RSK80004 Swinburne: Vulnerability Assessment & Tourism Business Risk

This report provides a comprehensive vulnerability assessment of a tourism business, identifying key assets such as hotels, tourist sites, and personnel, and analyzing potential threats including fire, terrorism, political instability, and unfavorable government policies. It details the vulnerabilities associa...Read More

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Vulnerability assessment
Vulnerability assessment is the process of identifying, reviewing and prioritizing of the potential
weakness of a system .The assessment is undertaken in order tonsure that the threats to the
system are identified well in advance and that the necessary measures are put in place in order to
avoid great harm to the system. In most of the organizations, a vulnerability test is conducted in
order for them to know of the potential dangers that they are facing and the best ways of dealing
with them( Belleri, Torquati, Riva,and Nascimbene,2015)
This work will look into the vulnerability of a tourism business. The tourism business is one of
the most lucrative form of business as it earns a lot of revenue to the country.it involves a huge
number of population from different countries and also from the local people. The fact that the
business involves this entire people makes it vulnerable to different form of threats which may
contribute significantly to the decline of the business. There are a lot of factors that are of threat
to the business and therefore a critical and thorough vulnerability assessment need to be
undertaken in order to identify and prevent them from causing great harm to the industry.
( Bowers, Venminder 2018)
The business has several main assets that are important for the operations of the business. These
assets are critical and thus they need to be guided at all times in order to ensure that the
operations of the business are not disrupted at any one time. The asset such as hotels that offer
accommodation services and other form of services are vulnerable to threats as they may be used
to bring down the business. The tourist sites and historical sites are also part of the assets that are
of importance to the business and which must be protected at all cost.( Fasterling,2017).The

people involved in tourism are the most important asset when it comes to this business as there
will be no tourism without them
The threats that face this business are many and these shall be looked at in terms of the level of
severity that they may pose to the business. The business is faced with the threat of fire occurring
in the hotels and cafes that accommodate people. This is a high form of threat as it involves
something that is often used within the premises and thus the chances of it occurring are high.
The other form of threat that may affect the business is that of terrorism. (Fuchs,and
Glade,2016)This is an act of war on the critical assets of any country and thus the tourism
business may suffer due to it. Terrorism destroys the critical infrastructure that supports the
business and its impact is normally huge. Another thereat that may face the business is the
political activities of the country. The business thrives in an area where there is political stability
and therefore any form of unrest in the country will automatically affect the business. The
government policies are also a form of threat to the business that must be discussed. The
business thrives in a situation whereby the government policies and regulations work to favor the
interest of the business (. Harrison and Mason,2017).The laws that are passed should be the ones
that promote the growth of the business and therefore, any regulation that negatively affects the
business is a form of threat to the industry.
The threats above present different form of vulnerabilities to the business. The threat of fire
brings with it severe impact as a lot of assets and belongings are destroyed at once. All the
materials that are necessary in the enhancement of the operations of the business are destroyed
and thus the activities related to the business comes to a premature halt. Fire has been known to
completely destroy big hotels and with it causing a huge loss in terms of infrastructure and also it

may cause the loss of lives. Therefore it is one of the threats that poses a great vulnerability on
the business. (Howson, 2017)
Also, terrorism poses a great negative impact on the business and which may take a longer time
for the business to recover. A single act of terrorism destroys the tremendous gains that have
been made by the industry in just some few minutes and the impact created will be felt over
several years. The threat leads to the loss of lives of people working in the industry and also
those who may be living within the premises of the business. (Maio, Vicente, Formisano, and
Varum,2015).The destruction that accompanies it is devastating and the owners of the business
have to start from the scratch to try and build their businesses again. Also, people fear a place
that is prone to terrorism acts and this will impact negatively on the business.
Furthermore, political instability will mean that there is no peaceful room for which to conduct
the business. Any small instance of political unrest has a great impact as tourism is a business
that relies on the peaceful environment for it to grow. A small disruption will lead to the effects
being felt even after the unrest has died down and thus is one of the critical vulnerabilities.
The policies and regulations governing the business have a critical impact on the business. This
is something that affects the whole industry and therefore any form of policy that is not
promoting the interest of the business will lead to the impact being severe. The whole operations
of the business depends on the guidelines and rules that have been formulated and thus any
unfavorable regulations will see the level of business coming down as other countries enjoy more
success.( McDonald, 2018)
Precautionary analysis

