Factors Influencing Risks Associated with Disaster Situations in Tourism, Hospitality and Events Industry

Discuss about the Disaster Situation and Risk Treatment.

Disaster and crisis management can be deemed as certain recovery activities, response and preparedness and the effective ways in which the personnel with the industry can respond to the disasters and deal with it. Effective preparedness and planning before any disaster is necessary in dealing with the crisis risks those results in damages (Altinay et al. 2015). The tourism industry is observed to be impacted by a wide range of international crisis over the past years because of terrorism, tsunami and bird flu. Unlike other sectors, hospitality and events industry has also gradually suffered from and for this reason the major causes of the tourism crisis vulnerability has been viewed (AlBattat and Some 2013).

Moreover, the hospitality industry experiences great threats from the disasters that necessitates engaging in planning for the disaster management. Efficient disaster management planning includes internal output from certain establishment’s valuable assets and external input from stakeholders of a community (Paraskevas 2013). The objective of the essay is to evaluate the factors those influence risks associated with the crisis and disaster situations within the tourism, hospitality and the events industry. Thereafter, based on the evaluation the essay will identify certain risk treatment options that can help in managing the crisis and the disaster situation in these industries on an effective manner.

Factors Influencing Risks Associated with Disaster Situations in Tourism, Hospitality and Events Industry- The word crisis as well as disaster is generally used interchangeably, which generally brings downturn with itself. However, while considering the tourism and hospitality industry the meaning of both the terms changes a little. Here, crisis refers to a situation when the foundation becomes weak and the same troubles the whole management (Phillips and Moutinho 2014). On the other hand, a disaster is considered as the sudden catastrophic changes which impacts negatively.

Disaster in general is mainly considered to the event which not only shakes the whole country but also compromises life. Disaster could be divided in various types such as ecosystem disaster, economic disaster, socio-technological disaster and sociopathic disaster. The ecosystem disaster is one in which the life forms as well as their habitat is destroyed (Becken and Hughey 2013). On the other hand, economic disaster is one where the organizations fail to match or adjust with the market. It affects the economy inversely where all the industries are down and tourists refrain from coming to the affected region. Socio-technological disaster could be considered to an issue in the hospitality and the tourism sector (Becken et al. 2014).

Risk Treatment Options in Managing Disaster Situations and Crisis

Three types of crisis has been revealed in the hospitality and tourism industry that includes immediate crisis, in which there are very less or low warning and for this reason the organizations within this industry are not capable to identify the problem and develop a plan before the occurrence of the disaster (Paraskevas and Altinay 2013). Emerging crisis is another crisis that takes place in these sectors are observed to develop slowly that, might be able to be stopped or decreased by appropriate actions taken by the management. Sustained crisis also takes place in these sectors that might last for few weeks or even for years. It has also been revealed that in the hospitality industry the crisis either strikes in a sudden manner through the human involvement (plane crashes, industrial accidents or even terrorist events) or can be natural (earthquakes or hurricanes) (Wang and Ritchie 2012). The crisis or the disasters those have affected the international tourism and hospitality industry includes global war or conflict and long term manifestations of certain internal conflict and any particulate act or some action of terrorism particularly those intended at harming the tourists. It also includes any major criminal act or crime wave at the time the tourists are targeted along with appearance of some health concerns associated with the diseases or epidemics and these might be the diseases that has direct impact on humans or the diseases those has the capacity to affect animals (Page 2014). It also includes a natural disaster that might be a storm, earthquake or volcano that can affect the urban areas or the natural surrounding and constantly affecting the tourism infrastructure.

The four major risk factors include war and political instability, terrorism, health concerns as well as crime (Hall et al. 2012). Combining such issues along with the categories of the crisis and the disasters and the crisis that occurs on the domestic levels risks can be magnified in a significant manner. Generally, the issues that the tourism crisis causes considering the tourism sector that can be magnified and can affect a significant area must be addressed through effective disaster management strategies. Facts have been revealed regarding the vulnerability of the tourist spots and have indicated that such places might be highly exposed to natural disasters where the volcanoes and hurricanes are common (Thomas et al. 2013).

