conflict in tourism

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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]

• Marina Tkalec, 

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

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 ).

• PPT PowerPoint slide
• PNG larger image
• TIFF original image

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.

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.

• 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.

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

Source: The Institute of Economics, Zagreb.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258195.g003

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.

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

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).

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.

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

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).

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.

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.

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.

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

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

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258195.t006

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.

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

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.

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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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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Conflict in Tourism Development

""This paper analyzes the political involvements and relationships that influenced the progress of a tourist heritage site in a Newly Industrialized Country. It explores the dynamics of collaboration and shows how the advantages can turn into conflict and inertia over time. Using evidence from South Korea it outlines the continuing discord among the interested groups, investigates the relationships that surround the developmental process, and demonstrates how perceptual differences became embedded. The paper’s findings show that the avoidance of ambiguity of structure and of purpose are essential goals for management, irrespective of common good and levels of goodwill within the project. The paper illustrates that a structure dominated by power relations leads to conflict and inertia caused by alienation, and emphasizes the need for collaborative structures in cultural heritage tourism development. Key words: stakeholders, conflicts, policy, cultural heritage tourism, South Korea.""

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Annals of Tourism Research

Mark Hampton

Tourism Management

Laurajane Smith

Chaozhi Zhang

Although the conflicting relationship between heritage and tourism has been debated at length in the Western academic literature, interest in the relationship is now becoming increasingly pronounced across the developing world with particular interest noted in China. To examine this phenomenon further, this study explores the cause and temporal variation of conflicts between heritage and tourism over the past decade in China. Content analysis was adopted as the most appropriate methodology for the study with data from online media reports serving as the primary data for the analysis of the occurrence of heritage and tourism conflicts in China. The findings highlight antiquated management structures, inappropriate tourism operations, and the ineffective use or deficiency of legislation as the primary causes of heritage and tourism conflicts in China with the categories of conflicts varying from clashes relating to resource use to clashes over values. The findings also shed light on the significant role played by the media in the resolution of conflicts. Finally, implications and limitations of the study’s findings are discussed.

Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events

Bartłomiej Walas

Cities, in particular those of historical value, are popular destinations for mass tourism. The urban space is often the main cause of conflicts, at the heart of which lie conflicting interests, attitudes and needs relating to the way this space is utilized. The aim of the research described in this article is to identify the intensity of conflicts between residents, tourists and the tourism sector. The research was conducted in 2020. The statistical analysis of the obtained data included questionnaires from 386 respondents. Analysis was conducted of the conflicts that arose among tourism sector players, who were classified into groupstourist entrepreneurs, residents, and local authorities. Respondents often indicated conflict arising between tourists and residents, and between tourist sector entrepreneurs and residents. In the opinion of respondents, conflicts were the result of result of varying structures in the hierarchy of values and of differences in attitudes towards the city.

International Journal of Heritage Studies

Noel B. Salazar

This introduction places the issue’s key themes of heritage, tourism, conflict, and the public interest in focus and illustrates their intersection in a brief case study from modern Jordan. Following this, the four ensuing articles are discussed with an emphasis on their contributions to the issue’s themes. Heritage and heritage tourism are long familiar terms to the journal’s readership and our goal is not to recapitulate what others have described so well elsewhere. In particular, we analyse a process of revaluation that objects, sites, and practices undergo before they are placed within the domain of heritage. Additionally, we explain why tourism is an ideal realm in which to investigate heritage and why the conflicts that erupt around heritage tourism are particularly volatile.

rieke retnosary

currently, the economic growth of some countries is a contribution by the vast development of the tourism sector, and one of the potential destinations is heritage motivation. More than fifty-three of previous study founds five elements that associated with Heritage Tourism Development, which are four elements influencing directly and one element is impact after development as an outcome. The study is focusing on stakeholders responsibility which led by government to do the development of heritage tourism. Barriers of policies and low attention to strategic plants and policies are an influencer to the obstacles because of less attention from the leader. Collaboration approach helped government to control the system in heritage tourism process. Keywords—stakeholders responsibility, government, heritage tourism development, strategic plan and policies, Collaboration approach