After a successful conduction of the vulnerability assessment, there need for a precautionary
analysis to be done based on the assessment that has been made. This analysis will focus on the
threats that have been identified and the likely impact they are bound to have. It is important for
any organization to undertake a precautionary measure in order to save the organization from the
huge loses that they may suffer due to the threats.( Mishra,2015)
There are several techniques in which one can use to try and minimize the impact that may be
felt by the occurrence of the threats. This involves such issues as having prior knowledge of the
threat that may affect the business and thus formulating ways in which it can be completely dealt
with or how the impact can be greatly reduced. Also there is the technique of impact avoidance
in which the business will be able to know of the form of threat that it is facing such as that of
policy regulations which are already in place and which they can do nothing about it for the time
being. The business will formulate strategies on how best to counter the impact of the threat and
also devise business ways in which the business can operate and thus avoid the impact at all.
(Moore,2018)
The threat of fire is a regular form of threat and thus the business must take precautionary
measures at all time. This is a threat that faces the business on a day to day basis and thus it is
important for the business to be prepared in case of anything that may occur. The
recommendations that are involved in this kind of threat is that the business should ensure that
they have the firefighting tools such as the fire extinguisher within the hotels and
accommodation areas. The fire extinguishers need to be kept in a place that is secure and which
can be easily accessed by people in case there is a breakout of fire. This will enable the fire to be
fought much easily and thus reduce the impact that it would have caused. Also, the
accommodation places need to have fire emergency exits that will enable people to get out quite

conveniently and thus not be trapped in the building.in most fires, many people actually die due
to the fact that they are trapped inside and thus they choke on the smoke. This can be avoided by
the presence of such exit doors. Furthermore, they need to establish fire assembly pints in order
to account for all persons and thus fasten the process of rescue. These recommendations will go a
long way in reducing the impact of the vulnerabilities.( Peace, Mabin, and Cordery,2017)
In terms of terrorism, the business has to come up with a number of safety precautions that will
ensure that the premises of the business are adequately secured ad there is no form of breach of
security at all times. The impact of terrorism is huge and therefore the business has to make sure
that all the people who are entering the premises are thoroughly checked together with their
belongings. The regular checking of the visitors coming in an out will ensure that any suspicious
person is apprehended early enough and thus the act of terrorism will be neutralized.( Salas,and
Yepes,2018).Also, it will enable the management to know if any harmful weapon is sneaked into
the hotels to be used later for committing crime. The business will ensure that they place metallic
sensors to detect such weapons and also sensitize the people on the need to be on the lookout for
suspicious individuals and suspicious activities that may go on inside the hotels. All this are
ways in which the business can try and reduce the impact of the threat that they face.
Political unrest is a nuisance to the tourist business as they hinder the movement of the tourists
and thus slow down the growth of the business. The business needs to be prepared to deal with
this situation from time to time and thus must come up with several strategies on how to cushion
themselves for the impact of political unrest. This may be done through the insurance of the
assets of the business from political violence so as to minimize the loss that would have been
there if no insurance cover was taken. Insurance on political instability has come to be something
that most business engage themselves in as they used to suffer big losses due to the destruction

of the property. Therefore the uptake of insurance cover is highly recommended and one that the
business in this report will have to undertake in order to deal with the threat. (Sahoo, Sahoo,
Dhar, and Pradhan, 2016)
The business needs to sit down and critically engage the government on a number of policies and
regulations that have been formulated in order to reduce the impact that will be caused by the
policies.it is imperative of the business to constantly engage with the relevant stakeholders in
order to ensure that the kind of regulations that are put I place are the ones that will contribute to
the improvement of the business as a whole rather than the reduction of the same. The business
will give its views on how best the policies can be formulated and also the manner in which it
will be implemented for the benefit of both the business and the government. A successful policy
will imply that the growth of the business will be enhanced and therefore there will be an
increase in the amount of revenue that the government collects.( Serin, Lowenkamp, Johnson,
and Trevino,2016)
Therefore, all this recommendations are necessary and important in ensuring that the available
threats are dealt with and that the impact that will have been occasioned by the threats have been
reduced.it is upon the business to ensure that it carries out a vulnerability assessment in order to
ascertain this issues and thus be in a good position to find suitable ways of how to deal with
them. This will protect the business and ensure that the activities and operations of the business
are not hindered in any way. (Suter 2016)

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