Tourism and Terror: a Case Study: Israel 1948-2012

Israel is a popular tourist destination which has by afflicted by varying levels of terrorism against civilians over the course of its history. A longitudinal analysis of data pertaining to tourism and terrorism is undertaken to examine how terrorism affects patterns of tourism. It is found that on the macro-level, tourism to Israel continues to grow although it experiences periodic declines corresponding with times of high terrorist activity. National and religious subpopulations of tourists react differently terrorism at the destination. Overall, Jews are proportionally more likely than non-Jews to continue to visit Israel during times of conflict, but this varies among Diaspora communities. Moreover, among US Jewish tourist, the strongly religious populations represented a greater percentage of visitors during years of high terrorism. This preliminary analysis explores how internal structural features of the Jewish community (such as Jewish educational settings and family ties to Israelis), external factors of the home country (such as anti-Semitism or the economic situation) and national and cultural value orientation affect tourism patterns. The impact of these factors on tourism deserves continued research.