Micaela Pacheco

Junior Seminar, pd 3
Mrs. Hanson
6/13/16
SIP Research Proposal
Tourism is the engine that drives the economy of this state. These are good jobs.Theyre family
supporting jobs.- Anonymous
Tourism is such an important sector in many countries economies especially those with
little resources, such as France. What happens when the tourism sector is threatened and attacked
by outside forces?When cultural hubs are assailed by extremists, are people willing to go to them
after knowing there may be a threat to their safety? With the growth of the middle class in the
20th century and the new travel innovations created, it has become easier for people to travel all
around the world. Paris, France is one of the biggest tourist destinations with around a whopping
32.3 million people coming into the city of lights in 2013.
In the course of the last century, a rise in Islamic extremism has become apparent and in
2015 there were two terrorist attacks done by these Islamic fundamentalist. the first one being in
the 7th of January, when a pair of brothers stormed into the office space of the newspaper Charlie
Hebdo, killing twelve and injuring eleven. The second attack occurred on the 13th of November,
in which a groups of terrorists spread throughout the city and struck the city with the use of
assault weapons and bombs. This left 130 people dead (excluding the seven perpetrators who
committed suicide) and 367 injured. Like New York following the 9/11 attack, the city of Paris
has been changed forever and the effects of terrorism will be seen in all aspects of life.

For my Senior Independent Project, I would like to focus on the effects that the terrorist
attacks had on the city of Paris economically, socially, and in the international viewpoint. My
project will attempt to answer if and how Paris changed as a result of the terrorist action in
regards to its tourist sector.
To go about finding information for my topic, I will use academic journals for
background research on the origins and psychology of terrorism and tourism, recent articles on
parisians today, data centers to find statistics,and find book on french culture and immigration. I
will be relying heavily on the Paris tourist office, World Bank, and World Tourist Organization
for major data, along with some private companies that do tourism data as well. For the effects
that cannot be measured quantitatively like how the Parisians are changing their personal image
and how they may be increasing safety measures, I will be using newspaper articles and if
possible personal anecdotes/ interviews since there are no scholarly journals to use in this case
since it is so recent. Books on French culture and on how cities rebuild after tragedies would also
be used.
I expect that my answer to my question will be that the tourist sector has fallen in the
months following the attacks causing a major monetary loss to business owners who depend on
tourist activity and to the Parisian economy as a whole since tourism is their greatest grossing
industry. Paris will change culturally too, I suspect there may be a decrease in tourists coming
from the Middle East due to fear of denied entry to the country and overall resentment to the
Syrian refugees. I am basing this on common actions that happen after a terrorist attack, mainly
using my references to the events following 9/11.
Since my topic is so recent, there may be some lack of intellectual writing. Also due to
the fact that there is so little of intellectual writing in my specific topic, I will need to rely heavily

on newspaper articles and anecdotes. This may prove to be controversial since these are
sometimes biased. In order to deter these problems from happening, I will make sure the articles
I choose are from non-biased sources and have substantial evidence to back their claims. In
relation to anecdotes, I will make sure it comes from non-biased people.
I will start my project with background of the growing industry of tourism and the
growing threat of terrorism. I will then talk about the relationship between terrorism and tourism
and how they interconnect and how potential tourists analyze the risks versus the rewards of
traveling. Later I will go in depth on the attacks and then talk about the economic effects it had
on the city. I will later go and see how the demographics of the tourists have changed and how
the people of Paris have changed in relation to their overall lifestyle. I would like to end on how
and if Paris will be restructuring their international policies and providing security for the city.
Overall, I will want to show how the tourism industry and city of Paris, this major cultural hub,
has been changed by these attacks.