Sanctions crisis and tourism destinations

This chapter examines how sanctions reshape tourism across economic, social, and symbolic domains. It reviews research showing that restrictions on finance, trade, mobility, and information flows reduce international arrivals, limit investment, disrupt aviation networks, and weaken supply chains. Drawing on macro-econometric studies and destination-level investigations, the chapter identifies four principal channels of impact, financial, sectoral, diplomatic, and individual, and shows how these pressures extend into macroeconomic conditions, direct and indirect industry linkages, and household incomes. It also emphasizes unequal consequences, with women workers and entrepreneurs facing greater vulnerability as precarious jobs vanish and access to resources narrows. Beyond material effects, sanctions alter destination image and heighten perceptions of risk through travel advisories, media framings, and barriers to payments, often discouraging potential visitors even when local safety conditions are adequate. The analysis argues that sanctions function as prolonged geopolitical pressures that reconfigure competitiveness and restrict opportunities for more inclusive forms of development. It concludes by preparing the ground for a critical discussion of resilience under sanctions, who gains, who loses, and what kinds of adaptation become possible when external constraints are both systemic and long-lasting.