Additionally, destruction of the facilities and infrastructures are strongly associated with the tourism industry that includes hospitality facilities. The disasters because of the outbreak of health issues can also take place with the global and domestic tourism attracts the shareholders interest from a great range of social sciences and medical disciplines (Williams and Baláž 2015). With a great number of people travelling globally, it becomes easy for the local epidemic with a negative impact on the tourism. For instance, the SARS epidemic that initiated from a Chinese province serves as a great instance that had a negative impact on the global tourism and hospitality sector (Hanna Salman Sawalha et al. 2013). Bessie of this disaster air travel to the regions impacted by the advisories drastically decreased at the time of the epidemic. However, the impact of the advisories in comparison to several sources of information to the travellers like news media’s became difficult to access. Such disastrous situation-taking place in the hospitality and tourism industry must be effectively managed for improving the crises.

Risk Treatment Options in Managing Disaster Situations and Crisis- The crisis and disaster management processes considers evaluating and recognising the risks to a community or organization and talking decisions regarding the risk management options. The development and the execution of suitable risk management strategies that can gradually deal with likely risks to tourism and hospitality/events industry are turning out to be a vital part in dealing with tourism in the destinations (Dredge and Jamal 2015). Such risk management options must be linked with community disaster management plans and encompass strategies that the industry’s operators and the organizations can consider in accordance to the community’s disaster management agencies work (Raj and Griffin 2015).

Risk and crisis management options for the tourism as well as events and hospitality industry must offer and consider the safety of the employees as well as visitors and secure the systems in order to interact with all the people within the destination. It also needs to ensure and strengthen the security of the facilities, building and the equipments from the harmful impacts of any disaster. Risk management also includes contributing trained personnel to the agencies of disaster management at the time of response and recovery conducts after the disaster and maintaining constant supply of resources for efficient recovery activities and support response after disaster. It also includes developing safety procedures for returning to the normal business activities after the end of the disaster operations.

Effective risk management process is needed to be designed for identifying the risks those require being managed. Effective systematic method is vital that will make sure that all the important disasters are recognised (Telfer and Sharpley 2015). Crisis factors might change and for this reason, the vital part of review and monitoring process is to recognise ne disasters that can take place in the tourism or event destination. An aspect of tourism risk management option is to decrease the susceptibility and enhance the tourism destination’s resilience. Several other options that has been effective in managing disaster includes the necessity of developing elaborated contingency plans, defining the informational and decisional responsibilities and roles in managing disaster and retaining flexibility for prompt reaction at a operational level and not rushing into taking decisions on strategic level (Telfer and Sharpley 2015).

In the hospitality and events industry, an effective option available in managing crisis is through getting involved in continuous proceeds of involving a loop of feedback back to the stage of pre-crisis after the end of the crisis (Dredge and Jamal 2015). This facilitates organizational learning to occur in a situation where the organization will be capable enhance its performance by means of learning from mistakes and maintaining preparedness for the likely potential crisis. Crisis management in the hospitality sector considers certain steps including readiness, reduction, response and recovery (Dredge and Jamal 2015). Reduction of the after effects and chances of crisis can be ensured through considering better crisis awareness, political cautiousness along with maintaining standard operating procedures. Readiness is another effective option for better crisis management in the hospitality sector that includes crisis management plan, developing health and safety measures and tourism planning. Another option in ensuring crisis management n this sector is better response in the occasion of crises that considers emergency response procedures, family assistance along with better communication and investigation of the crisis (Telfer and Sharpley 2015).

Recovery management can be another effective option in ensuing beer crisis management that includes developing business sustenance plan, debriefing and availability of human resources to manage crisis. Focus items in implementing these disaster management options is in including positive focus reports on rehabilitation and reconstruction after the disaster (Raj and Griffin 2015). Crisis management strategy must include plans for fresh initiatives that can decrease the impact of crisis reputation. The hospitality and tourism sector must consider preparation of total recovery campaign in the major resource markets.

