Assumptions about Crime and Economic Viability

Before either of these two major themes can be addressed, we must first look at some assumptions within the world of crime and terrorism and question if these assumptions are valid or not.

The first assumption that must be examined is that terrorism is a form of crime. Although it is beyond the scope of this book to enter into the many reasons for criminal and terrorist acts, for the most part, and from the perspective of tourism, this book rejects this assumption. The one area where the issue of crime and terrorism do merge is in the illegal drug trade. In this case, terrorists often engage in the selling of illegal narcotics for the purposes of raising money for terrorism acts. However, in most other cases, we distinguish crime issues from terrorism issues. The reason for this distinction is that crime issues are often tied to a successful tourism industry. In other words, tourism criminals need tourists if they are to have a steady supply of victims. Furthermore, from the tourism perspective, there are two types of criminal acts that impact tourism. As noted, one side of the crime issue is crimes committed against tourists, and these are specific crimes that target visitors. From the criminal’s perspective, these people have a parasitic business relationship with the tourism industry; that is to say that without tourists/visitors, there can be no crimes against tourists. From this perspective, the criminal needs the tourism industry to succeed. In simple terms, where there are no tourists there can be no tourism crimes. On the other side of the criminal coin are collateral crimes. These are local crimes that have nothing to do directly with tourism, but spill over into the tourism industry. This spillover effect may either be due to a tourist or visitor being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or the crime giving the impression that a locale is not safe and thus discouraging visitor or convention business.

Terrorism presents the tourism official and security specialist with a different situation. Terrorism is often interlocked with the desire to destroy a local economy. Tourism is a big business. An attack on a tourism industry can cause loss of life and negative publicity; in addition, it can provoke a major economic downturn. “Terrorists are not out for profits, but for a cause. As such they seek the macro destruction of the tourism industry as a way to hurt or destroy a particular nation’s economy. Terrorists rarely seek profit, but instead determine success by the quantity of dead bodies and by the loss of economic opportunities” (Tarlow, 2005a; 2005b, p. 39). Terrorists may cause either direct or indirect damage to a tourism industry, but in all cases, terrorists will judge the economic downturn caused by their actions to be a success. Table 2.3 then places these four different actions into perspective.

The second major assumption that must be addressed is the belief that declining economies produce an increase in crime (and perhaps in terrorism). This assumption is based on a theoretical Marxist perspective. Marxism divides the world into good and bad and tends to see the proletariat as good and the bourgeois as bad. Thus, classical Marxist theory tends to justify certain criminal acts as necessary in order for inherently good members of the proletariat to survive in economically hard times. From this perspective, people do not steal due to a lack of morality (often defined by Marxists as bourgeois morality), but rather for the need to survive. Chambliss, Mankoff, Pearce, and Snider (2000) summarize the Marxist theory on crime (a perspective often assumed to be true by a large proportion of the media) as “The idea that the poor are driven to commit crime strongly underpins the theories of those criminologists who have taken Marx’s work further…” (Basic Beliefs section, para. 1).

Marxists assume that deviance is caused by economic disparity within a society. This unequal distribution of goods and wealth produces jealousy or envy resulting in crime. Thus, the criminal is not at fault, but rather the capitalist who provokes the criminal with an ostentatious show of wealth. Furthermore, the Marxist argues that crime arises due to people being forced into demeaning work that exacerbates the already unstable economic situation. Marxists further argue that laws are promulgated to serve the ruling class, so even when a member of the ruling class breaks the law, he or she has good access to a lawyer (e.g., “money buys protection”). Marxist analysis then leads to the assumption that tourism is dependent on those classes that have expendable income. To have expendable income means that the visitor is not part of the proletariat and therefore may have provoked the crime of which he or she is the victim.

The belief that tourism crimes rise during difficult economic times may well be predicated on a “Robin Hood” scenario. In this scenario, good poor people are driven to crimes due to the ostentatious behavior of rich tourists. Yet, one’s proclivity toward crime may well be determined more by morals than by economics. There are few people who cannot think of “good” poor people who simply do not rob, and of “bad” rich people who do rob. Ethics may be a far greater determining factor in our tendency to commit crimes than is the size of our bank account.

