ABSTRACT
On October 12, 2002 Islamist militants associated with Jemaah Islamiyah targeted the Kuta tourist district on the island of Bali in Indonesia with backpack, car and suicide bombs. When the carnage was over some 200 people were dead and an additional 240 injured. Higgins-Desbiolles (2007: 310) goes so far as to claim that combined with the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Bali bombings ‘consolidated the war of terrorism as a war on tourism’, by making clear the clash between affluent global tourists and the ‘wretched of the earth’. Is this, in fact, the future faced by global tourists? This chapter will examine the future of tourism from the standpoint of security. It proceeds as follows: After discussing trends within traditional security concerns such as war, terrorism and political instability and their impact on tourist flows, the discussion moves to complicated notions of security. Finally, the chapter closes with speculation on how security concerns are likely to affect not so much the flows of global tourism, but more importantly their form.
