Boston Marathon Bombings April 2013: the Impact on Tourism and Boston

Abstract:
The bombings at the Boston Marathon on 15th April 2013 had a short term impact on tourism and the City of Boston but will cause increased security at future events around the world.

Keywords:
Terrorism, Boston, Tourism, Security

In order to look at the likely impact the Boston Bombings have had on tourism, an understanding of the term terrorism is required, as the term is complex and has multiple meanings. A brief explanation is provided stating why tourist destinations are targeted. Media sources (including online newspapers, articles, scholar reports and radio) were examined to provide an analysis of what the expected impacts are predicted to be and whether these impacts are likely to be short or long term.

The initial impacts of the Boston bombings were not specifically related to tourism but more general and include the impact on the economy. Media sources were reporting different things in regards to the impacts on the city. These impacts range from people cancelling dinner reservations, affecting the restaurant industry and to an extent the hotel industry. The area blocked off during the investigation created further problems to these industries as it was at the heart of the city. Businesses were affected in other ways with them having to close, thus causing implications for the local economy. During 'lockdown' while the search for the bombers took place, citizens were instructed to remain at home, causing shops and offices to be closed. Transport locally was an issue with buses and trains being suspended during the investigation.

Tourism was then examined to determine whether it has been affected as a result of the bombings in Boston. Tour operators and travel agents suggest that there is no impact and that people are still happy to visit or remain in the city. Organisers are expecting the event to take place next year for a variety of reasons including keeping up the tradition. Despite the positive outlook, travel advice was changed, providing warnings and expressing that security will be heightened. The immediate impact on tourism was through airport security and other transport methods, where increased baggage checks were in place as well as increased security or police presence. International students are affected greatly, particularly those who have applied for visas as more security checks have been introduced. In terms of tourism overseas, there has been little impact. However, security at events such as the London Marathon have experienced increased police and security staff presence. Multiple tour operators signed a letter sent to Boston expressing how they would try to market the city to clients in their country. Thus, encouraging visitors and getting things back to normal as soon as possible.

Literature provides many definitions for the term terrorism and it is complex and difficult to define however, it is clear that the bombings at the Boston Marathon were acts of terrorism.

Having looked at a range of media surrounding the attack it is fair to say that tourism is not likely to be affected very much and people are not being put off visiting the area. The Boston Marathon is expected to run in 2014 and has the potential to attract greater numbers of tourists taking part in the race or as spectators. The event will hold greater importance than in previous years with people wanting to show support for the city and the community of Boston. The question arises as to whether people will be put off visiting next year through fear of future terrorist attacks. However, only time will tell if this is the case or not.

There are two main impacts that appear to have been caused as a result of the bombings that took place in Boston which are linked due to them both being to do with security. The first aspect is the fact that security in the United States has been tightened significantly with the changes in rules to do with International students entering the country on student visas. The other is the increased security at all future events whether they are held in the United States or in other countries. The tightening of security at these future events will have a financial impact on the organisers as they will probably have to pay for the extra security measures, whether it is additional security officers or police officers or enhanced CCTV coverage. The cost of doing this is unknown and is going to differ depending on the size and scale of the event.

BBC, (2013), US tightens student visa rules after Boston Bombing [online] Available from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22409193 [accessed: 04.05.2013]

Page, S.J. and Connell, J. (2009) Tourism: A Modern Synthesis. Third edition. London: Cengage Learning

Schaal, D, (2013), Foreign Tourism Boards Urge Travel to in Wake of Marathon Bombing [online]Available from: http://skift.com/2013/05/02/boston-marathon-bombing-36-tourism-boards-urge-travel-to-boston/ [accessed: 05.05.2013]

The reason why I chose to commentate on this discussion paper is because the author has chosen a study topic similar to my own. Yet, the two papers however could not be more different. The author chose to assess how the bombings at the Boston Marathon on 15th April 2013 had an impact on the city at a short term basis and how this incident could potentially play a key role in the reasons for increased security at such events all over the world. The author assessed some interesting arguments displayed within the paper and although sources where given at the end, it was difficult to determine what academic sources and key literature where used to back up these arguments throughout the discussion.

