University of Canterbury, New Zealand.
Acknowledgements
Writing a book on the relationships between earthquakes and tourism after having experienced their impacts directly – in the cases of the Christchurch earthquake sequence and the Kaikoura earthquakes – is a strange experience. On the one hand there is an attempt to retain a sense of distance and detachment which is integral to much academic writing and research. Indeed, having that personal perspective arguably makes one’s understanding of the relationships between earthquakes and their effects on destinations and the wider tourism system all the stronger. On the other, it is extremely personal, arousing both memories of the effects of the earthquake events but also one’s direct feelings concerning recovery and rebuild, the actions of government and political and economic interests and the way in which lives and places have been interrupted and set on new trajectories, not all of which are for the better. As we have recognised elsewhere, these are feelings that arguably only researchers who have been through such events understand. Nevertheless, they provide an important reality for conducting research on disasters and tourism, and earthquakes in particular.
Having lived and worked through a number of disasters ranging from the Christchurch earthquake sequence to Brexit, Michael would like to thank a number of colleagues with whom he has undertaken related conversations and research on a range of disasters over the years. In particular, thanks go to Bailey Adie, Alberto Amore, Dorothee Bohn Chris Chen, Tim Coles, Hervé Corvellec, David Duval, Martin Gren, Stefan Gössling, Johan Hultman, Dieter Müller, Paul Peeters, Yael Ram, Anna Laura Raschke, Jarkko Saarinen, Dan Scott, Anna Dóra Sæþórsdóttir, Allan Williams, Kimberley Wood and Maria José Zapata-Campos for their thoughts, as well as for the stimulation of Agnes Obel, Ann Brun, Beirut, Paul Buchanan, Nick Cave, Bruce Cockburn, Elvis Costello, Stephen Cummings, David Bowie, Ebba Fosberg, Mark Hollis, Margaret Glaspy, Aimee Mann, Larkin Poe, Vinnie Reilly, Henry Rollins, Matthew Sweet, Henry Wagon and The Guardian, BBC6, JJ, and KCRW – for making the world much less confining. Special mention must also be given to the Malmö Saluhall; Balck, Packhus and Postgarten in Kalmar; and Nicole Aignier and the Hotel Grüner Baum in Merzhausen. Finally, and most importantly, Michael would like to thank the Js and the Cs who stay at home and mind the farm.
Girish would like to thank a number of colleagues with whom he has undertaken disaster management research in the past few years for sharing their knowledge and insights. In particular, thanks go to Caroline Orchiston, Mesbahuddin Chowdhury, Lucie Ozanne, Sam Spector, Peter Fieger, Alberto Amore, Deborah Blackman, Hitomi Nakanishi, Ben Freyens, Joerg Finsterwalder, Alistair Tombs, Chris Chen and Sussie Morrish. Also, Girish would like to thank family and friends who have supported him over the years.
We also wish to gratefully acknowledge the help and support of Jody Cowper for proofreading and editing. Finally, we would both like to thank all at Channel View for their continuing support.
1 Earthquakes and Tourism: Impacts, Responses and Resilience – An Introduction
C. Michael Hall and Girish Prayag
Introduction
Earthquakes are a form of natural disaster with substantial human, economic and environmental effects. As many as 500,000 earthquakes occur around the planet each year, of which only about 20% are strong enough to be felt, with approximately 100 causing significant amounts of damage (United States Geological Survey (USGS), 2019). Nevertheless, large earthquakes can cause substantial loss of human life, substantially affect housing and infrastructure, and have major economic impacts. Large, damaging earthquakes (magnitude 5.5 or greater) are relatively rare in developed countries, averaging fewer than seven events per year since 1985 (Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, 2016). Nevertheless, their impacts can be substantial and are a function of a variety of factors including magnitude, duration, depth, landscape and geology, population density, construction practices and location of the epicentre.
Of the 48 earthquakes in developed countries from 1985 to 2015 of magnitude 5.5 or greater for which there are damage estimates the amount of economic damage varied significantly, from about $2 million to more than $232 billion (in 2015 dollars) (Table 1.1). Nevertheless, the median economic damage of earthquakes of magnitudes greater than 6.5 since 1985 ($628 million) was about 3.5 times higher than the median for earthquakes of magnitude 5.5 to 6.5 ($178 million), while the median damage of large earthquakes in areas with populations greater than 250,000 (nearly $2 billion) was nearly 75 times greater than for those in areas with populations below 250,000 ($28 million) (Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, 2016). In the United States the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), USGS and the Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) (2017) estimated that, in the United State, the annualized earthquake loss (AEL) is $6.1 billion per year, a figure almost equal to the historic annual losses experienced from floods and hurricanes, while the potential exposure to earthquakes is of the order of approximately 59 trillion USD.
Table 1.1 Top 10 costliest world earthquakes and tsunamis by insured losses, 1980–2001
Source: After Insurance Information Institute, (2019)
However, while the greatest economic losses from earthquakes are attributed to those in developed countries it is arguably developing countries that are proportionately worse affected and which also face major problems in allocating scarce resources in mitigating earthquake risk (Steckler et al., 2018). For example, when the relative values between nations based on a division of economic losses incurred at the time of the earthquake disaster as compared to GDP are considered then Armenia, Turkmenistan, Haiti, Nicaragua, Wallis and Futuna, North Macedonia and Chile have the highest relative ratios (Daniell et al., 2011). With respect to fatalities as a result of earthquakes China, Haiti, Indonesia, Iran, Japan and Turkmenistan have had the highest death and injury counts since 1900 in terms of absolute numbers, while Turkmenistan and Armenia have the highest relative fatality rates globally (Daniell et al., 2011).
Although the impacts of earthquakes and associated secondary disasters, such as tsunami and landslides, on tourism are substantial, the effects are often missed in the official figures. This is because while the loss of tourism specific infrastructure, such as hotels, may be covered the economic value of the expenditures of a temporary population such as tourists can be lost from official figures. This is especially because, being mobile, tourists can switch from one destination to another within the same national or even regional economy. Nevertheless, given its substantial direct and indirect contribution to economies on both developed and developing countries, tourism does matter.
This chapter introduces the phenomenon of earthquakes and their impacts on destinations, communities, businesses and individuals within the tourism system. The chapter provides a review of some of the major themes in research on earthquakes and tourism and also positions earthquakes and their impacts within the context of contemporary interest on tourism and resilience. The chapter concludes with an outline of the book.
Earthquakes, Disasters and Impacts
An earthquake is any shaking of the Earth’s surface as a result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth’s lithosphere that creates seismic waves. In its most general usage, the word earthquake therefore refers to any seismic event, whether natural, i.e. the result of a faults at the boundary or interior of tectonic plates, volcanic events, tidal forces or, more rarely, asteroid or meteorite impact; or caused by humans, i.e. fracking, nuclear or other large explosions. Earthquakes are happening around the Earth all the time, many of these are never felt by people. However, there are probably few natural events that can cause as much fear than feeling an earthquake and, arguably, some of the most damaging disasters are those that arise as the result of large earthquake events and the subsequent
