Last week 17 tourists were killed by gunmen in Tunisia. You probably heard about it as it was all over the news.
You probably remember the case of Natalee Holloway who disappeared in 2005 in Aruba. You remember it because it was all over the news.
Every year there are one or two news stories about some British or Australian citizen facing execution in a Southeast Asian country for smuggling drugs. When this happens it is all over the news.
Certainly everyone can remember the Malaysia Air flight 370 which disappeared, or more recently the crash of Germanwings Flight 9525.
Tourist tragedy has become one of the go to stories for any cable news outlet. Travel tragedy can fill up days or even weeks of a 24-hour news cycle. When these travel related stories aren’t in the news, there is usually some other catastrophe which is playing out in the media. ISIS, ebola, fighting in Ukraine, are just some of the most recent examples of the media feeding fears about the rest of the world.
When I was recently in Haiti, I asked many people what they knew about Haiti and they didn’t know much beyond natural disasters and civil strife.
“Have a safe trip” has replaced “Have a nice trip” or “Bon Voyage” in our lexicon when someone leaves on a trip.
