tourism v terrorism..

back in my days in university i did a study on the impacts of terrorism on tourism and it was certainly interesting..

i could have probably learned more from the last 7 days than i did from the whole semester i spent back then..

(a) korean airlines have suspended all direct flights to israel citing security concerns.. KA have long been one of the cheapest options for people to get between australia and israel obviously via seoul.. and now this line is frozen..

(b) hotels all over israel have announced rock bottom rates attempting to mitigate the adverse impacts of cancellations..

(c) people have been closely watching hot spots around the country particularly in terms of arab israeli riots marking trendy venues in mixed population zones as potentially unsafe and hence lessening the normal and regular mixing of our populations - and dwindling the fuel of our co-existence..

(d) cheap regional vacation destinations such as turkey are now facing the threat of being boycotted by hundreds of thousands of israeli vacationers given that outrageous demands of turkish officials as well as the brutal protests against israel.. turkish jews (not israelis) were most recently targeted wheth they were basically publicly requested to apologise for "everything" and especially for being ungrateful after having migrated generations ago from spain and for having established themselves as wealthy families in turkey.. what is that about..

(e) our international ariport was under the threat of attack twice in the last couple weeks as rockets were sent over from gaza - delaying flights - and obviously terrorising travellers..

(f) people who came over have left earlier..

(g) tourists who are hear and who arent shortening their stays are obviously less inclined to go out and have fun and even if they are - less options are available as many business owners are operating on an irregular basis due to the constraints of war..

obviously most of the direct impacts are money related as the economic benefits of productive tourism favour all of us one way or another but thats presumably somewhat fixable over time.. euqally of concern are the lost opportunities to bring people closer together.. much of the international tourism that comes to israel also visits holy sites in the territories and visits israeli arab establishments as well.. the interactions between people.. the smiles.. the trust.. the warmth.. the sharing.. all of that is suspended.. just so we can show eachother who can outkill who..