ABSTRACT
Few would dispute that political instability and varying degrees of violence are aspects common to tourism within difficult regions (Pizam and Mansfeld 1996; Hall et al. 2003). ‘Difficult regions’ often refers to areas where certain factors are in place that inhibit normal tourism activity from taking place, or describes areas where one does not expect tourism to occur. These may include a perceived lack of safety and security associated with a level of violence, an absence of attractiveness within the destination region, and a lack of accessibility to and within the destination region. With respect to the first, violence may range from localised levels of petty and gang-related crime, to deep-seated civil unrest that may result in coup d’etats occurring, to terrorist activity that is directly or indirectly linked to visitors, to outright war. In short, this may be referred to as a ‘violence spectrum’ with varying effect on destinations (see Figure 14.1). Violence spectrum. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203107706/3606bd2c-6556-491f-a04a-af6603feba17/content/fig14_1_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