The author introduced the paper by suggesting that in order to assess the impacts the Boston bombings have had on tourism, a description of the term terrorism is required. It was stressed within this paper that previous academics have described terrorism complex and difficult to define. As discussed in my paper, some theorists describe terrorism as a form of political expression (Poland 1988; cited in Sonmez, 1998).
The main bod of this paper describes how, initially, the tourism industry was not directly affected by this incident. It was rather the local economy that suffered in regard to local businesses and residents of the city. The author's research is supported by Bloomberg et al. (2004) who suggests that terrorist attacks can have a major negative impact on an economical perspective at first, but the effect in the long run is short lived.

The next point of this paper I would like to discuss is the way in which the author assessed the media coverage the incident received. The author suggested that it is unlikely that the tourism industry is to suffer on receipt of this incident. It would have been more efficient to find something which backs up this statement such as a news article or other form of literature that can prove how different levels of media coverage can have different impacts on the tourism industry. Further advice would be to suggest why terrorists target such events, (Schneier, 2011) suggests that terrorist attacks generate a maximum amount of media attention.

Overall I found the scope of this paper an interesting subject to read. My paper agrees in some terms that sporting events in certain tourist destinations are higher targets for terrorist attacks. Goldblatt (2005) suggests that Terrorists target such events in order to gain international attention, inflict large amounts of casualties, maximize psychological and economic impact and build coalition support for their cause. It was also interesting to see that the author suggested security issues within the destination could have been a factor leading up to the incident. I would have recommended quoting Beirman (2010) in regards to crisis and risk management to support this argument.

The discussion overall was well structured and it is clear that the author shows keen interest to the study subject. My main advice would be to ensure that use of academic literature is extremely important to back up arguments and opinions within any study in order to provide the reader with facts rather than opinion.

References:
Blomberg, S., Hess, G. and Orphanides, A. (2004) Th
Schneier, B. (2011) Terrorist Targets of Choice. Schneier on Security, [blog] February 4, 2011, Available at: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/02/terrorist_targe.html [Accessed: 12th May 2013].
Sönmez, S. (1998). Tourism, Terrorism and Political Instability. Annals of Tourism Research, 25(2):416

I chose to provide a commentary on this paper due to how recent the terrorist attack on Boston took place. The short-term effects on the cities tourism were an interest of mine and whether or not these attacks had a major impact on the city or not. This paper was also selected because sporting events, such as the Boston marathon have been a target for terrorist activity throughout history (Giulianotti and Klauser, 2012). The reasons behind why they are targets were an interest of mine.

The author of this discussion paper firstly stated that in order to analyse the impacts terrorist attack on the Boston marathon that a definition of terrorism had to be put forward. The author stated that some academics described the area of terrorism to be complex and hold many definitions. However after conducting my own research into the area of terrorism it became apparent that although some authors state that it is difficult to define tourism, there are some authors who provide a definition. Reitan (2010) defines terrorism as a violent act performed in order to install fear into the public and for some form of attention. This shows that the Boston bombings were terrorism attacks as stated within this discussion paper.

This paper outlines how the tourism industry was not initially affected it was however local businesses and local residents who were affected as a result of the Boston bombings. This could be a result of the location of the bombings, these took place in the heart of the city, which meant facilities such as restaurants and hotels were inaccessible ad they were closed off for investigation. This is would result in economic implications for local businesses. The view of the author is backed up by the media who state that although immediately after the attacks that they didn't expect people to go out and book holidays to Boston hat these attacks would not have too much of an impact on the cities tourism on the whole (Travel Weekly 2013).

The next focus of this commentary will be on the author's view that tourism will not be affected in the longer term. Although this commentary is in agreement with this view, the author has not backed this view up with any academic references to support this view. Without academic views to validate this point it is hard to tell whether or not tourism will be affected. It will also be tough to accurately say whether or not tourism will be affected due to how recent the attacks were, it is impossible to conduct a long term study about visitor numbers at this time therefore this is why the view of the author seems to be more opinion than fact.

This discussion was well structured and it was obvious the author was enthusiastic about the subject area. This discussion paper did however lack academic references to back up statements made. An increase in academic literature would validate a lot of the points raised in this paper.


Giulianotti, R., Klauser, F. (2012). Sport mega-events and 'terrorism': A critical analysis. International Review for the Sociology of Sport. 47 (3), 307-323.

Reitan, E. (2010). Defining Terrorism for Public Policy Purposes: The Group-Target Definition. Journal of Moral Philosophy. 10 (2), 253-278.

Travel Weekly. (2013). Bookings expected to dip following Boston bomb blasts. Available: http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/Articles/Details/43753. Last accessed 16/05/2013.