To a certain extent, the same concept is found in classical literature. For example, the “Robin Hood” syndrome of the “good guy” who steals from the rich to give to the poor is found in much of Western literature. It is assumed in this scenario that the poor are “good” and the rich are “bad.” Furthermore, Spanish literature reflects this same notion in the “Picarro.” In the sixteenth-century Spanish picaresque novel Lazarillo de Tormes, the hero stops just short of illegal behavior. The novel presents the “pícarro” (loosely translated as “rogue”) in endearing terms, leading the antihero to become the hero. American cinema is also not stranger to this glorification of the criminal as a man of the people. In the movie Ocean's Eleven, the villain is the casino owner, while the thieves are presented as the heroes.

The New York Times reflected this Marxist viewpoint in an article titled “Keeping Wary Eye on Crime as Economy Sinks.” Despite the fact that the article quotes New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly as saying, “he did not subscribe to the idea that there was a strong connection between a city’s financial fortunes and its safety,” the article begins with the words: “It is the question on the minds of New Yorkers, once they stop pondering the fate of their 401(k)’s: If the city’s economy sinks to depths not seen in decades, will crime return with a vengeance?” (Baker & Hauser, 2008, para. 1). The article’s theme is that there is a relationship between a tumbling economy and rising crime rates.

The causality of crime then is intertwined with economics and tourism. For example, in the classic book The Theory of the Leisure Class, Thorstein Veblen (1963) writes: “It has already been remarked that the term ‘leisure’ as used here does not connote indolence or quiescence. What it connotes is nonproductive consumption of time. Time is consumed nonproductively (1) from a sense of the unworthiness of productive work and (2) as an evidence of pecuniary ability to afford a life of idleness” (p. 46). Mills, writing about Veblen, quotes Veblen as stating, “the accumulation of wealth at the upper end of the pecuniary scale implies privation at the lower end of the scale.” Veblen tended to assume that the pie was a certain size, and that the wealthy class withdraws from the lower class “as much as it may of the means of substance…” (p. xiv). The same point is made many years later when Eric P. Baumer and Richard Rosenfeld from the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida State University wrote:

Tarlow has summarized this perspective in a paper delivered in Kalmar, Sweden:

1. Economic declines lead to higher levels of frustration and desperation by the local population.

2. Economic declines lead to greater competition for customers. Such competition may lead to falling of prices and rising expectations by tourists, which creates higher levels of frustration.

3. Periods of economic decline may mean less governmental help for local tourism industries, thus creating industry contractions, unemployment, and downward wage spirals.

4. Periods of economic decline may result in greater levels of sensationalism within the media resulting in copycatting and a desensitizing of the public to acts of violence. (Tarlow, 2000, p. 142)

There is, however, a large body of evidence that contradicts the Marxist perspective on crime. For example, Plumer (2010), writing in The New Republic, noted:

A British study published in May 2009, titled “Crime and the Economy,” by the Police Federations of England and Wales, seems to both contradict and support the Marxist perspective. The report notes that household consumption is recognized as the principal economic indicator of economic well-being. However, previous research has noted complexity in the relationship between crime and consumption. In particular, consumption growth has been found to have two principal effects on property crime:

• A growth in consumption increases the number and value of goods available for theft. It is argued that crime increases as the number of opportunities for crime increases. An economic theory of crime suggests that the increase in the stock of goods in society will tend to increase the incentive to commit crime, otherwise known as the “opportunity effect.”

• Consumption growth indicates increased expectations of lifetime income. The increased expectation of lawful income will reduce the temptation of illegitimate activity. This is referred to as the “motivation effect.”

The opportunity effect is a long-term influence that is positively correlated with crime, while the motivation effect is more short term and has a negative correlation with crime. Thus, in years when people increase their spending by very small amounts or reduce it altogether, notably when the economy is in recession, property crime tends to grow relatively quickly. In contrast, during years when people rapidly increase their expenditure, property crime tends to grow less rapidly or even fall (Plumer, 2010).

