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According to a leading traveler’s sentiment survey, more than one-third of experienced travelers are now more concerned about civil unrest and terrorism in 2024 than illness, accidents, or injury.
In the Winter 2024 Global Rescue Traveler Sentiment and Safety Survey, more than a third of travelers (36%) reported civil unrest and terrorism are the biggest concerns during global trips, reflecting a three-fold increase compared to spring 2023.
A quarter of respondents (25%) said having an accident or illness during a trip was their greatest fear, a significant decrease from spring 2023 when half of travelers (50%) reported suffering an injury or getting sick was their biggest concern.
A third of respondents (34%) said the war in Ukraine, the Hamas attacks on Israel, or other violent conflicts make it more likely they will add security extraction and advisory protection to their travel protection packages should they buy one before a trip.
In some ways, travelers are right to take action to protect and insure themselves. Two key global indices show that there’s reason to be concerned about the political, civil, and military climates around the world.
The finance data collection firm Maplecroft publishes the often-reported Civil Unrest Index, and in their 2022 edition, they reported that “48 countries registered a significant uptick in risk throughout 2022, the biggest ever annual rise recorded in the index”.
A total of 25 countries registered a significant uptick in risk on the [index] throughout the year, including Pakistan, Serbia, Italy, and Peru.
“As the social pressure cooker proves increasingly unable to contain the discontent of populations facing protracted economic hardship, the frequency and magnitude of the backlash against political institutions will remain near boiling point throughout 2023,” Verisk Maplecroft’s Chief Analyst, Jimena Blanco, told their in house reporting team. “It is likely no region will be spared, but the Americas will be particularly hard hit”.
By Q1 2023, civil unrest was continuing to rise. Maplecroft also measured global conflict risk, and found that “2022 was a year defined by conflict at a global level,” and that “26 countries saw a significant uptick in risk on the index over the past year, compared to just three across 2021,” with particular emphasis on Myanmar, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Mali, Russia, and Ukraine. Though the report didn’t extend this far, it’s safe to place Palestine, Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon right there next to Ukraine as well.
A slight deception
While civil unrest is climbing according to Maplecroft, terrorism, the other stated concern of world travelers, is also somewhat climbing. The Institute for Economics and Peace publishes the Global Terrorism Index, and though it states that terrorism is increasing as a percentage of worldwide fatalities, there’s reason to be more hopeful about terrorism.
In 2023, deaths from terrorism increased 22% to their highest level since 2017, though the number of incidents has declined, and the number is somewhat inflated from the oversized impact of the October 7th jailbreak by Hamas, the single largest terrorist attack in the world since 9/11.
Another reason the rate and number of deaths are not necessarily much to worry about for world travelers is that at the top of the list of countries with the largest number of deaths from terrorism is Burkina Faso, one of the world’s poorest and most dysfunctional countries. Nearly a fourth of all the terrorist attacks in 2023 occurred in this small West African country. Mali and Niger, two West African neighbors, have also experienced rising rates of terrorism in lockstep.
However even as this part of the world becomes more dangerous, and it was found to be the most dangerous, other parts begin to improve. Iraq was ranked outside the top ten countries for terrorist act incidents for the first time since IEP started keeping track. Total terrorist deaths have fallen more than 99% since their peak in 2007. Afghanistan has also seen a significant improvement in the impact of terrorism, with deaths and incidents falling 84% and 75% respectively since 2007. She still sits 6th highest on the IEP’s world ranking, but just for context, India is 14th—a country that attracts tens of millions of foreign visitors every year, and Iran, a nation with one of the highest rates of politically motivated incarceration of foreigners, is 26th.
In and around these two reference points are Colombia (16th), Chile (17th), Thailand (28th), and the United States (30th).
“Terrorism in the West has fallen to its lowest level in 15 years,” the GTI reads. “There were 23 attacks recorded in the West in 2023, a 55% drop from the prior year, and considerably lower than the peak of 176 attacks that was recorded in 2017. Sixteen of those attacks occurred in the United States”.
Differing from travel insurance, Global Rescue is a world leader in providing medical, security, evacuation, travel risk, and crisis management services to individuals, expeditions, and others. Along with these large surveys, Global Rescue prepares Destination Reports on over 200 countries and territories, highlighting important aspects such as the geopolitical situation, shortcomings in the medical system, and extreme weather forecasts.
The last insight that travelers might glean from the GTI is somewhat of an obvious one—that 98% of all terrorist attacks in the world occur in countries experiencing armed conflict, suggesting that by steering clear of these few nations, the risk of getting caught in a terrorist’s crosshairs plummets.
The Winter 2024 Global Rescue Traveler Sentiment and Safety Survey shows that 66% of international travelers surveyed have plans to take a trip to somewhere they’ve never been. Understanding risks is important, not only regarding where risks are present, but equally regarding where they are not. WaL
PICTURED ABOVE: A protest in Tangier against government-mandated vaccination. PC: Andrew Corbley ©
