as an engine of entrepreneurship and talking about the future and the post-COVID situation. Education and competence development were seen as routes to the future, and the public sector thereby followed a logic that disregarded the crisis in the short term by focusing on the time after it, both in terms of talking about next year’s summer and the proposed educational initiatives rather than urgent and immediate interventions. In turn, this meant that those most desperately needing support would not receive it, and much of the support was indeed directed at large firms or even public organizations operating in the tourism sector.

To summarize, three types of conflicts of logic can be found: a time-based logic of operating in the present or the future, an entrepreneurship logic as a conflict between survival and change and an aggregation-level logic describing the conflict of seeing operations as individual firms or aggregates. These can be described as thematic logics . The public here represents the future, change and aggregation, while the private tourist companies describe the present, survival and individual firm logic. There is, though, a difference in the first type of logic between large and small firms: Large private firms acted as if the future were now (pre-acting), while small firms acted in the present, and support was directed at the future, reflecting the large-firm logic. The reason for the public sector acting for the future, change and the collective aggregate is rooted in the political scene with complex decision processes based on amalgamated statistics, along with a dialogue with large firms. Small private firms shifted in their logics as their operations were increasingly challenged, but they remained focused on keeping their operations afloat, often beyond financial sense.

If we relate the above to how Besharov and Smith (2014) describe how various logics may be present simultaneously as competing, co-existing, hybrid and a bricolage of logics, then we can see that various logics indeed exist simultaneously, but thus carry strong competing—or conflicting—components. Between the private and the public sectors, logics would be competing, with both parties trying to make their logic the dominant one: Private firms try to attract public sector support to fit their needs, while the public sector attempts to promote its opportunity, future-oriented logic to dominate everyone's view. The private tourism sector being quite heterogeneous (types of operations, sizes and geographical coverage) means that it, in turn, represents a bricolage of logics. The bricolage means that conflicts may appear for certain types of private firms and not for others, and there is the suggested partial bridging of logics between public sector initiatives and large, locally operating firms at the expense of small firms that depend on income from their high-season business activities.

This paper discusses and exemplifies the conflict of logics between private sector interests and public initiatives related to crisis management in tourism. The introduction asked: What conflicts of logic have emerged as the consequence of attempted crisis management? How can they be understood in terms of representations? As for the conflicts of logic, these are demonstrated as conflicts of time, conflicts between survival and change and conflicts of aggregation levels. The representations could partly be seen as an in-group logic (where tourism firms call for immediate intervention and measures to help individual firms survive) and an out-group logic (where the public sector considers the future of the whole sector without realizing the immediacy of the emergency for certain firms). Meanwhile, there is a difference between small and large firms with large firms acting as if the future were now while small firms act in the present where, as the situation deteriorates, their behaviors change over time.

Theoretical contributions

The main contribution of this paper is how it theorizes (cf. Van De Ven and Scott Pole, 1995 ) conflicting logics related to crisis management. More specifically, the paper introduces how conflicts of logic may be built up by multiple conflicting components with thematic logics as a new concept introduced to the literature, describing how logics are related to specific components defined by the situation. In the COVID-19 crisis, the themes represent a time-based logic of operating in the present or the future , an entrepreneurship logic as a conflict between survival and change , and an aggregation-level logic describing the conflict of seeing operations as individual firms or aggregates . For entrepreneurs there is also the conflict of “self” in terms of needing to rely on support, having previously based their operations on a “going it alone” logic. The breaking down of conflicts into components of conflicting logics per se (i.e., thematic logics as part of a field-level logic, Nigam and Ocasio, 2010 ), rather than the components identified here would constitute this paper's theoretical contribution.

Related to the special issue call, this paper shows that establishing precisely how COVID-19 affects tourism is a matter of perspective, where it is difficult not only to identify causes but also to rationalize how well-intentioned interventions may in fact exacerbate the crisis. While highlighting policy failures and the risk of diverting attention to the wrong cause, conflicts of logic indicate how the future itself conflicts with the present.

Managerial implications

This paper exposes an important issue related to crisis support, which has consequences for management of private tourism firms and public sector representatives. The identified conflicts of logic show that, while both private firms and public initiatives aim to diminish the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis, they do not address or understand the same needs. Communication would be a key factor, where it is important that those responsible for supporting the firms (i.e., public initiatives) listen to the needs of private firms. In such communication, it would be important to include perspectives of both the present and the future, but where the future can never overshadow present needs for survival. Moreover, it would be important to address the passiveness of “giving up” and try to turn it into action plans. For managers, it would be important to emphasize their short-term issues and, for instance, establish interest groups to advocate their situation. As seen among many firms during the COVID-19 crisis, a solid financial foundation is essential to withstand the test of any crisis.