The third assumption is that tourism produces crime due to the social inequality between tourists and many locals or people who are working in the tourism industry. This third assumption also has a Marxist tinge to it. It argues that visitors tend to show off their wealth, which produces a sense of jealousy or anger that results in some forms of crime. Thus, Muehsam and Tarlow have written: “Periods of economic decline, then, may also signify periods in which there is a merging of the Robin Hood hypothesis with the assumptions of pure conflict theory creating a postmodernist cacophony of moral inequity. This proposition is even pertinent when one chooses to view the tourism industry as nothing more than the merging of Marxian thought with Veblen’s ideas” (Muehsam & Tarlow, 1996, p. 15). In such a scenario, tourism becomes especially open to an ethical malaise for the following reasons:

• By its nature, tourism must be multicultural and “open” to conflicting ideas.

• As noted above, tourists have no sense of place.

• Tourists may be confused as to local mores.

• Victimizers of tourists, especially during periods of economic decline, may see themselves as heroes helping to redistribute wealth.

• As we move from a world of physical-facing to cyber-facing, the victim becomes even more anonymous.

(Tarlow, 2000)

The assumption that tourists are often responsible for their own victimization can be clearly seen in an article published in the Annals of Tourism Research by Meda Chesney-Lind and Ian Lind (1986). The authors note that tourists possess characteristics that produce crime. Among these are that tourists (1) carry large sums of money; (2) have desired items such as jewelry and cameras; (3) are often in anomic states (they pay little attention to where they leave their valuables); (4) participate in activities where crime is high (such a nightclubs); and (5) travel to areas of the locale in which they are unfamiliar. The authors then go on to state, “They may also engage in behaviors in these settings that they would not consider at home, such as buying drugs and ‘picking up’ prostitutes or strangers. Indeed, Uzzell (1984:97) has suggested that risk-taking behavior is an important element of fantasy and escape, which are central to the vacation experience” (p. 179). Two other reasons that tourists generate crimes against themselves may be differentiation in dress from the local population and/or loud use of a foreign language or accent. When tourists fail to recognize or respond to local customs, locals often perceive them as aggressive and/or insensitive to the feelings of others. For example, a New York Times article quotes a young Hawaiian: “We never go to the beach where tourists are, because they make you feel like animals in a zoo” (Trumbull, 1980). A review of the literature from that period makes it clear that crimes against tourists are to a great extent the tourist’s own fault. Although no author came out and stated that hypothesis with such bluntness, the literature of the 1980s indicated that the tourist had it coming to him or her and that tourism may also be responsible to some extent for a greater level of crime against the local population. Lind and Lind (1986) note, “In addition, there is a limited amount of evidence to suggest that tourism might lead to increased rates of crimes in which residents, remains at least some residual effect on local residents. At a minimum, cases of ‘mistaken identity’ surely take place, and it seems likely that persons who enter criminal careers through offenses rather than visitors, are the primary victims.” (p. 177).

It is interesting to note that the early studies of crimes against tourists assumed that the fault lay with the visitor and thus reflected a pseudo-Marxian outlook in which the victim was blamed for bringing on the crime.

A review of the literature then indicates that there is a division between scholars who believe crime increases during periods of economic decline and those who argue against such a theory. In a like manner, there are those who see the visitor as being responsible for his or her own victimization and those who reject the self-victimizing theory. Table 2.4 demonstrates the interaction between these two diverse sets of assumptions.

How Security or the Lack of Security Impacts the Tourism Industry’s Economy

As mentioned previously, the various terms “tourism security,” “safety,” “surety,” and even “tourism well-being” are often used in an interchangeable manner. The reason for this is that a tourism mishap can result not only in a ruined vacation, but also in loss of reputation and the potential harm to (or even destruction of) a local tourism or visitor industry. From the client’s perspective, a robbery or a major health problem can rob the victim of his or her treasured vacation memories. In all cases, these “mishaps” can cause serious reputational harm, especially if they become part of a vicious cycle or spread via word-of-mouth or the Internet. Due to numerous Websites in which visitors can post and share their experiences with the world, the concept of the isolated incident in tourism no longer exists. In a paper delivered in Innsbruck, Austria, by Baggio, Milano, and Piattelli (2011), the authors note that:

