A common complaint from college students is that higher education isn’t applicable to life, but a new class at Kapiolani Community College is about as real as it gets.

The HOST 270 Tourism Safety and Security class, which kicks off this fall, aims to teach students new and innovative ways to face 21st-century crises ranging from pandemics and natural disasters to economic undulations, terrorism, crime and ocean safety. Developed with assistance from Peter Tarlow, an international expert on tourism risk management, the course will focus on preparing future tourism leaders to effectively manage travel risks. It’s the only one of its kind in Hawaii, and KCC’s faculty says it’s one of the few offered at tourism programs nationwide.

“KCC’s hospitality and tourism department really takes its role in providing for industry needs seriously. We strive to be nimble in creating programs and courses that are important to the industry,” said Dave Evans, professor and department chairman of the Hospitality & Tourism Education Department. “Our industry advisory council has indicated to us that this is one of their top concerns.”

Frank Haas, who will teach the inaugural class, said market research shows safety is one of the most important factors travelers look for in a destination.

“People don’t want to go someplace where they feel insecure, especially if the destination is an expensive one,” said Haas, whose visitor industry experience includes a stint as director of marketing at the Hawaii Tourism Authority.

While Hawaii is known as a safe destination, KCC’s latest crop of tourism students are monitoring recent events. The Istanbul airport bombing, the Paris bombing and the shootings and the child-snatching alligator in Orlando, Fla., highlight the need for safety and security skills.

Jiyeon Park, a KCC travel and tourism major who graduated in May, said she’ll return to take this class as part of a third-year program after she completes an internship.

“When I first heard about this class, I thought, Do we really need it? But then Paris happened,” Park said. “We have to be mindful of bad situations so that the visitors can concentrate on having fun. We have to keep the visitors safe and secure so that they’ll come back. They are our family, so we have to make sure that they are OK and that they have a great stay.”

Roland Tugade Jr., who recently graduated from KCC with a degree in hospitality operations management, said the class will provide a healthy dose of reality.

“This major is marketed to fun students with outgoing personalities,” Tugade said. “This security class sheds that layer of fun and shows us it’s a real world out there — one where workers are going to have to be able to anticipate good and bad situations.”

Tugade said the class also will help students respond to new issues, the changing nature of tourism and the growth of new businesses like Uber and Airbnb.

“Millennials are traveling differently nowadays, and it’s harder to monitor the safety of some of the choices,” Tugade said. “It’s crucial that we find a way to do that because if we don’t have healthy tourism, Hawaii won’t stay afloat. It’s our No. 1 cash crop. Without tourism everything suffers.”

Park said JTB, which is a major Honolulu Marathon sponsor, still recalls the softening of the economy after Sept. 11, 2001.

“It was very chaotic. Hotels had to offer super cheap rates, and the marathon visitors decreased dramatically,” Park said.

Similarly, Eunkyung Lee, who will graduate from KCC in July, recalled the damage done by a skydiving accident on Kauai that killed five people.

“After that happened, (the number of) Korean customers decreased for skydiving,” she said.

“It is our goal at KCC to educate our students with the knowledge of the importance of security and safety prior to entering the workforce. As the future leaders of hospitality and tourism, they must know that tourism and security must be partners,” said Rosalie Fernandez, the KCC associate professor and program coordinator working to develop the course curriculum.

As one of the world’s top leisure destinations, Tarlow said Hawaii needs to be mindful of becoming complacent.

“We do have to make the assumption that when people go on vacation they assume that you are there to take care of them,” Tarlow said.“It’s very important in tourism to show people that you care.”

Tarlow said the Hawaii Visitor Industry Security Association and the Visitor Aloha Society of Hawaii (VASH) have helped mitigate damage from negative visitor experiences since the late 1990s, when crime in Waikiki was at its zenith and a high rate of crystal meth use was creating widespread problems.

“Crime had gotten to the point where the Japanese consul general was going to go on TV and recommend that Waikiki was unsafe for Japanese travelers,” he said. “In those days there was a lot of purse snatching, pickpocketing, car break-ins, prostitution and street performers that would harass and rip off tourists.”

Hawaii is not without such crime today, but Tarlow said VASH successfully works with the Honolulu Police Department, which has a substation in Waikiki.

“I speak about VASH all over the world,” Tarlow said. “Nobody does a better job taking care of someone when something goes wrong. In today’s world people aren’t afraid of security, they are looking for it.”

Jessica Lani Rich, executive director of VASH, said despite improved security for tourists, the agency last year handled 890 incidents involving 2,123 people from more than 25 countries. Most of the victims — nearly 59 percent — were referred to the agency by county police.

“Our visitors need to be aware that even when they are on vacation, they need to keep their guard up,” Rich said. “We deal with a lot of thefts on the beach and car break-ins, but we also see victims of vacation rental scams and other more serious incidents like assaults and drownings.”

Nearly a quarter of VASH’s 2015 cases involved theft. Unauthorized entry of a motor vehicle and medical emergencies were the next-largest categories, with each responsible for nearly 17 percent of VASH cases. Robbery was the cause of nearly 6 percent of VASH’s cases.

Virtually the only major crime that VASH didn’t have to respond to last year was kidnapping. The agency helped visitors who complained that they had been victims of assault, sex crimes, terroristic threats, auto theft, domestic abuse, attempted murder and human trafficking. They also handled reports of missing persons and auto accidents.

VASH handled 154 deaths last year. No homicides or auto deaths were reported. Natural causes accounted for more than a third of the cases; however, the highest death count came from water/ocean incidents, which killed 62 people, or 40 percent of the total.

“People don’t expect bad things to happen in paradise,” Rich said.

That’s why Tarlow said Hawaii’s visitor industry and its future leaders need to be prepared.

“We will never teach our visitors how to take care of themselves. The word ‘vacation’ is derived from the French word ‘vacance,’ which means to empty the mind,” said Tarlow, who advised the Caribbean island of Aruba on how to restore tourism after the disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway.

Still, it only takes one incident to destroy a tourism industry, Tarlow said.

“The public is more forgiving of a natural event than a man-made one,” he said. “Ten years later Aruba is still dealing with the abuse and neglect that came out of the Natalee Holloway incident. They’ve only started to come back.”