Ideas for further research

This paper opens up an opportunity for further research in theorizing crisis management in tourism ( Cohen and Cohen, 2012 ; Nasir et al. , 2020 ; Zenker and Kock, 2020 ). More precisely, the paper reaches beyond a purely descriptive account of a crisis and integrates it with a well-known perspective from organizational studies. Exploring further such integrations and elaborating on conflicting logics related to crises specifically may prove to be fruitful routes for future research. The conflict components identified in this paper could well be tested in contexts beyond tourism and crises, or at least contexts related to other tourism crises. The latter option may, like the present paper, entail newspaper and media reviews of previous crises and comparisons among various types of crises.

The COVID-19 crisis will likely attract further research interest. Regarding the conclusions this paper makes, it would be interesting to study crisis management in different geographical areas to identify and understand the range of interventions made to address the pandemic. It would also be interesting to follow the situation in Sweden to see whether management of the crisis changes over time and whether conflicting logics ultimately converge or continue to develop in opposing directions.

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Human-animal conflict: Closure of tourist destinations leaves Wayanad hospitality sector reeling

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Wayanad: The escalation in the human-animal conflict in the district has had a direct impact on the hospitality sector. Sudden and extended closure of tourist destinations and tourist cancellations have put severe stress on the sector. The majority of wildlife tourism destinations have been closed due to excessive wild animal raids causing a scare wave across tourism circles, sources said.

Not just the wildlife tourism zones, trekking trails and waterfalls across the district under the control of the Forest Department have been closed to visitors. The wildlife safaris at Muthanga near Sulthan Bathery and Tholppetti near Mananthavadi, the Vellarimala trekking trails of Banasura Hills near the Banasura Sagar Dam, Soochippara Waterfalls and Kuruva Islands stand closed for tourists.

According to Wayanad Wildlife Warden Dinesh Kumar, the destinations were closed due to the rise in the number of human-animal conflict cases. "We are forced to close down the wildlife tourism centres temporarily as the majority of field staff were diverted to activities mitigating human-animal conflict," he said. The trekking trails to Chembra Peak, the most endearing trekking route in the district, have also been closed.

In tandem with Nature: Trekking at Brahmagiri

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Trekking, museum and more; Thondernad awaits tourism project

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However, the industry players lament that the increasing number of wildlife attacks and human deaths have brought irreparable damage to Wayanad's reputation. In one month, three people, including an employee of the Kuruva Tourism Project under the forest department, were killed in wildlife attacks in the district. Moreover, rising mercury has dried up ponds and streams in the jungle.

However, places like En Uru, Pookot Lake, Regional Agricultural Research Station and private adventure parks are operating now. According to Sailesh C P, the president of Wayanad Tourism Organisation, all the tourism properties have incurred huge losses due to tourist cancellations. "Visitors are even afraid to travel after nightfall to the district from places like Kozhikode and Mysore", he said. "All destinations under the tourism department are open now", said Ajesh K G, member secretary of the District Tourism Promotion Council (DTPC). Industry sources noted major resorts have a normal flow of tourists while cancellations were higher in second-line or third-line resorts situated near the animal raid-prone area risky zones.

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Taiwan minister says China coast guard triggers panic by boarding Taiwan tourist boat

The boarding of a Taiwanese tourist boat by China's coast guard triggered panic among Taiwanese people, a Taiwan minister said on Tuesday, as tensions rise across the sensitive Taiwan Strait.

China announced on Sunday that its coast guard would begin regular patrols and set up law enforcement activity around the Taiwan-controlled islands of Kinmen, following the death of two Chinese nationals fleeing Taiwan's coast guard having entered into waters too close to Kinmen.

Six Chinese coast guard officers on Monday boarded a Taiwanese tourist boat carrying 11 crew members and 23 passengers to check its route plan, certificate and crew licenses, leaving around half an hour later, Taiwan's coast guard said. 

"We think it has harmed our people's feelings and triggered people's panic. That was also not in line with the interest of the people across the strait," Kuan Bi-ling, head of Taiwan's Ocean Affairs Council, told reporters outside the parliament in Taipei on Tuesday.

Kuan said it was common for Chinese and Taiwanese tourist boats to accidentally entered the other side's waters.

