Visitor industry needs
to promote security,
expert tells isle group
Tourism makes an ideal target for terrorism, and the visitor industry needs to put more proactive effort into minimizing the risk of an attack, which would have disastrous human and economic consequences, a security expert said yesterday in Waikiki.
For those reasons, security in the tourism industry should be looked at as a marketing effort that contributes to the bottom line, and security staff should be well-paid and highly trained, said Peter Tarlow, a Texas-based tourism security consultant.
"This is a war. Maybe we didn't pick it, but we better not lose it," said Tarlow, who spoke during a daylong tourism conference at the Renaissance Ilikai Waikiki Hotel. City Prosecutor Peter Carlisle also spoke at the event.
Terrorists pick their targets to inflict economic pain, and to grab the media's attention, which can lead to the catastrophic downfall of any travel destination, Tarlow said. Some 33 people died of SARS in Toronto, and hotel occupancy plunged as a result of the media attention, he said.
Terrorists look for targets that have "iconic" value, with mass economic damage and deaths, Tarlow said. Sept. 11 was an attack on the nation's economy, in that light.
The 20-year-old college student who planted box cutters and fake explosives in Southwest Airlines airplanes should get a national medal of honor for revealing security lapses, Tarlow said.
"He pointed out something that we didn't want to know," he said.
Nathaniel Heatwole has been charged in the incident and faces up to 10 years in prison.
Tourism is a target for those who want to strike at Western culture because tourism is big business, it's a big job center for women and it promotes understanding between cultures, Tarlow said. He did not elaborate on other attacks, but the bombing this year of an American-run Marriott hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, and a bombing in Bali last year show that terrorism already has hit tourist areas.
Safety matters to Hawaii's travelers, notably the Japanese, and perception about safety is everything, Tarlow said. El Al Israel Airlines promotes its security, he noted. "Perception is not reality, but people function as if it were reality," he said.
