‘To Spray or Not to Spray’: Developing a Tourism-Linked Research Agenda for Aircraft Disinsection

Abstract

Increases in international air transport are playing a major role in the global dispersion of mosquito- borne diseases, notably malaria and dengue fever. Disinsection of aircraft is the formal name of the process undertaken to control disease vectors that may be inadvertently imported from endemic regions. The goals of not exposing passengers and crews to insecticides, while also eliminating mosquitoes on flights, are potentially incompatible concerns. Understanding this problematic tourism-health link is important as organisations and individuals strive to make global tourism more sustainable. Aircraft disinsection as a means of disease vector control offers multiple opportunities for tourism research. This review offers a broad study agenda involving tourism and social science work which reaches beyond the medical research paradigm that dominates disinsection studies. It can be suggested that the key question is not whether to side with disinsection or not, but under what conditions is it most effective? Such decisions can be assisted through more integrated aviation and tourism policy analysis, crew and passenger health studies, analysis of crew behaviours and interpretation research.