TABLE OF CONTENTS Nevenka Cavlek
Learning Objectives
To discuss the importance of tour operators in international tourism development.
To be able to explain the behavior of tour operators towards destinations in a time of crisis.
To identify the role and significance of tour operators in the recovery of destinations affected by a crisis on the international tourism market.
To be able to describe the role of tour operators in creating an image of a tourism destination in the minds of both their potential clients and individual tourists.
To understand why the image created by tour operators may not always reflect the real situation in the destination.
Peace, safety, and security are the primary conditions for the normal tourism development of a destination, region, or country and thus are the basic determinants of its growth. Without them, destinations cannot successfully compete on the generating markets, even if they present in their marketing campaigns the most attractive and best quality natural and built attractions. Tourism contributes to peace as much as it benefits from it (Savignac, 1994). According to Pizam (1999, p. 5), every minute of every day a crime or a violent act occurs at a destination somewhere in the world. At the same time, it would be difficult to deny that many types of safety risks coexist in everyone s daily life and within tourism as well. However, an important difference exists: people are rarely in a position to change their place of living, but nothing can force them to spend...
