Four, the September 11, 2001 attacks in the U.S., which dramatically
highlighted the rise of militant fundamentalist Islam (and provoked the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq), followed by terrorist attacks on tourist facilities elsewhere,
highlighted the interface between tourism and terrorism, aggravated the sense of risk
in travel, and led to ever more stringent security procedures in global tourism, which
put increasing constraints on the comfort, ease, and freedom of travel. Five, the
catastrophic natural disasters, which struck the world in the last decade, such as the
Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, Hurricane Katrina, and the tsunami following the
earthquake in East Japan, not only affected some major tourist destinations (e.g. the
Thai Andaman coast, or New Orleans) and caused increased apprehension of traveling
into disaster-prone areas, but also demonstrated the vulnerability and helplessness of
tourists once the institutional structures on which they depend break down.