Fortress tourism: exploring dynamics of tourism, security and peace around the Virunga transboundary conservation area

Tourism around transboundary protected areas (TBPAs), often touted as a 'peace park' model, may inadvertently fuel conflict and militarization. A study of the Virunga Transboundary Conservation Area—spanning the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda—reveals that while high-end gorilla tourism aims to foster cooperation among neighboring states, it instead intensifies intrastate competition and violence. Governments leverage peace tourism rhetoric and revenues to justify militarization, framing neighboring regions as threats to attract visitors while concealing broader security interests. This contradiction challenges the notion of a 'peace dividend' from tourism, raising questions about whose peace is being prioritized. The research, based on twelve months of fieldwork, exposes the paradoxical relationship between conservation-driven tourism and conflict dynamics in shared protected spaces.

Trogisch, L., & Fletcher, R. (2020). Fortress tourism: exploring dynamics of tourism, security and peace around the Virunga transboundary conservation area. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 30(2-3), 352–371. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2020.1857767