AUGUST 1999JOURNAL OF TRAVEL RESEARCH The Tourism Potential of the Peace Dividend

Reductions in military budgets have meant that military bases are no longer required, presenting problems of eco-nomic survival for communities previously dependent on these bases. Tourism is one of a number of potential alterna-tive uses that are proposed to replace the military function but this aspect has not been addressed by tourism research-ers. This article introduces this issue in the context of eco-nomic restructuring in remote areas and suggests some forms of tourism that may have potential as a means of eco-nomic redevelopment for affected areas. Some of the difficul-ties of this process are identified along with the implications of continued military withdrawals. Tourism is strongly dependent on peace and security (Pizam and Mansfeld 1996). The last decade has seen major changes in global geopolitical arrangements, and while world peace has been the norm since the end of the Second World War in 1945, a large number of smaller conflicts in many parts of the world have meant that peace was often regarded as illusionary and perhaps temporary at best (Butler 1995). Only since the decline of communism and the end of the cold war, along with the radical changes in the former Soviet Union and its allies and the fall of the Berlin Wall, have most countries felt confident enough of the relatively permanent advent of peace that they have been willing to make significant reductions in their armed forces and related infrastructures. Tragically, these reductions have still not occurred in many other parts of the world, and in some areas, such as the Middle East, Afghanistan, and the Balkan States, peace and security have been much later to arrive. In some cases, peace and security are still fragile to say the least, as is reflected in tourism to those locations