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The present chapter has reviewed the opportunities and limitations of the Russian Federation to situate as a leading international destination. There are significant methodological and conceptual issues during the assessment of the world countries and regions safety level. They are caused by lack of the universal assessment method of such risks, incompleteness of the risk criteria taken into consideration, subjective assessment factors, and occasional substitution of the risk factors with the political–competitive ones. Still, the safety issue is one of the most important for a modern tourist. The available information resources, providing their own safety level assessment of the world countries and regions for travellers, differ between them in terms of the selected categories, specified safety levels of the countries and regions and also in terms of understanding and details of the travel risk notion itself. But the greatest challenge for an ordinary tourist, who does not have experience in searching specialised information, is to become familiar with these information resources.

The aim of this chapter was to investigate aspects of risks that are associated with tropical destinations and to develop a model that may be used to classify tourists according to the level of risk they were prepared to engage in. Overall, the level of perceived risk was small with sunburn found to be the risk factor showing the highest level of concern followed by animal-related risks and illnesses. The findings suggest that tourists can be classified into three distinct groups based on the level of risk they are prepared to accept in activities found in a tropical destination: low-risk takers; moderate risk takers; and risk takers. From a destination marketing perspective the findings suggest that while concerns about risk are not particularly high tourists are aware of risks that may be encountered in tropical destinations and attention needs to be given to strategies to minimise the level of risk exposure faced by tourists.

Tourism and crime are closely related phenomena, and security is one of the basic preconditions for the functioning of tourism since tourists and tourist areas have many characteristics that make them vulnerable to crime. In this chapter are presented the actual (objective) risk of crime and tourists victimization, visible in statistics on committed crimes and crime victims surveys, and the perceived (subjective) risk of crime, recorded in surveys conducted with tourists. The characteristics which influence the actual and perceived risk of crime and violence are presented by analysing three key elements in the relationship between tourism and crime: (1) tourist (these characteristics are classified as socio-demographic, socio-cultural and psychological); (2) trip (characteristics are the purpose of the trip, travel party, and stage of the trip); and (3) destination (characteristics are crime rates in destination, the occurrence of crime by place and time, type of accommodation and length of stay).

The concept of risk perception in tourism has long been studied and debated, being commonly approached as a multidimensional construct. Physical risk is one of the most common dimensions of perceived risk, covering numerous tourists' concerns. Given the extent of the items included in the physical risk dimension, the study aims to overview this topic, analysing different aggregated risks, presenting a schematic representation based on an extensive literature review that a posteriori was categorized into three groups: human-made, mixed and natural. The aim was to introduce a broader and more precise understanding of the physical risks in tourism.

The twenty-first century has been characterized by the intensification of concerns related to tourism safety and security. These issues are playing an increasingly significant role over recent years, due to the increase of terrorist attacks in several countries, political instability, natural disasters, epidemics and, more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding tourist safety and security in the tourism context is, thus, critical to increasing the competitiveness and attractiveness of tourist destinations.

Through the bibliometric methods of performance analysis and science mapping, this study aims to contribute to the advancement of knowledge on tourist safety and security at the destination.

A total of 445 records published between 1989 and 2021, covering 191 academic journals and 1,000 authors from 91 different countries, were analysed.

The main findings show that this research field has attracted a substantial and growing interest of researchers, institutions, journals and countries. Opportunities for future research are related to decision making, tourist behaviour, risk perception, tourism safety, destination image, safety engineering and sustainable development.

In the post-pandemic context, this research field can be critical to providing a set of tailored strategies to improve tourists' safe destination environment and increase tourism destinations' competitiveness and attractiveness.

The scourge of terrorism has situated as one of the major risks and concerns for policy makers and authorities in the Western hemisphere. The attacks to WTC marked not only a first attack in the US soil but the prelude of a set of attacks perpetrated in the European urban metropolises. Over years, the classic literature punctuated on the negative impact of terrorism in the tourist destination. Recently, some voices have questioned this assumption holding that under some conditions the tourist demands recover to the earlier levels before the crisis. This chapter discusses critically not only the differentiation between risks and threats but also the different faces of terrorism. We also propose a model based on three dimensions: terrorism as a risk, terrorism as a threat and terrorism as a worry. As a conceptual model, the resulted hypotheses and ideas should be empirically validated in next layouts.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the recent changes in the role played by Africa as a traditional natural resources supplier for the world economy in a multipolar context. We highlight, on the one hand, how Africa remains a prominent supplier of critical minerals needed for information and communication technologies (ICT), including platinum, vanadium, coltan, chromium, manganese, zirconium, etc., and how the boomerang effect results in Africa also importing electronic waste. On the other hand, we show how the BRICS’ growth model, based on a very intensive use of natural resources acquired through international trade, is now being fuelled by Africa too. BRICS countries (especially China and India) are making foreign direct investments in Africa using their state companies to ensure the supply of natural resources under favourable economic terms. Thus, Africa appears as a disputed territory between the old domination of the advanced capitalist countries and emerging powers like the BRICS. However, this should not mask the fact that the European Union and North America are still the dominant foreign powers in the continent. Finally, we discuss which scenarios are open to further this multipolar moment, particularly in the wake of the great crisis.

This chapter discusses the current risk perception literature in the tourism field. The chapter critiques the literature and offers a solution through a more conceptual and operational definition of risk perceptions. Specifically, the inclusion of affective risk perceptions will be added to the literature via the risk-as-feelings hypothesis. Extension of the current literature will enhance research moving forward.

The chapter will provide a literature review, propose a conceptual model, and operationalize the risk perception variables.

The outcome of this chapter is to provide a conceptual model as a framework to address risk perception studies in tourism and hospitality in the future. The model will provide clear measurement scales to be tested.

This chapter gives a much needed theoretical and conceptual foundation to the study of risk perceptions in the travel and tourism literature.