Extreme Sports Tourism travel Germany

By David Porter,

Some tourists get caught up by chance as hapless victims in troubles, strife, disasters. Other thrill junkies seek out danger as global rubberneckers.

The stabbing to death and subsequent beheading of a British woman in Tenerife in May 2011 prompted both outrage and questions about the safety and wisdom of people travelling in countries other than their own. In this case, she had become resident there; Tenerife was not regarded as a trouble hotspot.

Other parts of the world are known for risks to travellers from people as well as natural calamities. Yet still, man being an adventurous and generally inquisitive animal, tends to want to see, smell and taste for him/herself. The intrepid traveller is still around, long after every corner of the earth has been discovered.

John Harlow, writing in Britain’s Sunday Times, 24 April 2011, described the Florida police investigation into the murder of two British student tourists in terms of the growth of ‘ghetto tourism’ and said that people want to experience firsthand the reality behind rap music and TV crime shows like The Wire (Baltimore).

War and Civil Unrest

On 5th March 2011, just two months after the ‘lotus revolution’ that saw Egypt pass through a crisis of unrest, Cassandra Jardine wrote in the UK’s Daily Telegraph: ‘Egyptians are desperate for the return of the foreigner on whom their economy depends’. She went with her family, never intending to be ‘the tourist equivalent of ambulance chasers’, but found they had hotel, pool and historic sites virtually to themselves.

Before the revolution and since, tourists accept the need for their buses to travel in armed convoy to ancient historical sites. However, that’s different from being present during fighting. To see the remains of tanks and other vehicles and some building damage afterwards is one thing. To dodge bullets and missiles, offers a particular kind of adrenalin rush.

Pilot Guides published Destinations, about what is now known as Ground Zero, site of the former World Trade Center before its destruction by hijacked aircraft in 2001. The memorial/construction site ‘attracts twice as many visitors as before the terrorist attack’, from 1.8 to 3.6 million a year.