Protests and tourism crises. A social movement approach to causality

Abstract

Research into tourism crises to date has largely focused on management and resolution applications. However, theoretical analyses of these crises also need to focus on exogenous economic and sociopolitical events that produce such crises rather than only on ways to manage or resolve them. This study analysed social movements – in particular protests involving conflict – as a causal agent of tourism crises. The research highlighted the characteristics of violent social movements that are important to defining the scope and magnitude of tourism crises, differentiating these movements’ effects from those of other causal agents. Social movements have a multiplier effect, recurrence potential and associations with uncertainty and high-risk issues, which are factors that can significantly shape the severity of tourism crises. Based on a social movement approach, these results were drawn from an analysis of recent teachers’ protests and their effects on the tourism industry in a Mexican destination.