Brookings' Michael O'Hanlon on top geopolitical risks in 2024, Taiwan elections and Ukraine war

"Boats like these are not illegal at all," she said.

Kinmen is a short boat ride from the Chinese cities of Xiamen and Quanzhou and has been controlled by Taipei since the defeated Republic of China government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong's communists, who set up the People's Republic of China.

Kinmen was the site of frequent fighting during the height of the Cold War but is now a popular tourist destination, though many of its islets are heavily fortified by Taiwanese forces and remain off limits to civilians.

China claims Taiwan as its territory and has not ruled out using force to take control of the democratically-governed island. The Taipei government says only the Taiwanese people can decide their future.

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AFAR

Exploring Historic Towns and Scenic Hiking Trails in Bosnia and Herzegovina

A s the setting sun turns the city of Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina golden, I walk across the Stari Most, or Old Bridge, which arcs over the turquoise Neretva River. I watch as young couples line up winetastings along the bridge walls and riverside restaurant patios serve plates of cevapi (lamb kababs with somun , Bosnian pita bread) against a backdrop of green mountains and spindly minarets. The call to prayer echoes across the water.

It's hard to imagine that everything I'm looking at, including the 16th-century Ottoman bridge, was destroyed in the 1990s conflict that devastated the country. The bridge and surrounding Old Town were rebuilt over five years under an international effort that began in 1999 and were declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2005. Stari Most stands as a symbol of reconciliation, but in a country composed of two separate federal entities-the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Srpska-with a decentralized government led by a tripartite presidency , a peaceful climate isn't always the reality. The ethno-religious divisions among Orthodox Christian Serbs, Catholic Croats, and Muslim Bosniaks that dominated the war still run deep in certain regions. While understanding that this legacy of conflict is important, the country's younger generation is keen to move on-and a new tourism initiative might help.

I've come here with tour operator Intrepid, which launched its Bosnia and Herzegovina Expedition this June, part of a five-year, $20-million project called Turizam, led by international development agency USAID. The aim is to use sustainable, community- and nature-based tourism to foster economic stability and social harmony, addressing issues such as high youth emigration and low participation of women in the workforce. The initiative includes financial support for businesses and industry training and the development of experiences that unite disparate parts of the country, like the Herzegovina Wine Route .

The project looks promising: In 2019, prepandemic slump, the country had the third-highest tourism growth rate in the world, and so far, 2023 marks tourism's highest-grossing year yet. While Mostar is by far the most popular stop for travelers, I venture much deeper. "Most people see Mostar and then they move on to Croatia or somewhere else," says our Intrepid tour guide Elsa Lojic. "For once I have a chance to lead a trip entirely in my country; it means a lot to me."

The Intrepid trip begins in Lojic's hometown of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in a valley along the Miljacka River in the southwest of the country. There, our group of travelers gather for dinner in the rolling hills high above the city at the home of Mersiha and Mustafa. The couple launched their business, Bosnian Cooking Lessons , out of their kitchen in 2018, offering visitors a look at traditional Bosnian food through both hosted dinners and hands-on cooking classes. Through its partnership with USAID, Intrepid worked entirely with small, locally owned businesses like this one to create the trip itinerary, ensuring travelers' dollars go where it counts. "We grew up in this neighborhood and now this is a way to share our home and our culture," says Mustafa. Beside him, Mersiha shows us how she rolls out dough for burek -pastries stuffed with spinach and cheese or lamb-into a paper-thin layer on the table. Later, we savor the miniature pies along with hot, bubbling platters of peppers, onion, and cabbage filled with minced meat. Outside, night blots out the city's red roofs, replaced by a sea of winking lights.

From Sarajevo, our small van drives north, a tapestry of forest, tumbling rivers, and the peaks of the Dinaric Alps unfurling outside the window. Arriving in the mountainous town of Jajce, we check into Konoba Slapovi, a locally owned hotel and restaurant ensconced in a storybook setting of trees and terraced waterfalls. Jajce is the birthplace of modern Yugoslavia-antifascist leaders from across the Balkans led by communist revolutionary Tito met here during World War II, forming the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It still attracts partisan tourists nostalgic for Tito's era. However, there's the promise of a different kind of tourism here, too.

