Travel Smart

It seems to me that with terrorism growing in the world, some people might think that the Travel and Tourism industry is dying. Let me prove you wrong.

Folks have always traveled and are traveling and will be travelling – including me. It is in our nature, in our blood, in our DNA!

We started to travel to find better land for farming and to be able to live next to a river. We traveled intentionally to discover new continents and we traveled not intentionally to come as slaves to those new continents. We continue to travel inside our own countries to look for better jobs. Now, we keep immigrating and refuging to countries with bigger economical potential. We travel for both business and pleasure.

Terrorism did hit our planet hard for these last couple of years and destroyed lives and hopes of many people across different continents. We all were watching news and shaking our heads when the Paris, Brussels, Orlando, Istanbul, Manchester, Nice, Las Vegas etc. attacks happened.

These events surely made some people change their outlook on traveling as some of these attacks happened in major international airports. A splash of Zika virus affected other traveler’s decisions for those who were planning to visit Latin America.

Is there someone working intentionally on decreasing the tourism popularization or is it just a consequence of other bigger issues in the world!?

It hurts to think that no one will soon have a chance to walk through the oldest capital city in the world – Damask, Syria as it is in ruins from the current war. It is painful to realize that Ukraine is losing its tourism on the Azov Sea as the war took over Eastern Ukraine. The civil war in Egypt didn’t destroy their tourism but it had a devastating impact on it. For countries like Tunis, Morocco and Turkey tourism is one of the main sources of income and it is sad to acknowledge that their developing economies are losing money because of attacks.

Tourism, however, always has fascinating ways of coming back and creating new kinds of tourism such as extreme tourism. A great example of this kind of tourism will be guided tours to Pripyat – Chernobyl, a nuclear reactor’s town in Ukraine. There will always be explorers that want to feel the mystery of a ghost town on their own goosebumped skin.

One thing I know for sure is that nothing will ever stop a true traveler from going places even if it includes viruses, active volcanoes, wars and terrorist attacks.

That being said, safety should always come first when it comes to travelling and that is why you should use a knowledgeable travel agent instead of booking travel on your own.

Travel smart and stay safe!