By
Dr. Deepak Gupta
,
Prof. Divya Gupta
,
Dr. Pradeep Aggarwal
Corresponding Author Dr. Deepak Gupta
Wayne State University, - United States of America
Submitting Author Dr. Deepak Gupta
Other Authors
Prof. Divya Gupta
Department of Anaesthesiology and Pain Management, Himalayan Institute of Medical Sciences, - India
Dr. Pradeep Aggarwal
Department of Community and Family Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences Rishikesh, - India
Conference Tourism, Crime Prevention, Personal Safety
Gupta D, Gupta D, Aggarwal P. Dangerous Conference Tourism: A Family Of Authors' Perspective. WebmedCentral ANAESTHESIA 2022;13(9):WMC005794
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No
My opinion
Over the past decade, one of the authors has completely forgone conference tourism to tourists' conferences but none had seemed to follow in author’s footsteps [1]. Then the pandemic happened. Ironically, the authors were relieved that pandemic had forcibly percolated the change globally. However, virtual conference tourism evolved and bloated webinars with gloated attendance begin getting out of control. This overboard virtual tourism may already be exploding into unabashed in-person conference tourism especially since pandemic mitigation measures have been relaxed. Humans will always seek what they feel like seeking for whichever reason they feel like seeking what they are seeking. However, the question remains whether they are prepared for what their pursuits entail. Keen and eager tourists restlessly flocking to conferences may be overlooking the dangers outside even if outside always has been dangerous per William Goldman’s dialogues in Absolute Power (1997) [2]. Still, it may be worth refreshing their memory and bringing to their awareness what dangers in-person conference tourism entail and how well-prepared they are to deal with them when touring to attend in-person conferences. Firstly, they are leaving the comforts of known places to tour unknown places unless the known places are not as comfortable as they are presumed to be. Secondly, they are leaving behind kin to meet strangers unless their kin themselves are stranger to them. Finally, they are planning to get overwhelmed with travel experiences to attend in-person conferences among strangers at unknown places unless virtual conference tourism is already overwhelming them and their kin within the confines of their known places. Summarily, conference tourists may be in need of a dangerous but welcome break from pandemic-enforced social isolation because the existential urge for human connection may have evolved to be strong enough to overlook the balancing need for human protection when evolution leading to natural selection of human beings as supreme species on earth must have seen survival benefit for their genes in human connection which in itself must have endowed them with human protection. However, during this overdue break to mandatorily or voluntarily attend small scale administrative meetings to global scale international conferences, vulnerable conference tourists must follow crime-prevention and personal-safety guidelines as issued by conference tourism industry in their own rational self-interest [3-7].
Reference(s)
- Gupta D, Mazumdar A, Singh J, Stellini M: Conference tourism or tourists' conference for students of medicine: a perspective. J Palliat Med 2013; 16:7-8
- Drew's Script-O-Rama: Absolute Power Script - Dialogue Transcript. w ww.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/a/absolute-power-script-transcript-eastwood.html Accessed September 8, 2022
- United Nations: Office on Drugs and Crime: Crime Prevention. https://www.uno dc.org/unodc/en/justice-and-prison-reform/CrimePrevention.html Accessed September 8, 2022
- U.S. Department of State - Bureau of Consular Affairs: Women Travelers. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international -travel/before-you-go/travelers-with-special-considerations/women-travelers.html Accessed September 8, 2022
- U.S. Department of State - Bureau of Consular Affairs: High-Risk Area Travelers. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/internati onal-travel/before-you-go/travelers-with-special-considerations/high-risk-travelers.html Accessed September 8, 2022
- Pacific Asia Travel Association: Best Practices in Tourism Security, Risk Management and Crisis Recovery, Part 1 https://www.pata.org/blog/best-practices-in-tourism-security-risk-management-and-crisis-r ecovery-part-1 Accessed September 8, 2022
- Pacific Asia Travel Association: Best Practices in Tourism, Security, Risk Management and Crisis Recovery, Part 2. https://www.pata.org/blog/best-practices-in-tourism-security-risk-management-and-crisis-r ecovery-part-2 Accessed September 8, 2022
Source(s) of Funding
NOT APPLICABLE
Competing Interests
NOT APPLICABLE