Athanasios Vlitas

Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes

Sharif Shams Imon

Abstract Purpose – This paper aims to bridge the epistemological gap between heritage and tourism in understanding (and describing) the link between what is protected in heritage and what is a sustainable use of heritage as a tourism resource. This is accomplished by focusing on the socio-cultural dimension of heritage. Design/methodology/approach – Three case studies involving UNESCO World Heritage sites and representing different stages of tourism development from three different developing economies are discussed. The case studies are based on the author’s extensive monitoring and evaluation of World Heritage Site management over the course of a decade, including tourism management, and they feature in-depth discussions with government heritage authorities and with heritage and tourism experts and stakeholders; observation and monitoring activities; and review of policy and project documents, heritage and tourism plans, UNESCO and other professional bodies’ reports and academic research works. Findings – A symbiotic relationship between the environment, people and economy and the multi-sectoral nature of the tourism industry makes achieving sustainable development goals almost impossible unless there is a coordinated and integrated approach by all parties involved, especially in culturally and naturally sensitive areas. The spirit of place is used as a conceptual framework in the application of systems. Theories seem to be the way forward for a sustainable management of tourism in such areas. Originality/value – The paper addresses an important and under-researched aspect of tourism-heritage encounters: How the socio-cultural impacts of tourism affect the value of cultural heritage, especially in the context of developing economies. Keywords: Developing countries, Historic cities, Socio-cultural impact of tourism, Spirit of place, World Heritage Paper type: Conceptual paper

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Thousands protest in Spain's Canary Islands over mass tourism

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Reporting by Borja Suarez Writing by Ana Cantero Editing by Helen Popper

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British police arrested 45 people on Thursday during a protest in London against the transfer of asylum seekers staying in a hotel to a barge off southern England.

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Damage, injury to Philippines in South China Sea is 'irresponsible behaviour', says US defence minister

The injuring of Filipino crew and damage to Philippine vessels in the South China Sea is "irresponsible behaviour and disregards international law", U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told a press conference on Thursday.

Taiwan's defence ministry said on Friday it had detected a renewed incursion by Chinese military aircraft across the sensitive Taiwan Strait, as China reported its navy had carried out combat drills with landing craft.

Thousands protest against over-tourism in Spain’s Canary Islands

Demonstrators say mass tourism is overwhelming the Atlantic archipelago.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators have hit the streets of Spain’s Canary Islands to demand changes to the model of mass tourism they say is overwhelming the Atlantic archipelago.

An estimated 57,000 people joined the protests, which began at midday (11:00 GMT) on Saturday, Spanish media reports said, citing the central government’s representative in the islands.

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Flag-waving crowds packed the streets of the main towns across all of the archipelago’s seven islands, chanting and whistling, and holding placards with slogans like: “The Canary Islands are not up for sale!”; “A moratorium on tourism”; and “Respect my home”.

“It’s not a message against the tourist, but against a tourism model that doesn’t benefit this land and needs to be changed,” one of the protesters told the Reuters news agency during the march in Tenerife’s capital, Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

Smaller marches were held elsewhere in the island group and other Spanish cities, all of them organised by about two dozen environmental organisations ahead of the peak summer holiday season.

The protests were called by some 20 social and environmental groups who say tourist overcrowding perpetuates an economic model that harms local residents and damages the environment.

They want the authorities to limit the number of visitors and have proposed introducing an eco-tax to protect the environment, a moratorium on tourism and a clampdown on the sale of properties to non-residents.

“The authorities must immediately stop this corrupt and destructive model that depletes the resources and makes the economy more precarious. The Canary Islands have limits and people’s patience [does], too,” Antonio Bullon, one of the protest leaders, told Reuters.

‘We can’t keep looking away’

The archipelago of 2.2 million people was visited by nearly 14 million foreign tourists in 2023, up 13 percent from the previous year, according to official data.

Authorities in the islands are concerned about the impact on locals. A draft law expected to pass this year – one that toughens the rules on short lets – follows complaints from residents priced out of the housing market.

