The most recent kidnapping incident in Yemen involving a Dutch couple brought back the old question about how safe is it anyway to visit the Middle East, specifically Yemen.
Questions about tourism security in Yemen are misinformed at best. Brazil and Colombia have the highest rates of kidnappings in the world, yet that’s not the first picture that pops to mind when thinking about an exotic vacation to Rio.
2008 Carnival in Rio de Janeiro (Attrib: Photo by sfmission.com provided on flickr under CC attribution license)
Research by the London-based ‘Control Risks Group‘ shows that between 1992 to 2000, only 52 people were reported as ‘kidnapped’ in Yemen. That’s about 6 people a year during the height of the kidnapping era in Yemen back in the 90′s.*
During the same 8 years, Colombia reported 5300 kidnappings, and Brazil reported 521. That’s an average of 2 people EVERY DAY in Colombia, and 65 people kidnapped annually in Brazil. The USA had 155 reported kidnappings, nearly 3 times the number of people kidnapped in Yemen during the same period.*
What’s worse is that since the year 2000, Yemen’s rate of kidnapping has steadily declined, while Brazil and Colombia went up. In 2003, Colombia averaged 10* kidnappings per day!
Yemen is the Biblical land of the Queen of Sheba, and purported ‘Cradle of Humanity’. Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t want to check out scantly clad Brazilians in fantastic costumes parading the streets of Rio to hot Latin music during carnival. But please don’t raise your eye brow when you (or someone you know) are considering a visit to Yemen.
Just remember that on any given day, you are a thousand times more likely to be the victim of violence in Rio than you would be in Sana’a, the capitol city of Yemen.
(Concert infront of the old city in Sana'a, Yemen)
Here is a video from a tourist’s recent visit to Yemen. I found this on YouTube and it is the only video I have seen so far that captures the ‘essence’ of Sana’a like no doctored tourism video has ever been able to: the people, the noise, the architecture, the dust, the customs, the smell, and the utter simplicity wrapped in cultural complexity.
(* Source: “Meeting the Challenges of Global Terrorism” – Dilip K. Das, Peter C. Kratcoski, 2003.)
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Greg H.
The history buff in me read this article and was immediately reminded of October 1970. The FLQ crisis, which was sparked by two high profile kidnappings, resulted in the invocation of the War Measures Act.
Canada was a very safe place, but the image of military ‘policing’ Quebec affected our international reputation for years after. This image was not helped by widespread confusion about the difference between the War Measures Act and Martial Law – much of the world thought that Canada was so crazy that Martial Law had to be declared!!
Flash forward nearly forty years and something very similar is happening in Yemen. Yemen is a relatively safe nation, yet mainstream media most often paints it as a terrorist hotbed that we should just avoid. Statistically speaking, you are significantly more likely to die in a car accident than you are to be kidnapped while visiting Yemen.
As an exercise in strategic thinking/strategic public relations, what would you do if you were in charge of public relations for Yemen Tourism?
issmat
Thanks for your comment Greg. You are correct; Yemen’s tourism predicament is largely a PR issue.
One of the things I would do is engage in strategies that create good word of mouth and positive press in the travel and tourism world. Those strategies can include sponsoring familiarization tours (fam-tours) for select members of the international press who write and review tourist destinations. I would also invite prominent bloggers on this tour to make sure that my ‘social media’ angle is covered. Online reviews are cheaper, have a much wider reach, and are accessible to readers for a lot longer than a review in a daily newspaper.
Furthermore, I would have a dedicated person/department that lobbies for shows to be filmed in Yemen. If pop-culture media is causing the bad PR, then pop-culture media should be used to counter that bad PR.
We have shows like Amazing Race that are followed by millions of people who later fantasize about visiting those exotic locations featured on these and other similar shows. Can someone say “Survivor: Yemen”??
Viral campaigns work too. The “Where the hell is Matt” viral video by Matt Harding showed him dancing around the world near famous and not-so-famous landmarks of various countries. It was an international sensation and had everyone in the world forwarding it to everyone they knew.
His 2008 Stride-Gum sponsored repeat of the dance YouTube Video featured Yemen. Sure, Yemen’s selected landmark was on the video for all of 3 seconds, but over 20 Million people watched that video last year alone. That didn’t cost Yemen’s Ministry of Tourism a dime!
Tourism departments in many countries spend a lot of money trying to schmooze TV, Movie, and Documentary producers to feature their locales in productions. These features seem to work very well for developing countries that may not have the all the formula elements that traditional tourist destinations have. If it weren’t for travel shows on Discovery, Oasis, National Geographic, and other similar channels, many of these poorer smaller nations would never be on the tourism map. Thai Temples, Kenyan Safaris, Indian Slums… etc.
If the media hadn’t sent someone off the beaten path to capture and romanticize those parts of the world, most people would still be thinking “Kenya = Famine”, “India = elephants and monkeys”, and “Thailand = China”. Now, if the existing stereotype about any country is positive to their tourism goals, all the better! Don’t mess with something that ain’t broken.
Unfortunately for Yemen, the existing stereotype is quite devastating to tourism. So the country needs to take a more active role in changing those perceptions and seek (or pay for) those types of expeditions and shows and reviews to be done about the country.
issmat
Here is an example of one of those ‘online reviews’ by an allegedly independent traveler on a travel website.
http://hoteliermiddleeast.com/article-4314-no_regrets_in_yemen/1/
I say ‘allegedly’ because the article is too polished. It hits all the sales messages, and yet is made to sound like a first person account. I never heard of any independent reviewers who have little to no complaints about what they are reviewing. Besides, the article doesn’t even mention who the author is.
Then again, maybe that’s just the cynic in me talking. This article could very well be written by the perfect reviewer from Dubai, who happened to have the perfect experience in Yemen just before the summer holiday season in the Gulf.
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Just bring a gun, I don’t think they will kidnap you if you have a AK-47
JK