The major aspect of the crisis is response timing. If the contingency plan has been totally developed for a destination it will be easily possible to respond promptly. There is a requirement to establish to media and the stakeholders that the operation of the business is aware of the crisis events that might take place and considers managing the situation in case any disaster takes place (Raj and Griffin 2015). In occurrence of any major event, certain external security protocols are set and the organisers of the event employ specialist security staff. The daily security operations includes secondary security role that must be assigned to the front line staff (Raj and Griffin 2015). Such approach facilitates extremely discrete security operations and maintaining the service quality in the hospitality and tourism industry.

Conclusion

The objective of the essay was to evaluate the factors those influence risks associated with the crisis and disaster situations within the tourism, hospitality and the events industry. Thereafter, based on the evaluation the essay will identify certain risk treatment options that can help in managing the crisis and the disaster situation in these industries on an effective manner. It was gathered from the essay that economic disaster is one where the organizations fail to match or adjust with the market. It influences the economy inversely where all the industries are down and tourists refrain from coming to the affected region. The development and the execution of suitable risk management strategies that can gradually deal with likely risks to tourism and hospitality/events industry are turning out to be a vital part in dealing with tourism in the destinations. Effective risk management process is needed to be designed for identifying the risks those require being managed. Effective systematic method is vital that will make sure that all the important disasters are recognised. Economic disaster is one where the organizations fail to match or adjust with the market. It impacts the economy inversely where all the industries are down and tourists refrain from coming to the affected region.

Reference List

AlBattat, A.R. and Som, A.P.M., 2013. Emergency preparedness for disasters and crises in the hotel industry. SAGE Open, 3(3), p.2158244013505604.

Altinay, L., Paraskevas, A. and Jang, S.S., 2015. Planning research in hospitality and tourism. Routledge.

Becken, S. and Hughey, K.F., 2013. Linking tourism into emergency management structures to enhance disaster risk reduction. Tourism Management, 36, pp.77-85.

Becken, S., Mahon, R., Rennie, H.G. and Shakeela, A., 2014. The tourism disaster vulnerability framework: an application to tourism in small island destinations. Natural hazards, 71(1), pp.955-972.

Dredge, D. and Jamal, T., 2015. Progress in tourism planning and policy: A post-structural perspective on knowledge production. Tourism Management, 51, pp.285-297.

Hall, C.M., Timothy, D.J. and Duval, D.T., 2012. Safety and security in tourism: relationships, management, and marketing. Routledge.

Hanna Salman Sawalha, I., Eid Jraisat, L. and Al-Qudah, K.A., 2013. Crisis and disaster management in Jordanian hotels: practices and cultural considerations. Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal, 22(3), pp.210-228.

Page, S.J., 2014. Tourism management. Routledge.

Paraskevas, A. and Altinay, L., 2013. Signal detection as the first line of defence in tourism crisis management. Tourism Management, 34, pp.158-171.

Paraskevas, A., 2013. Aligning strategy to threat: a baseline anti-terrorism strategy for hotels. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 25(1), pp.140-162.

Phillips, P. and Moutinho, L., 2014. Critical review of strategic planning research in hospitality and tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 48, pp.96-120.

Raj, R. and Griffin, K.A. eds., 2015. Religious tourism and pilgrimage management: An international perspective. CABI.

Telfer, D.J. and Sharpley, R., 2015. Tourism and development in the developing world. Routledge.

Thomas, D.S., Wilhelmi, O.V., Finnessey, T.N. and Deheza, V., 2013. A comprehensive framework for tourism and recreation drought vulnerability reduction. Environmental Research Letters, 8(4), p.044004.

Wang, J. and Ritchie, B.W., 2012. Understanding accommodation managers’ crisis planning intention: An application of the theory of planned behaviour. Tourism Management, 33(5), pp.1057-1067.

Williams, A.M. and Baláž, V., 2015. Tourism Risk and Uncertainty Theoretical Reflections. Journal of Travel Research, 54(3), pp.271-287.