Terrorism, Tourism and the End of Hospitality in the 'West'

This book explores how the contemporary threat of terrorism is eroding the concept of hospitality in the West. Going beyond the immediate effects of terrorism that are daily portrayed in the media and have shaped the foreign policy agenda of politicians in Europe and the US, this study explores the conceptual framework of how terrorism emerged and expanded within the West and shows how it interacts with, and targets, leisure consumerism and the international hospitality industry.

“Terrorism, Tourism and the End of Hospitality in the “West” successfully integrates a wide range of cultural patterns and historical processes to offer a deep image of the global context in which both leisure tourism and terrorism thrive. As mobility is increasingly a right reserved for the privileged few, the gap between the hyper-mobile modern tourist and the “undesired guest” widens and tourism increasingly becomes a manifestation of the polarisation of a liberal capitalist society which believes it must sacrifice Others in order to save itself. Such insights are invaluable for anyone who wishes to understand how mobility and imperialism are intertwined, what terrorists and corporate businessmen have in common and why, no matter how many pictures of dead children are offered up by the media, people like Aylan will continue to be brutalised and excluded so long as society is organised according to the cold instrumentalism and sordid narcissism of colonial capitalist culture.” (Anita Clarke, Critical Studies on Terrorism, UK)

“A book that shortly and sharply summarizes the complex entanglements among travel and terrorism, both from a systematic and a historical perspective. From the concept of "otherness" to the global security challenges, the author offers broad perspectives on a hot current topic in tourism. It is a topic that is to set to stay controversial in the coming years and so is the book. Written in a critical and refreshing tone, it will appeal to all those interested in current political issues, hospitality, tourism, mobilities and security issues.” (Narcis Bassols Gardella – Assistant Professor- University Externado of Colombia, Colombia)

“Maximiliano Korstanje’s latest book is a wide ranging reconsideration of the relationship between contemporary terrorism and tourism. Its central thesis is that ‘terrorism is modern tourism by other means.’ Korstanje goes back to the European conquests and imperialism of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to show that terrorism and its adjunct industries are but the latest form of global capitalist exploitation as spearheaded by the West, and especially the Anglophone states. This fresh, critical assessment provides readers with a thought-provoking reassessment of current modernity and a less than sanguine view of its future.” (Geoffrey Skoll, Emeritus Professor, SUNY Buffalo, USA)

“Maximilliano Korstanje’s innovative study explores how terrorism and the threat it poses in the post-9/11 world has undermined our traditional understandings of hospitality, tourism and otherness. He explores the intersections and subtle interplay between terrorism and global violence and the tourism and hospitality habits of the affluent. Korstanje reminds those of us living in Western nations of the hypocrisy of flattering ourselves as the welcoming, privileged few. He forces us to confront the reality that the affluent West needs to confront what we are – inhospitable, uncivil folk who have more in common with the denizens of the Capitol as depicted in The Hunger Games than with the heroic tropes with which we view ourselves. We are not defenders of the downtrodden. We are the ugly and boorish glamourists who only care about the suffering of others when we are forced to look at it. Bold and unflinching, Korstanje dissects our global pandemic of fear and mobility-loss in a world chronologically divided between before and after 9/11.” (Luke Howie, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, Monash University, Australia)

“Terrorism, Tourism and the End of Hospitality in the ‘West’ is not only an excellent book but also a very important book to read. The world is changing and terrorism is a major issue for western countries but also for the world. This book is therefore timely.” (Hugues Séraphin, Associate Professor, University of Winchester, UK)

“Tourism is a beneficiary of mobility; terrorism feeds on it, too. The first kneejerk reaction of a terror stricken society is to constrain mobility – not just of people but of also of ideas. In this seminal work, Maximiliano Korstanje examines the death of tourism and, in that process, the end of ‘the West’ we all assume we are familiar with.” (Babu P George, Associate Professor, Fort Hays State University, USA)

“Not only professor Korstanje’s work deepens on the psychological terror from a political perspective but in the interplay between fear and hospitality. While Europe colonized the world by imposing the sense of hospitality as an instrument to discipline the Other, now terrorism is eroding the basis of hospitality introducing a paralyzing terror.” (Freddy Timmermann, Associate Professor, Catholic University Silva Henriquez, Chile)

“This book artfully explains how terrorism and fear both nurture and abhor hospitality. Consumption and destruction facilitate entertainment at the expense of ‘the other’—the growing population of strangers transformed through a weaponized gaze.” (David Altheide, Regents’ Professor Emeritus, Arizona State University, USA and author of Terrorism and Politics of Fear, 2017)        

“This book represents a provocative look at how the other is seen as a threat, an object of enjoyment and an opportunity for ‘jouissance’.” (Adrian Scribano, CONICET, Argentina)

Maximiliano E. Korstanje is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of Palermo, Argentina. He is editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Safety and Security in Tourism and the International Journal of Cyber Warfare and Terrorism. Previously, he was Visiting Fellow at CERS University of Leeds, UK, and the University of La Habana, Cuba.