ABSTRACT
It is important to understand the real effects of terrorism on individuals’ lives, to address both the material and the psychological cost of terrorism in the people’s behaviour. Besides the importance and impact of the phenomenon, to our knowledge no studies were done regarding the impacts of terrorism on people’s lives in Europe, especially with regard to the younger generations. This study tries to fill that gap.
The subject of our study is to evaluate the impact of terrorism in Millennials’ travel and leisure behaviours. Using a survey approach, involving a sample of more than 1000 Millennials living and studying in the EU28, it was possible to evaluate their perceptions of risk when travelling and consuming leisure activities in their own countries, in Europe and worldwide. Results indicate that Millennials are mostly fearless but alert and they feel that it is safe to travel both in Europe and outside the continent; however, they do agree that safety measures are very important. Also, findings prove that terrorism is part of Millennials’ lives: i) Millennials are interested in information about terrorism in media, although they do not actively search for that information; ii) they feel that it is possible that terrorist attacks may occur in Europe and in their own country in the near future; however, they do not consider changing any aspect of their life because of that; iii) Millennials feel safe carrying out most of their daily activities, with the exception of activities involving big crowds, such as concerts and festivals, discos, sport events and religious events.