Baggio et al. (2011) further note the importance of personal reporting (versus the industry’s reporting) in the world of social media when they state:

From an economic perspective, the industry and the industry’s marketers no longer control tourism marketing. Perspective clients are as or more likely to consult social media as they are to consult what the industry says about itself. This tendency means that any negative incident, whether it be a crime, an act of terrorism, an epidemic to an outbreak of food poisoning in local restaurants, and so on, will be known throughout the world almost instantly.

We can then look at the economic impact of a tourism mishap from the perspective of:

• Crime and violence

• Safety issues

• Terrorism

• Natural disaster

It should be noted that three of the four tourism crises sited above are man-made, while the fourth one, natural disasters, has both a human and a nonhuman component.

The Impact of Crime and Violence on Tourism

Across the Rio Grande River from the Texas border city of Laredo is the Mexican city of Nuevo Laredo. Nuevo Laredo was once a bustling city with its main tourism street, Guerrero, almost butting up to the U.S.–Mexican border. The border was nothing more than a simple transit point until gang and narcotic violence became a way of life. Visitors would cross the border into Mexico with ease in order to spend a few hours shopping for souvenirs and handicrafts, or they would go for an evening out. Mexican citizens were also able to cross the border, and they went shopping in the United States and returned to Mexico with almost no hassle. However, due to the onset of violence in Nuevo Laredo, everything has changed. Now, visitors and locals no longer cross the border. Guerrero Street, which was once filled with visitors, is practically empty of tourists, and its once-thriving nightlife has all but disappeared.

Perhaps no nation’s reputation in recent years has suffered as much as that of Mexico. From a tourism perspective, Mexico has everything: spectacular beaches, mountain resorts, great cities and museums, internationally acclaimed gastronomies, historic relics, and modern architecture. Unfortunately, Mexico also has a significant problem with violence. The nation has suffered from what has become a never-ending intercartel warfare resulting in the deaths of over 66,000 people. The cartel gang violence has spilled over into other forms of violence, such as robbery, bribery, and the all too famous “mordida.” To clarify, a mordida is a police shakedown in which a local police authority demands money to “forgive” a crime that was never committed. The violence has impacted northern Mexico, where a large part of its tourism business has died, along with the nation’s entire reputation. Thus, every negative event that takes place in any part of Mexico now becomes a negative headline. For example, even a small-town newspaper, such as the Bryan (Texas) Eagle, provides headlines when something happens in any part of Mexico. In February 2013, six women were raped in the city of Acapulco. This unfortunate and tragic incident was reported by the Eagle with the following words: “The tourism world turned its eyes on Mexico after six Spanish women were raped by masked gunman during a vacation on the long troubled Pacific coast resort of Acapulco” (Ramos & Stevenson, 2013, para. 1). The report then went on to state: “the question now is whether the attack will affect other resorts as Mexico prepares for its annual spring break onslaught and peak season” (p. A10). The article alludes to violence stemming from Acapulco beginning in 2009, and it notes that the city has never recovered from the 18 murders that took place near Acapulco’s Flamingo Hotel.

The article highlights the importance of safety and security for a tourism industry. If we read the article carefully, a number of subthemes emerge. Among these are:

• Acts of violent crime can have long-term and lasting effects.

• Visitors tend to stay away from places that they do not consider to be safe.

• The media does not often distinguish geographic locations within political or national borders. So, in our example, Mexico (a very large country) is contaminated by headlines that lump the entire nation together. In reality other parts of Mexico may be perfectly safe, but these safe locations must still deal with the negative fallout and perceptions stemming from violence within Mexico’s national borders.

• The further away we are from a place, the worse the incident may appear to be. In reality crimes of sexual assault occur throughout the world, but once a particular crime enters into the media, it takes on a life that is almost independent of the event.

• People tend to be less forgiving of a locale that suffers from an act of violence than of other tragic events such as acts of nature.

