Disaster Tourism: Management, Strategies, and Community Issues

This report provides a comprehensive overview of disaster tourism, exploring its definition, principal elements, and significance in disaster management. It delves into key issues such as behavior, physical danger, resource scarcity, and voyeurism, while also highlighting the importance of disaster health management. The report emphasizes the need for improved management strategies, including the implementation of information technology to enhance communication, resource allocation, and overall efficiency. It discusses leadership strategies required to improve disaster tourism management, focusing on proactive planning, effective communication, and decision-making. The report concludes by addressing community issues and offering recommendations for sustainable development in disaster-prone areas, emphasizing the role of leaders in mitigating risks and fostering recovery.

Running head: Disaster tourism 0
Leadership in
Disaster
Management
disaster tourism

Disaster tourism 1
Table of Contents
Disaster Tourism: Shared learning or unnecessary congestion....................................................................2
Description..................................................................................................................................................2
Principal Elements of Disaster Tourism..................................................................................................2
Importance of Disaster tourism in disaster management.........................................................................3
Key issues in Disaster Tourism...................................................................................................................3
Behavior Issue.........................................................................................................................................3
Physical danger issue...............................................................................................................................3
Resource issue.........................................................................................................................................4
Voyeurism issue......................................................................................................................................4
Significance.................................................................................................................................................4
Recommendations.......................................................................................................................................4
Leadership strategies required to improve disaster tourism management....................................................6
Issues can be attended in our community....................................................................................................7
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................7
References...................................................................................................................................................8

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Disaster Tourism: Shared learning or unnecessary congestion
Description
Disaster tourism is defined as an act of travelling to the area which is disaster prone, in
this act tourist learn about the current situation in the disaster prone area and spends in the local
market to upkeep the economy so that way it can ease down the recovery process. This tourism
showcase the tragedy happened and reveal the social culture of the society, the experiences they
get are much of value for the tourists as they can gain from such tragedies and make aware other
people about the disaster. Whereas disaster health management guides or helps in managing the
system and the whole range of disaster health. The management of disaster health can be through
the continuum of prevention, preparedness, response and recovery, there are various systems and
structures to understand the whole scenario of health problems (Rucińska & Lechowicz, 2014).
The main aim behind disaster health management is to develop a plan in order to deal with the
natural and man-made disaster.
Principal Elements of Disaster Tourism
There are different elements of disaster tourism categorized phase wise depending on the
happening of the disaster and the phases are namely pre-event, emergency, and transitional
which is half way, recovery period (long term) lastly resolution. Now these phases have their
elements depending on their nature but principle elements for the same are assessment of risk
and disaster contingency plans. In disaster health management the vital phases are prevention
and their mitigation, preparation by planning, providing relief and recovery. Here elements of
disaster health management are critical in nature as the need to provide immediate health care in
the phase of recovery is of high importance. In assessment of risk management, the risk are to be
recognized in the first stage and then being evaluated based on the ranks given keeping in mind
the priorities of risks. Then there is a series of tasks performed by responding, transferring and
terminating the risks, proper planning, reporting and reviewing is done in reference to manage
risks and mitigations are being formed. Later monitoring and reviewing of the whole framework
is being done (Ritchie & Campiranon, 2014).

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Importance of Disaster tourism in disaster management
Disaster health management is one of the main part of disaster management. It has an
interactive impact on the aspects of disaster management. Various factors affect health care in
disaster management with an intention to provide best tools and treatment to disaster survivors
and respondents (Pourhosseini, Ardalan, & Mehrolhassani, 2015). Its main aim is to deliver an
appropriate and effective healthcare at the disaster prone site or area and spread awareness to
improve such worse condition by managing issues at every stage of disaster management cycle.
The strategies are being formed to resolve the issues at traumatic prone area and handle
emergency filled situations (Wright, 2016). The emergency planning and management in health
care management improve worst case scenario and help post recovery process in the meantime.
Key issues in Disaster Tourism
There are few issues in disaster tourism as every bright side carries a black side too.
When tourist visit disaster prone area it has its own risks and danger present in there (Norris,
Martinez, Labaka, Madanian, Gonzalez & Parry 2015).
Behavior Issue
It is a known fact, people who are traumatized by the disaster are not in a state where
they could understand the concern of the visitors. The survivors and respondents are in a
vulnerable state of mind so even if visitors want to support them they unknowingly might hurt
visitors by showing poor behavior. On the other part visitors also may by their actions can hurt
the sentiments of people in the area where they are recovering form the death of their belongings
(Lee & Hyun, 2016).
Physical danger issue
When tourist visit right after an earthquake they might face some physical danger which
includes some flammable gases or blazing rubble at the site which is unsafe for the tourist itself.
At a flood prone area there is a risk of live wires which may be dragging here and there in waters
and the tourist, unaware of the situation may get electrocute by them. At the place of war, there
are always risk of getting attacked any time. Even if tourist is visiting such place with an
intention of disaster management but these risks presented can create issues in between their goal
(Becken & Hughey, 2013).