A walk through town brings us to the 14th-century Jajce Fortress and the stone vestiges of St. Mary's Church, the country's oldest Catholic church. The church was later used as a mosque under Ottoman rule and today is an emblem of political strife, as Croats and Bosniaks argue over ownership. But the church also embodies a potential solution to this ethno-religious animosity: It's part of a multicultural architectural heritage that's up for UNESCO status and holds the potential to foster a spirit of unity instead of division. In smaller cities like Jajce, where schools are still segregated and it's taboo to marry outside your religious group, the hope is that UNESCO status might create a feeling of collective ownership over cultural heritage, one that celebrates the diverse religious architecture in the city-from mosques and churches to a Mithraic temple -a reminder to the community of the strength and beauty in diversity. With the increased tourism that would come with UNESCO status, locals might also come to see the economic value in shifting the tide toward tolerance and a more multicultural identity.

"This is a place where world religions could be presented to young generations to show how we can live in harmony," says our guide in the city, 32-year-old Dragan Glavas. "Tourism based on this heritage can remind us that we've lived in a mixed culture for hundreds of years and teach us to learn from each other," adds Glavas. It's a sentiment that's echoed by the people who welcome us into their homes and villages throughout the trip, whether that's over a slice of homemade fig cake in Stolac, the country's oldest city, or a traditional alfresco dinner in the less-traveled city of Konjic. Just outside the latter, travelers can visit Tito's bunker , a top-secret, Cold War–era nuclear bunker and military command center. In 2011, the sprawling underground fortress was opened to the public as an exhibition space for modern art and now offers guided tours.

Stops at lesser-known villages are part of Tourizam's Most Beautiful Villages concept, an effort to bolster rural tourism. Along that route is the town of Blagaj, where we visit the 15th-century Blagaj Tekke, a snow-white Dervish monastery that stands in relief against a cliff face, the Buna River rushing alongside it. It's long been a pilgrimage site for believers, poets, and explorers and the building embodies the sect's mysticism. Inside, I walk across threadbare ruby carpets, gaze up at a starry, stained-glass dome in a small hammam, and thumb through dog-eared copies of the Qur'an that sit on burnished wood shelves.

The potential for sustainable adventure tourism

There's no doubt that Bosnia and Herzegovina is culturally rich, but it has serious potential for adventure tourism, too. The landscape is still 65 percent forested and threaded with countless rivers and mountains, attracting white-water enthusiasts and climbers. A new via ferrata just opened, and some of the most scenic stretches of the Balkans' 1,250-mile Via Dinarica hiking trail run through the country. This is encouraging organizations like the Adventure Travel Trade Association to get involved in the Turizam project.

By developing ecotourism here, USAID hopes to expand protected natural areas (only 1 percent of the country's territory is covered by legally protected forests, and river ecosystems are at risk because of dam development) nudging political leaders away from extractive industries to recognize the value of protecting this natural heritage, something environmental advocates are already doing. Researchers are currently at work to prove the ecological value of the upper Neretva River, which is currently threatened by 70 proposed dams; in 2021, a Bosnian woman, Maida Bilal, was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for protecting the Kruščica River.

Although our day of white-water rafting on the Neretva River near Konjac is thwarted by bad weather, we embark on a different adventure in the southwest. The landscape here turns arid and open, with yellow wildflowers sprinkled through fields dotted with small knots of houses. Our group clambers into a 4x4 Jeep and climbs a rutted dirt road high above the town of Livno. On the Kruzi plateau, where a windswept landscape of scrub and craggy rock stretches toward the foothills of Mount Cincar, we roll to a stop. Before us, dozens of wild horses graze and canter beside their colts, flicking their manes in the lemon sunshine.

These hills were once used for farming, but now more than 700 horses roam here, and tour company Continental Adventure gets visitors up close to them on its Wild Horses Safari. Founder Marin Mamuza left Bosnia as a teenager to study in Croatia, but the potential he saw in this business brought him home. "Brain drain is a big problem in Bosnia, but tourism gives young people a reason to come back, vote differently than past generations; that's how things will change," says Lojic.

The area we're standing in marked the fighting line between Croat and Serb forces during the war, and the era's ghosts haunt the hills: Red and white posts in the distance mark mine fields-unmarked and unexploded landmines still pose a risk in a small percentage of rural and remote areas, making it important to explore with a knowledgeable guide-and an imposing white cross stands like an enormous grave marker on a hilltop to commemorate Croat lives lost. Even so, 30 years later, there is the promise of a different future here. There's hope.

This picturesque plateau is where Mamuza asked his Croatian wife to marry him, he told me. "I want to remember this place for love, not war."

Blagaj Tekke, a Dervish monastery by the banks of the Buna River, is a few miles south of Mostar.

IMAGES

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