Risk and Crisis Management Tourism Sector †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Risk and Crisis Management Tourism Sector. Answer: Introduction: Rebuilding tourism after crisis/ disaster is extremely important. The perception of tourist is built around the fact that the ecosystem and the landscapes might have been destroyed due to a crisis, and they are really not sure as to what will be there to explore. Backer and Ritchie in the article have stressed on the importance of doing a disaster recovery. It has been emphasized that the marketing efforts have to be streamlined with the timing of the disaster. The entire marketing strategy for the tourist destination has to be reinvented and retargeted to the audience. Social media these days plays an important role in doing so. Social media is such an effective tool which has a deeper penetration among the audience and a far better reach. The content can be highly curated and targeted. Thus one of the most effective disaster recovery methods as mentioned by Backer Ritchie is Social media marketing of the tourist destination focussing on the preserved landscapes and the USP of the destination to lure the tourists. It is mentioned that there is a team to manage the crisis, but if the crisis team is unable to fill the gap of communication between the tourist and the authorities, somebody else to come and fill in the gap. In such a case, a mass media campaign has to be launched to make the people aware of the crisis and what has been done for the remedy. Marketing advertising is an important part of crisis management as emphasized by the management. Crisis management is about dealing with the human perceptions about the crisis and managing their sentiments. The authors have suggested that communication is the most essential part of communication management. Crisis management is extremely important in order to boost the numbers of tourism, and it has been identified that communication is one of the most important attribute that favours crisis management. Communication via traditional contemporary modes helps to create a resonance with the target audience and also gives them the assuredly that local community and the tourist organizations are taking their work seriously and moving effectively to manage the situation of crisis management The authors of the journal article Nguyen, Imamura Luchi have discussed about have a joint effort by the public and the private sector towards the disaster management. The research paper here has laid emphasis on public-private collaboration for the purpose of disaster management in the coastal destinations, especially between the hotel industry and the government. The authors in the article have focussed on the concept of collaborative planning. They have picked Matsushima, Japan which is a popular coastal destination in the famous Tohoku region which was devastated by the Tsunami in the year 2011. Hotels have a very important role to play in the disaster risk management of the coastal destinations The Matsushimas hotels and towns have a supportive outlook towards collaboration but differed on the outcomes of the association. Stakeholders had the opinion that collaboration provides equal opportunities to both the sectors. The involvement of the stakeholders was not deep and broad and it certainly did not meet every need of the agreement. It was again and again pointed out that the synergy between the local authorities and the hotel would lead to disaster management due to Tsunami and regains the position of the destination as one of the most famous tourist spots. Opinion on the text Private-Public collaboration is a joint effort by both the sectors to work together towards one common goal and objective. The objective being to bring sustainability to the coastal destination and bring back the tourists lost and the lost revenue. Authors pointed out that conducting a joint meeting and setting up small milestones and working towards them will provide a situation of solidarity and bring normalcy back in the disturbed region. Hotels have to play a very important part in this, as they are the ones who can advertise on popular social media platforms and get the tourist excited by their offering, with the public sector involved they can rework on the prices and the strategy to lure the tourist and work alongside the hotel industry to come up with a strong solution and bring positive figures of tourism in the region. Tourism is known to be one of the most economically important industries which are also the most vulnerable to crisis and disasters. The study by Brent, Ritchie, John Anita is focussed on measuring the short term impact of the incidence of 2010 BP Gulf oil crisis. The year 2010 is sadly remembered as one of the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history which occurred in Gulf of Mexico, approximately 4.9 million barrels of oil leaked into the waters for a period of three years. It was a tragic incident, also as the area is surrounded by the coastal areas and it survives on tourism industry as it creates many jobs for the local community of the area. This incident certainly hurt their livelihood and the revenue they extract from tourism. The aftermath of oil spill is bad for the entire ecosystem, not only the tourist destinations are affected by the oil spill, but the tourism industry faces serious impact on its reputation. This in turn strongly influences peoples decision to visit and spend the time in that particular community. Ritchie, Crotts, Zehrer Volsky strongly connected this crisis with fall in revenue at the tourist destination. In accordance to the study conducted, around 25% of the businesses did not re-open due to the crisis. The oil spill had an impact on over 7.3 million businesses throughout Alabama, Florida Texas, which affected 34.4 million employees and $5.2 trillion in sales volume. The hospitality industry too suffered a major blow because of the crisis 60% of the hotels which were surveyed had experienced more than 50 % cancellations. In the same time frame, 42% of the hotels experienced difficulty booking for future events In totality, the overall lower room occupancy, lower restaurant filling, less occupied meeting space resulted in loss of revenue for the region. Collective actions are required both from the local community and the tourism authority to not let such incidents hamper the business revenue. The revenue is provides livelihood to thousands of people and the entire economy of the state is dependent on it, therefore, the corrective action has to be taken in full swing The author Tomazos here has explained that while the other tourist destinations are flourishing due to better communication, globalization, improvement in the infrastructure and other such factors, the countries of the Arab world are falling backwards in terms of tourism due to its crisis situations. Such countries are unstable due to the waves of political unrest known as Arab spring, which affected the tourism sector adversely. Usefulness of the Journal Current situation of the tourism sector after the Arab spring The second revolves around the analysis of the effects of crisis on the Arab countries. Finding the right mechanism to overcome the crisis situation and do a recovery of the tourism sector. Uncovering of the economic impacts in order to find possible solutions to the problem There were a category of countries which saw a sudden surge in the tourist visits. UAE, Turkey, Israel saw a huge influx of tourists visiting the country. Some of these countries benefited from the Arab spring as many European tourists visited the place to review the situation and ended up staying for a longer time, it was a blessing in a disguise situation for these countries. As the tourism sector was showing a positive growth, it was only the Arab world which took a hit due to political instability in the area. Some countries like UAE, Turkey did take advantage of this political situation, but they have to learn a lesson to manage large number of unexpected crowd. It is advised that the strategists and the policy make have to take effects to not let tourist suffer due to political unrest in the valley. Author has suggested investing highly in tourism activities and developing more and more infrastructure and destinations which can catch tourists attention. The author has strongly recommended establishing common tourism projects which have high efficiency and are not limited to the traditional services. It has also been observed that there is a dire need to build and form special security agencies dedication to the situation of crisis management and dedicate the services only towards fighting the security problems during the crisis and not let the tourism sector suffer because of any other situation of political unrest. References: Backer, E. and Ritchie, B.W., 2017. VFR Travel: A Viable Market for Tourism Crisis and Disaster Recovery?.International Journal of Tourism Research. Nguyen, D.N., Imamura, F. and Iuchi, K., 2017. Public-private collaboration for disaster risk management: A case study of hotels in Matsushima, Japan.Tourism Management,61, pp.129-140. Ritchie, B.W., Crotts, J.C., Zehrer, A. and Volsky, G.T., 2014. Understanding the effects of a tourism crisis: The impact of the BP oil spill on regional lodging demand.Journal of Travel Research,53(1), pp.12-25. Tomazos, K., 2017. Egypt's tourism industry and the Arab Spring.