Crime, of course, is not a Mexican problem. Tourism officials are well aware that once it enters the media, crime can have a highly destructive impact on a local tourism industry. To illustrate, Jamaica’s tourism minister, who is well aware of his nation’s crime problem, spoke at the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA) 47th Annual General Meeting about crime’s negative impact on his country in February 2013:

We see another example of the impact of crime especially when it is combined with less than hospitable customer service in the case of Venezuela. The Venezuelan newspaper El Universal reported the dearth of tourists to the country, asking the question: “Where are the tourists?” The article notes how a lack of security, combined with a sense of inhospitality, has done a great amount of harm to the country. El Universal concludes that among the factors having done the most harm to the country is its being ranked as an insecure nation. It states:

The article pointed to the fact that a tourism industry without customer service and good security will soon wither.

Measuring Crime’s Impact

Crimes against tourists have a negative impact on the industry. Measuring exactly how many people choose to stay away from a location due to crime is never easy to measure. This fact is noted in a 2008 United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) document about the Caribbean that states:

The reasons for this are numerous:

1. Crime figures are not standardized. What may be a crime in one location is not necessarily a crime in another location. “Personalized” acts such as drug usage and prostitution differ from one locale to another. Thus, in some locations, prostitution is considered to be a major crime, while in others, prostitution is legal or it is still illegal but tolerated.

2. Tourists and visitors often do not report crimes. The reasons for this nonreportage are numerous. Included in the list is the fact that many visitors do not realize that they have been victims of crime; they simply assume that they have lost an article or money. Additionally, many visitors do not believe that reporting a crime is worthwhile. They assume that either the police can (or will) do nothing, or by the time something might be done, the visitors will have left the locale. Visitors also may not know how to report a crime. Police stations are often hard to find, or not in visitor-frequented neighborhoods, and if the tourist is from abroad, he or she may not be able to fill out the necessary paperwork in an understandable language.

3. There are reported crimes that are “self-generated.” Often, reported crimes are nothing more than fraudulent ways to obtain insurance on an object that a visitor may wish to replace. Thus, cameras often become “stolen” as a means to purchase a new camera.

4. The tourism industry does not encourage people to report crimes. What this means is that often it is to the advantage of the local hotel, restaurant, or attraction to work out a private deal with the visitor rather than have the crime reported to the police. From a business perspective such a policy may make sense, but the result of such “agreements” is that all tourism crime statistics are suspect.

A review of the academic literature demonstrates that there are multiple modes of measurement used in determining crime rates. In the same way that it is almost impossible to measure crime due to lack of standardized data, the cost of crime (its economic consequences) is also highly difficult to determine. To elaborate, the World Health Organization (2004) draws a distinction between direct costs (medical, legal, policing, prisons, foster care, and private security) and indirect costs (lost earnings and time, lower human capital, lower productivity, lower investment, psychological costs, and other nonmonetary costs). Other scholars use more complex methodologies. For example, some students of tourism divide the cost of crimes against tourism by their various costs. Among these costs we can include:

• Direct costs: the value of all goods and services used to prevent violence or offer treatment to its victims or perpetrators.

• Nonmonetary costs: higher mortality and morbidity rates that result in pain, suffering, and death, but do not necessarily result in either expenditures on health care or in easily quantifiable economic losses.

• Economic multiplier effects: impacts on human capital, labor force participation, lower wages and incomes, savings, and macroeconomic growth.

• Social multiplier effects: erosion of social capital, intergenerational transmission of violence, and lower quality of life.

(“Socioeconomic costs of crime,” n.d., p. 1)

Festivals

Festivals and mega-events, such as the Olympic games, bring a great deal of money to a community, but they require careful planning and security expenses. These events demonstrate the need for cooperative efforts between the law enforcement and tourism industries. Perhaps no area of tourism creates greater security headaches than festivals and large events, such as the World Cup. The festival's multiple entrance points, volunteer staffs, and nonspecialized location create an unstructured atmosphere in which security people must operate. Festivals and major events are open to both criminals of opportunity and to terrorists. Furthermore, to complicate the security situation, the festival's multiple access points facilitate easy entrance and escape routes. However, by cooperating, these two industries can lessen the potential risks.

