ancient cities

they do not leave the tourists’ experience to chance.
New reservation systems, computer technology,
international quality standards, and coordinated
investment by financial institutions and corporations
have vastly expanded the reach of tourism providers.
They market destinations and tour packages, provide
information and advice, and coordinate different
modes of travel and lodging, dining, sightseeing,
and cultural activities.
Many people have expressed concerns about the
quality of the jobs created by the growth of the
tourism industry. Although the jobs associated with
tourism tend to be low-wage, tourism is also laborintensive,
and thus it creates a large number of jobs,
especially entry-level opportunities for new immigrants
and people with few skills. However, the
employment profile of tourism varies enormously
from place to place. In New York City, for example,
hotel maids are paid far above the national minimum
wage. In Las Vegas, many workers in the
gaming industry consider their jobs to be careers
with good opportunities. In places without unions,
however, tourism tends to produce a large proportion
of seasonal and minimum-wage jobs.
Adventure and eco-tourism now penetrates every
part of the globe; any place can now be visited, for
a fee. Repressive regimes, war, and terrorism now
seem to be the only effective deterrents to intrepid
travelers. Tourism is vulnerable to social disorder
because it relies on the unimpeded movement of
large numbers of people; tourists stand out garishly
in many circumstances, and so they are obvious
targets; and tourists are extremely risk-averse.
The Future
The attacks of September 11, 2001, dealt a devastating
blow to the travel industry all over the
world. All airlines in the United States were
grounded for two days following the attacks, and
air travel declined sharply. It took several months
for air travel to return to previous levels in much
of the world. In the United States, it took much
longer for tourism to rebound. Globally, the places
affected most adversely by the attacks were those
highly dependent on industries connected to travel
and tourism. The experience of U.S. cities illustrates
this fact. The cities most deeply affected
were Las Vegas, followed by Myrtle Beach, South
Carolina, a beach resort more dependent on
Tourism
821
restaurant jobs than any other city in the nation
and with a clustering of nearby theme parks.
The 1990 Irish Republican Army bombing in
the center city of Birmingham, the sarin gas attack
in the Tokyo metro by Aum Shinrikyo in 1995,
and the 9/11 attacks make security a high priority
for tourist destinations everywhere. Airlines have
been forced to pay special attention to security and
surveillance, and similar vigilance is exercised by
tourism providers such as hotels. Because they are
uniquely vulnerable, because they hold targets of
high symbolic value to terrorists, and because they
are centers of international media networks, global
cities are especially vulnerable.
The vulnerability of the travel-related industries
to social disorder and terrorism may make it
appear that tourism is less stable and more subject
to sudden downturns than other economic sectors.
There is little evidence for this assumption, however.
Tourism has become so embedded in the lives
of ordinary people that though they may change
their travel habits, they are not likely to stop being
tourists. A huge worldwide tourism industry has
become an essential feature of economies everywhere.
Tourism is here to stay.
See also Las Vegas, Nevada; Resort; Themed
Environments; Tourism; Venice, Italy
Further Readings
Dennis R. Judd
Black, Jeremy. 1997. British Abroad: The Grand Tour in
the Eighteenth Century. London: Alan Sutton.
———. 2003. Italy and the Grand Tour. New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press.
Bruner, Edward M. 2004. Culture on Tour:
Ethnographies of Travel. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Chambers, Erve. 1999. Native Tours: The Anthropology
of Travel and Tourism. Long Grove, IL: Waveland
Press.
Davis, Robert C. and Garry Marvin. 2004. Venice, the
Tourist Maze: A Cultural Critique of the World’s
Most Touristed City. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Gmelch, Sharon Bohn, ed. 2004. Tourists and Tourism:
A Reader. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.
Judd, Dennis R. and Susan S. Fainstein, ed. 1999. The
Tourist City. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.