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The Effects of Global Terrorism on the Events Industry

Many people consider the impacts on industries that are directly related to the terrorist actions, such as the insurance industry. However, few consider the impact on an industry such as the events industry. While some people may not be able to see a link to the events industry as strongly as to an industry such as the airline industry, it is there. While there are many different types of events they all have some aspects in common. They all need attendees in order to occur or at least occur more than once. In order for an event to be successful people need to be drawn to the event and motivated to attend. There are many different factors that can persuade people to attend an event, but one of the main factors is whether they can get to the location of the event.

The ability to travel to an event for any attendee has now been seen to be endangered by Global terrorism. This is especially felt in regard to air travel since the tragic events in New York in 2001 which have lead to such huge changes throughout the world. People no longer feel as confident traveling to other countries on airplanes and as therefore less likely to attend events that require them to make use of that form of transport. Other forms of transport are also perceived as dangerous to use when traveling to an event in different areas of the world. This then limits the number of people who are willing to travel to a particular event, in particular well known people who may fear that they will be targeted during their journey to an event.

Global terrorism’s effects may not be overtly visible, but they have lead to a curtailment of a completely carefree way of life. Many people can also fear to attend an event as it may be a magnet for terrorists who wish to make a statement by disrupting the event. The disrupting of a particular event due to the forces of global terrorism can take many forms. These forms could include protesting particular actions of parties associated of the event. Otherwise it could take the more dangerous form of violently targeting parties attending the event. This has lead to many people avoiding any event where many people are gathered or where subjects related to the event are seen as controversial by terrorist organizations.

Different events may carry a different level of risk for people attending them so a meeting of government agencies may be far more likely to be targeted than a musical event in a park. The importance or perceived importance of a particular event can also determine whether it could be targeted. The thought of being targeted by global terrorism is enough to prevent people from attending any event, which has lead to a great decline of many different types of events that may previously been well attended, particularly by people who are not local to the area. This has lead to a direct link between declining fortunes of the events industry and global terrorism

You may find these further resources of use:

Terrorism Research Center: Founded in 1996, the Terrorism Research Center, Inc. (TRC) is an independent institute dedicated to the research of terrorism, information warfare and security, critical infrastructure protection, homeland security, and other issues of low-intensity political violence and gray-area phenomena.

Terrorism: Hyperlinked encyclopedia article includes definitions, groups and incidents.