• Offer to meet with festival representatives at the earliest stages of planning. Offer your department's expertise in such areas as planning for traffic flow, parking, and pedestrian access points. Work with festival officials to confront specific security concerns.

• Work with tourist officials to confront specific monetary concerns. Inform tourist officials that police departments have specific restrictions on the number of hours a police officer can work on- or off-duty. Commit these officers as quickly as possible to ensure their presence. Discuss budgetary problems early, and determine out of which budget these police officers will be paid.

Although no locale can totally eliminate all forms of crime, being aware of potential problems and developing good relations with local tourism officials can help to create an environment to which visitors will want to return. To help determine your own strategy, we present the following ideas and possible future trends.

• Remember that we no longer live in a one-country world. No matter what nation you may be living in, the local market will not be enough to sustain your growth. Even small towns will find it necessary to become part of the global market. This means that it will be necessary for local banks to change currency, restaurants to offer menus in various languages, traffic and road signs to be internationalized, and police departments to learn how to deal with a myriad of cultures and languages.

• Do not think only in short intervals. For example, even though the price of fuel continues to rise and fall, it is bound to go up in the long term. During less costly periods, use the reprieve to develop alternative forms of transportation. Communities that are totally dependent on self-driven means of transportation may have much greater difficulties in attracting visitors in the next few decades. Creative thinking will be necessary as not every community can produce an instant public transportation system.

• Learn to watch trends and then incorporate them into your business model. Travel and tourism, for the most part, are expendable products. So, it behooves travel and tourism professionals to watch cost of credit, to understand how the foreign exchange markets work, and where unemployment is headed in your major markets. In today’s interconnected world, news sources are essential. Read at least three newspapers a day from various parts of the world and from places that constitute your current major markets.

• Be flexible. What was or has always been may not be the same in the future. For example, if your tourism industry or business traditionally drew from place X, and that locale is expected to go through a major economic downturn, be prepared to switch markets or products rapidly. Every tourism community should now have an economic watchdog committee that analyzes the current situation and makes recommendations on how to adapt to a rapidly changing world. The less assets that you need to care for, such as buildings, vehicles, etc., the better off you may be especially in a restricting world economy.

• Think small as well as big. All too often tourism industries suffer because they spend so much time on catching the big fish, they lose the small fish. Remember, in challenging economic times, there are less big fish to catch. Thus, try to consider smaller conventions instead of only seeking larger ones. The basic principle is some profit is better than no profit.

• Look at both macro and micro economic trends. Because tourism is a big business composed of many small businesses, it is essential for tourism professionals to integrate macro trends into their business plan. For example, how will new car sales impact your tourism industry? What happens if this current crisis is only the first of two or three waves of crises? How will aging populations in developed countries impact tourism? Which nations have expanding economies and where are economies contracting? All these are essential questions that must be updated on a regular basis.

• Look at successful models around the world. All too often tourism officials have a highly parochial view of their industry. Seek out and communicate with colleagues from different parts of the world and look at their best practices. Where have they succeeded and failed? Think how you may be able to adapt or modify other people’s ideas so that they meet the needs of your local situation. Then, ask yourself some essential questions, such as: Is my business model flexible enough to withstand rapid changes? How stable is my current supply chain? For instance, If you are a hotel and the blanket factory goes bankrupt, are there other sources available? If you are a locale based around a single attraction, what happens if that attraction closes? Finally, do you know your business partners and how you can work with them to face an ever more challenging world?

• Adapt your marketing efforts to a globalized industry. Tourism and travel professionals may need to consider major overhauls of their world-market advertising. Magazine and local television ads may need to be replaced with innovative web strategies. A monolingual Website may become a thing of the past, and new direct marketing procedures will become essential. Remember that in an interconnected world, you are no longer just compared with your neighbors. No matter where you are located, your community and/or business will be judged on an international scale. Think through what makes you unique and what is special about your community or business.