Canary Islands President Fernando Clavijo said on Friday that he felt “proud” that the region was a leading Spanish tourist destination, but acknowledged that more controls were needed as the sector continues to grow.

“We can’t keep looking away. Otherwise, hotels will continue to open without any control,” he told a press conference.

Anti-tourism protests have multiplied in recent months across Spain, the world’s second-most visited country, prompting authorities to try to reconcile the interests of locals and a lucrative sector that accounts for 12.8 percent of Spain’s economy.

The Canary Islands, which lie off the northwestern coast of Africa, are known for their volcanic landscapes and year-round sunshine attracting millions of visitors every year, with four in 10 residents working in tourism – a sector that accounts for 36 percent of the islands’ gross domestic product (GDP).

Before the coronavirus pandemic brought the global travel industry to its knees in 2020, over-tourism protest movements were already active in Spain, notably in Barcelona.

After travel restrictions were lifted, tourism surged, with Spain welcoming a record 85.1 million visitors last year.

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What do we know about Mexico's Baja California, where two Australians have gone missing?

Two brothers from Perth have gone missing during a surfing trip on the west coast of Mexico.

Jake and Callum Robinson , both aged in their 30s, failed to arrive at their holiday accommodation in the north-western city of Rosarito, south of Tijuana, after reportedly spending time at Punta San Jose, a popular surfing spot.

The pair's mother, Debra Robinson, has appealed for information on social media, asking anyone who has seen the brothers — who were travelling with American Jack Carter Rhoad , who is also missing — to please get in contact with her.

Here's what we know about the area where the trio have gone missing.

What draws tourists to the area? 

Rosarito and Punta San Jose are located south of Tijuana, in the very north-west corner of Mexico's Baja California state .

The region borders the United States, making its popular surf spots driveable locations for visitors from California.

A series of reefs along the Baja California coast produce a wide range of surf conditions, drawing surfers of all levels of experience to the area.

Travel guide Yeeew describes the surf in Punta San Jose as "a fun collection of reef breaks and a point that are mostly rights, serving up some rippable sections when the conditions line up".

The nearest major city to Punta San Jose is Ensenada, the state's third-largest city after Tijuana and Mexicali.

Lonely Planet describes Ensenada as "hedonistic Tijuana’s cosmopolitan sister" .

What are the local crime rates? 

According to Mexico's National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), residents of Baja California reported 27,211 criminal incidents per 100,000 people in 2022, the most recent year for which statistics are available.

That's slightly lower than the nationwide rate of 28,701 incidents per 100,000 people in the same year.

However, to put that in perspective, Australia's comparable crime rate in 2022 was 2,118 reported incidents per 100,000 people.

Experts also believe about 92 per cent of crimes committed in Mexico in 2022 went unreported , meaning the real crime rate is potentially orders of magnitude higher than that of Australia.

Baja California is also among the worst states in Mexico when it comes to violent crime , with ongoing conflicts amongst drug cartels contributing to a spike in the local homicide rate.

Tijuana recorded 1,770 homicides in 2021, a rate of 95 homicides per 100,000 people — the highest rate recorded by any municipality in the country.

Vision of Humanity also ranked Baja California Mexico's least peaceful state in 2022 for the fourth year running.

According to INEGI, in 2023 68.5 per cent of adults living in Baja California perceived their state to be unsafe.

How risky is the area for tourists?

Local officials in recent years have been at pains to stress that tourists who stick to well-travelled areas of the country and don't interact with criminal gangs are unlikely to be the victims of serious violent crime .

That's because Mexico's drug cartels have traditionally focused on fighting each other, rather than targeting civilians.

It's not a hard and fast rule, though.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2022 acknowledged that recent violence in some northern cities was unusual in that cartel members had begun to attack members of the public .

"This is something that hadn't presented itself before and hopefully won't be repeated, because they attacked the civilian population, innocents, as a type of retaliation," Mr López Obrador said.

What is the Australian government's travel advice?

The government's Smartraveller website advises Australians visiting Mexico to exercise a high degree of caution due to the threat of violent crime in the country .

