International tourism and terrorism
International tourism and terrorism

Summary/Abstract: During the first decade of the 21st century, terrorist attacks on international hotels and international tourist resorts all over the world got all shapes of a global threat. Those attacks were mostly conducted by militant terrorist groups of Islamic religious fundamentalists whose goals were usually politically motivated. Comparing to the previous decades, those attacks became not only more frequent but also all the more lethal. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, security of state institutions and diplomatic missions in the world increased, so terrorists reoriented the focus of their attention primarily on large international tourist facilities. The aim of this paper is to explore the characteristics of major terrorist attacks on large tourist facilities all over the world that occurred in the decade after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, applying the theory of political terrorism. The paper starts from the hypothesis that tourist facilities are relatively easy and very vulnerable targets, because there are affluent movements of guests and a large number of employees. This hypothesis has been tested with the help of empirical research of the characteristics of 28 major terrorist attacks on tourist premises all over the world in the first decade of the 21st century. The research has shown that potential terrorists can easily infiltrate and smoothly perform observation, design modus operandi and in the end, attack with a small number of suicide operatives. Therefore, we conclude that measures of preventive crisis management in international hotels and international tourist resorts are of crucial importance for the safety of both guests and employees.

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