Terrorism, Tourism and the End of Hospitality in the 'West'

"Maximilliano Korstanje's innovative study explores how terrorism and the threat it poses in the post-9/11 world has undermined our traditional understandings of hospitality, tourism and otherness. He explores the intersections and subtle interplay between terrorism and global violence and the tourism and hospitality habits of the affluent. Korstanje reminds those of us living in Western nations of the hypocrisy of flattering ourselves as the welcoming, privileged few. He forces us to confront the reality that the affluent West needs to confront what we are - inhospitable, uncivil folk who have more in common with the denizens of the Capitol as depicted in The Hunger Games than with the heroic tropes with which we view ourselves. We are not defenders of the downtrodden. We are the ugly and boorish glamourists who only care about the suffering of others when we are forced to look at it. Bold and unflinching, Korstanje dissects our global pandemic of fear and mobility-loss in a world chronologically divided between before and after 9/11." (Luke Howie, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, Monash University, Australia) "Terrorism, Tourism and the End of Hospitality in the 'West' is not only an excellent book but also a very important book to read. The world is changing and terrorism is a major issue for western countries but also for the world. This book is therefore timely." (Hugues Seraphin, Associate Professor, University of Winchester, UK) "Tourism is a beneficiary of mobility; terrorism feeds on it, too. The first kneejerk reaction of a terror stricken society is to constrain mobility - not just of people but of also of ideas. In this seminal work, Maximiliano Korstanje examines the death of tourism and, in that process, the end of 'the West' we all assume we are familiar with." (Babu P George, Associate Professor, Fort Hays State University, USA) "Not only professor Korstanje's work deepens on the psychological terror from a political perspective but in the interplay between fear and hospitality. While Europe colonized the world by imposing the sense of hospitality as an instrument to discipline the Other, now terrorism is eroding the basis of hospitality introducing a paralyzing terror." (Freddy Timmermann, Associate Professor, Catholic University Silva Henriquez, Chile)

This book explores how the contemporary threat of terrorism is eroding the concept of hospitality in the West. Going beyond the immediate effects of terrorism that are daily portrayed in the media and have shaped the foreign policy agenda of politicians in Europe and the US, this study explores the conceptual framework of how terrorism emerged and expanded within the West and shows how it interacts with, and targets, leisure consumerism and the international hospitality industry.