The site states violent crimes related to the drug trade are widespread in Mexico, and shoot-outs, grenade attacks and car bombings have occurred in public places.

Violent carjackings have also increased, Smartraveller says, especially along Mexico's northern borders and along the Pacific coast.

Australians are advised to avoid travelling at night outside major cities , including on major highways, as well as to monitor the media for new safety risks and avoid changing large amounts of money at the airport .

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The unprecedented destruction of housing in Gaza hasn't been seen since World War II, the UN says

Edith M. Lederer

Associated Press

TANZANIA – The world hasn’t seen anything like the unprecedented destruction of housing in Gaza since World War II, and it would take at least until 2040 to restore the homes devastated in Israel’s bombing and ground offensive if the conflict ended today, the United Nations reported Thursday.

The U.N. assessment said the social and economic impact of the war launched after Hamas’ surprise attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7 has been increasing “in an exponential manner.”

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It called the level of casualties – 5% of Gaza’s 2.3 million population -- “unprecedented” in such a short time. By mid-April, it said, over 33,000 Palestinians had been killed and more than 80,000 injured. About 7,000 others remain missing, most believed to be buried under the rubble.

“Every additional day that this war continues is exacting huge and compounding costs to Gazans and all Palestinians” said United Nations Development Program Administrator Achim Steiner.

The report by UNDP and the U.N. Economic Commission for Western Asia paints a dire picture of the struggle to survive in Gaza where 201,000 jobs have been lost since the war began and the economy contracted 81% in the last quarter of 2023.

Abdallah Al Dardari, UNDP’s regional director for Arab states, told a U.N. press conference launching the report that almost $50 billion in investments in Gaza are estimated to have been wiped out in the conflict, and 1.8 million Palestinians have fallen into poverty.

Gaza has been under blockade by Israel and Egypt since Hamas’ 2007 takeover, putting tight controls on what enters and exits the territory. Even before the war, it faced “hyper-unemployment” of 45%, reaching nearly 63% among younger workers.

According to the report, the U.N. Human Development Index – which measures key issues for a long and healthy life, for gaining knowledge and for achieving a decent standard of living – has been pushed back more than 20 years in Gaza.

The “productive basis of the economy has been destroyed,” the report said, with sectors experiencing losses of more than 90%. It estimated that the GDP of Gaza could decrease by 51% in 2024.

“The scope and scale of damages have been unprecedented and still mounting as the war still rages on,” it said.

At least 370,000 housing units in Gaza have been damaged, including 79,000 destroyed completely, the report said, along with commercial buildings.

After previous Israel-Hamas conflicts, housing was rebuilt at a rate of 992 units a year, it said. Even if Israel allows a five-fold increase of construction material to enter Gaza, it would take until 2040 to rebuild the destroyed houses, without repairing the damaged ones.

Al Dardari said that after 51 days of fighting between Israel and Hamas in 2014 there were 2.4 million tons of debris in Gaza. In the current war, he said, there are already 37 tons of debris that need to be removed to make space for temporary shelters and other structures which are critical to return some sort of normalcy to Palestinians in Gaza.

“We haven't seen anything like this since 1945, since the Second World War — that intensity in such a short time, and the massive scale of destruction,” he said.

Al Dardari said the preliminary estimate of the cost of an early recovery program for three years, which would bring hundreds of thousands of Palestinians back to temporary shelters in their original locations with community support, is between $2 billion and $3 billion.

The rough estimate for the overall reconstruction of Gaza is between $40 billion and $50 billion, he said.

But Al Dardari stressed that the immediate focus now is on planning for early recovery.

He said the U.N. senior humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza, Sigrid Kaag, and other officials met earlier Thursday with 22 U.N. agencies and went through plans by each one for the initial years after the war ends.

“We are on the verge of developing and finalizing a unified view and early recovery framework that is Palestinian-centered, Palestinian-led and owned by the Palestinian people,” Al Dardari said.

Associated Press Writer Lee Keath contributed to this report from Cairo

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.