Crisis and Disaster in Tourism, Event and Hospitality Industry

Running head: RISK, CRISIS AND DISASTER MANAGEMENT 1
Crisis and Disaster in Tourism, Event and Hospitality Industry
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Institutional Affiliation

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Introduction
Tourism is a significant economic sector in most countries across the world. It has
experienced continued growth and has diversified to become one of the fastest growing
economic sectors in the world. The economic prosperity of some countries is dependent on
tourism, hospitality and events. Globalization and advancement in technologies has enabled easy
access of destinations with different attractive sites for holidays and visits. The industry has
modernized and is closely linked to the development of new destinations. It has become a key
factor in the socio-economic progress. The immense growth in the tourism sector is also as a
result of the technological advancement and development in areas such as transportations, social
media and internet usage. These features opened the world to many destinations within reach.
However, according to Schumann (2013), the industry advancement has opened the
businesses up to different global risks which are associated with globalization. Tourism is
considered a fragile industry as the high demand for travel is vulnerable to numerous risks such
as culture shock, conflicts, an outbreak of communicable and deadly diseases, terrorism,
instability of currencies, economic fluctuations, natural disasters such as tsunamis or
earthquakes, energy crisis among others. There is a lot of crisis and disaster affecting the tourism
industry ranging from natural and human factors. A small scale crisis in one part of the world can
greatly affect the tourism market across the globe. For example, health crisis does not confine to
borders or policies affecting tourism across the globe. Therefore tourism is susceptible to
external factors and pressure of the environment. The paper looks at some of the factors
influencing the level of risk associated with crisis and disaster situations in the tourism, events
and hospitality industry and the risk treatment options to prevent and control the situations.

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Disasters refer to a sudden catastrophic change that has a negative impact on the
situation. The disaster can affect the country or compromise people’s lives. There are different
types of disaster in the event, tourism and hospitality industry. The first one is ecosystem disaster
where life is destroyed; economic disaster is where an organization fails to adjust to the market
requirement (Racherla & Hu, 2010). Tourists refrain from visiting the affected area as all the
industries that support each other are down. Socio-technology affects the hospitality and tourism
sector mostly. The integration of information system is key to advancement and growth of
tourism and hospitality industries. A disaster in the socio-technology would affect the industry
due to lack of customers (Hall, 2010). Below are some of the risk factors affecting the tourism,
events and hospitality industries:
Terrorism
Terrorism influences’ the risk of crisis and disaster situation. Terrorism is characterised
by several attack across the world which affects the world has negative impact on the tourism
industry. The bombing of hotels which are tourists destinations lead to low profitability and high
impact events threatening the viability of the industry (Seabra, Abrantes, & Kastenholz, 2014).
Terrorism has negative impact on the tourism industry. Terror organizations target tourists. The
attack on tourists indicates the subjective or ideological resistance to western values and beliefs
as tourism is viewed to represent capitalism and obvious consumption of the tourists culture.
Other country attack on tourists may represent an attack on the government from the rebel
groups. The factors in hospitality or tourism sector associated with terror can be summarized as
follows:

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The challenge of tourists’ safety attitudes and beliefs. Though the attack occurs in a given single
place, they affect the tourism industry worldwide. Travelers and tourists become fearful of their
security and it safety is a concern to most travelers not willing to travel on fear of their safety.
The attacks to tourists shows the risks the terrorists pose on the tourism industry (Richter &
Waugh, 2010). Risky destinations are avoided and tourists opt for safer destinations. The other
impact of terrorist attack is the effect on the travel and tourist procedure. Though the attack may
occur in a particular place, the responsible authorities develop different measures to protect and
provide a high security level for citizens and tourists as well. The attacks might occur on mass
transportation facilities or places that large numbers of visitor attend (Beirman, 2013). The
terrorists target hospitality locations such as bars and restaurants. It leads to changes on public
transportation and tight security on places with number of tourists. The changes also occur on
procedures such as visa allocation as countries do not just provide the visas without valid
reasons. It is much difficult for countries such as US to provide visa to foreigners.
The fear of terrorist attack leads to cancelation of bookings done by tourists and also reduced
number of new bookings. Countries depending so much on tourism are highly affected. Different
sectors such as airlines, restaurants and other tourism-related business are highly affected.
Natural disasters
The vulnerability of tourist destinations makes tourists become exposed to danger. The
exposure of tourism to natural disasters is linked to the attractiveness of high-risk exotic
locations where volcanic activities are common. The disasters have increased in the recent years,
and the implications are profound as they affect areas which heavily rely on tourists. These
disasters include earthquakes, wildfires hurricane and others. For example, the volcano eruption