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Resource issue
The disaster area is already out of resource in way of scarce food and water, medical help
which visitors may use up as they are there too. But tourist come with an intention to support,
somehow they end up using scarce resource. This way travelers who come with a pure
motivation to support economy by offering money and skills that they are capable of but the
sufferers are of mixed feelings and they think of visitors as useless at the site and doing more
harm rather than doing good deeds (Shakeela & Becken, (2015).
Voyeurism issue
The sufferers from disaster who had experienced trauma and doomed by losing their
loved ones, their livelihood almost everything. When tourist visit them they unintentionally
might hurt their voyeurism in a way or the other, resultant few neighborhood oppose and took
stand therefore the tourism has been banned in few places (Tsai, Wu, Wall & Linliu, 2016).
Significance
Disaster tourism constitutes a major part in the sustainable development of the disaster
prone places. Though these issues are of main concern in disaster management but they do have
their own significance in this instance. As a matter of fact, travelers visit disaster prone places to
support people and economy for the faster recovery and during the whole process it affects both
ways. The need for recovery demands more visitors in spite of issues it is creating at the area, as
the money spend by tourist will pump up the economy and moral support to motivate people at
site to recover from their emotional distress (Wright, 2014).
Recommendations
It is highly required to improve the management of disaster tourism as to reduce the
effects of disasters, to reduce the harm in economy, to bring calmness in lives of community.
The question arises here is that how can it be done?
IT can play a significant role in managing the disaster tourism well enough and prepare
mitigation accordingly. Information technology can ease the work by handling models and

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frameworks of disaster management thereby making strategic plans which are practical enough
to follow. It helps in measuring and assessing the strategies to enhance the effectiveness of
disaster tourism. IT not only manages complex frameworks but also the resources which are in
scarce and available for disaster management. The benefits are being weighed in investing in a
particular IT structure and in other measures which can be adopted to improve the management,
results shows how investment in technology has proven to be of benefit and contains measures to
bring efficiency in management of disaster tourism. The main aim behind adopting information
technology is only to enhance the effectiveness of the activities performed in managing disaster
tourism and not in focusing on the performance of Information technology systems
(Wuthisuthimethawee et al., 2015).
IT helps in various ways to improve the overall experience of traumatized survivors and travelers
who have the intention to gain experiences, spread awareness around. Technology provides a
platform of better communication whose coverage is wide and coordinate well in response. With
the help of better communication tourist can arrange medical help timely when so ever required
and make arrangements accordingly which cannot be done manually and effectively. This step of
asking medical help will save time and effort also creates less ruckus at the area where disaster
has taken place in this way the issues of behavior, scarce resource, and voyeurism can be dealt
with as tourists are no more creating any hindrances in between (Kearns, Conlon, Valenta,
Matherly & Jeng, 2016).
The benefits are countless of investing in information technology as it is a cost effective step if
compared to other prospects of managing disaster tourism management. A proper planned
method proves to be beneficial in every area whether it is about arranging healthcare or
providing other resources with no disturbance while staying in the area of disaster. It contains all
dimensions namely social, technical and managerial, a combination of these all three dimensions
can be advantageous which can work on multiple areas at a time. Their expertise helps in
managing the different range of disasters happened in a region or the other and focus on
activities need to be performed depending on the disaster happened. IT also keep a better
documentation of disasters happened with an objective of responding to the same if it happens in
future at some other place, the activities can be carried soon by the experiences wrote down in

Disaster tourism 6
documents. Thus, can spread awareness studying the comprehensive data recorded in it and
apply the situational knowledge where the disaster took place (Rittichainuwat, 2013).
Leadership strategies required to improve disaster tourism management
The leadership strategies which are required to improve the management of disaster
tourism consists of a systematic and thorough approach of disaster tourism and its management.
The strategies help defining roles of leaders and their duties to manage the whole scenario.
Sometimes private actions do help in improving management and results in better outcomes
(Taylor, 2015).
Leader’s responsibility are in many ways it can also be said that they are twofold:
 A leader must ensure that from their past experiences they need to make organizational
adjustments which are aligned with the crisis they are handling currently.
 Leaders need to make informed decisions and preparedness by adopting collective
thought process which will benefit the responders.
 Leaders are required to make efforts in engaging members into an effective
communication and practice which will help in improving the management cycle that
ultimately guarantee a timely completion of task.
 Leaders are the core element who are involved in the planning, spreading awareness and
timely response to the crisis. In order to do so a leader must starts the whole process well
in advance.
 A directive leadership strategy is the key style of leadership in taking his team towards a
specified goal of improving disaster tourism management. It is a kind of strategic
leadership style which is required the most in this case.
 Only a leader can coordinate and integrate the activities which are necessary to build and
improve the management in regard to respond, recover and mitigate against the disasters.
Mitigation is the key activity which needs to be performed by leader in advance in the
beginning and the end after studying the past experiences.
 Leadership strategies often carries few dimensions such as carrying an ability of
networking, urgency, decision making, learning and lastly planning. These dimensions
help across all phases of disaster management cycle (Veenema, Rains, Casey-Lockyer,
Springer & Kowal 2015).

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Issues can be attended in our community
As discussed above the issues arise in managing disaster tourism in relation to improve
its bad image and proper management of disaster tourism, Information technology can be
implemented to provide timely completion of work and smooth flow in the management. People
who are affected by disaster most probably do not like tourists to interrupt in their lives at that
point of time when they are in emotional roller coaster, in this case the situation can be handled
by not to disturb in their zones and help them out in a certain way that it creates no disturbance in
between.
Conclusion
After studying various aspects of disaster tourism and its elements which are helpful in
the management of disaster, the key issues involve in disaster tourism it is concluded that
disaster tourism is more of a shared learning rather than an unnecessary congestion. If it is
managed in a way explained above in the report then all the myths attached to it can be
cleared out and helps in spreading awareness regarding the same.

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References
Becken, S., & Hughey, K. F. (2013). Linking tourism into emergency management
structures to enhance disaster risk reduction. Tourism Management, 36, 77-85.
Kearns, R. D., Conlon, K. M., Valenta, A. L., Matherly, A. F., & Jeng, J. C. (2016).
Fostering Disaster Preparedness through the “Grass Roots Efforts” of an
American Burn Association Special Interest Group. Journal of Burn Care &
Research, 37(4), e394.
Lee, K. H., & Hyun, S. S. (2016). The effects of perceived destination ability and
destination brand love on tourists’ loyalty to post-disaster tourism destinations:
The case of Korean tourists to Japan. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing,
33(5), 613-627.
Norris, A. C., Martinez, S., Labaka, L., Madanian, S., Gonzalez, J. J., & Parry, D. (2015).
Disaster E-Health: A New Paradigm for Collaborative Healthcare in Disasters. In
ISCRAM.
Pourhosseini, S. S., Ardalan, A., & Mehrolhassani, M. H. (2015). Key aspects of
providing healthcare services in disaster response stage. Iranian journal of public
health, 44(1), 111.
Ritchie, B. W., & Campiranon, K. (Eds.). (2014). Tourism Crisis and Disaster
Management in the Asia-Pacific (Vol. 1). CABI.
Rittichainuwat, B. N. (2013). Tourists' and tourism suppliers' perceptions toward crisis
management on tsunami. Tourism Management, 34, 112-121.
Rucińska, D., & Lechowicz, M. (2014). Natural hazard and disaster tourism. Miscellanea
Geographica-Regional Studies on Development, 18(1), 17-25.
Shakeela, A., & Becken, S. (2015). Understanding tourism leaders’ perceptions of risks
from climate change: an assessment of policy-making processes in the Maldives
using the social amplification of risk framework (SARF). Journal of Sustainable
Tourism, 23(1), 65-84.

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Taylor, F. (2015). Post disaster tourism development of Phi Phi Island: the influence of
sustainability and political economy.
Tsai, C. H., Wu, T. C., Wall, G., & Linliu, S. C. (2016). Perceptions of tourism impacts
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Veenema, T. G., Rains, A. B., Casey-Lockyer, M., Springer, J., & Kowal, M. (2015).
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literature review. International emergency nursing, 23(3), 225-231.
Wright, D. (2014). Residents’ perceptions of dark tourism development: the case of
L’aquila, Italy (Doctoral dissertation, University of Central Lancashire).
Wuthisuthimethawee, P., Lindquist, S. J., Sandler, N., Clavisi, O., Korin, S., Watters, D.,
& Gruen, R. L. (2015). Wound management in disaster settings. World journal of
surgery, 39(4), 842-853.