Terrifying Turmoil?

Were you also a bit nervous to come to Jordan? I believe this is the start of most of the conversations I have had in Jordan. Besides that, I am quite certain that almost every tour guide, director, or other presenter has mentioned that Jordan is such a stable country and that you should definitely visit! Although all the locals claim that it's safe, most students did show some anxiety at the beginning.

Within Honours some did not choose our module out of fear, our trip could have been cancelled if the situation changed, and I decided to wait four hours at the airport in fear of travelling alone. Conclusively, the turmoil has influenced the decision of visiting Jordan. Is it only negative for tourism or also a reason to visit?

According to Brin (2006), some politically-oriented tourists travel to areas in conflict specially because of the turmoil present. Hence, political instability, and therefore danger, can also be stimulating tourism. This form of tourism is named dark tourism. Danger-zone tourism is a subdivision of dark tourism, and refers to tourism where violent conflicts are happening frequently. The dark tourist can be defined as a tourist that consumes exhibits of death and disasters (Lisle, 2007). There are four types of dark tourists, namely politically-oriented tourists, conflict tourists, danger-zoners and war tourists (Buda, 2015).

In Israel, with the Israel-Palestina conflict, most types of dark tourists are present. However in Jordan, as it is a safe country without conflicts in the middle of turmoil, dark tourism will not be a prevalent reason to visit. Nevertheless, dark tourism might attribute to tourism in the way of day tours from Israel. However, in the opinion of the tour guides, Jordan does not profit from this (Buda, 2015).

Conclusively, political conflicts might lead to an increase in tourism in the form of dark tourism. However, unfortunately the negative effects of the turmoil in the area surrounding Jordan on tourism is bigger than the positive effects.

References: 

Brin, E. (2006). Politically-oriented tourism in Jerusalem. Tourist Studies, 6(3), 215–243

Buda, D. M. (2015). Affective Tourism: Dark routes in conflict. Routledge.

Buda, D. M., d’Hauteserre, A. M., & Johnston, L. (2014). Feeling and tourism studies. Annals of Tourism Research, 46, 102-114.

Lisle, D. (2007). Defending voyeurism: Dark tourism and the problem of global security. In P. Burns & M. Novelli (Eds.), Tourism and politics: Global frameworks and local realities (pp. 333–346). Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier.