a disaster management plan for the tourism industry, which is vital so that negative impacts can be reduced and recovery time for individuals, communities and destinations improved. Nevertheless, it does not provide a system wide understanding of the effects of a large earthquake related disaster. Furthermore, even at the destination level, often the reaction to a disaster is the development of a disaster management plan rather than proactive decision making by tourism businesses and relevant government departments that incorporate disaster readiness into their daily operations and strategies (Orchiston, 2013; Tsai & Chen, 2010). In many cases, the regions affected by earthquakes, for example, are characterized by high disaster risk but lack sufficient resources for comprehensive public disaster relief work (Tsai & Chen, 2010; see Das & Chakrabarty, this volume).
No destination is immune to natural hazards, thereby requiring destination marketing and management organisations (DMOs) and the tourism industry to work collaboratively with local and central government to develop disaster plans and management strategies (Nguyen et al., 2018). Disasters have an impact on all aspects of the tourism system, including the generating region, transit routes and the destination region (Figure 1.1). However, the full system-wide affects are often not sufficiently appreciated, for example there is very little research of the impact of a disaster at a destination on the transit regions and stops that are connected to it. Nevertheless, as shown in several studies disasters can affect tourism demand (Mazzocchi & Montini, 2001; Huang & Min, 2002; Wang, 2009; Mendoza et al., 2012; Wu & Hayashi, 2014; Cró & Martin, 2017) through tourists’ negative perceptions of safety and security, as well as access to accommodation and transport. Often, both air traffic and maritime traffic have to be diverted from the destination if critical infrastructures such as airports and ports have been damaged, requiring travellers to find alternative transit routes (see Morpeth, this volume, for a discussion of the controversies surrounding diversion and tourist access in emergency situations). The impacts of disasters on the destination region is well documented in the literature. It is, therefore, not surprising that several management frameworks focused on disaster response in the context of tourism have been proposed (see Faulkner, 2001; Hystad & Keller, 2008; Ritchie, 2008). Disturbances in one part of the tourism system, e.g. the destination region, also has positive and negative cascading effects on other linked parts of the system (Farrell & Twining-Ward, 2004; Hall, 2008). One destinations disadvantage may be advantageous to another as tourists seek to provide substitute holiday experiences. However, several barriers such as adopting disaster preparedness initiatives, including evacuation training, maintaining emergency supplies and communicating hazard risks to tourists have been identified that impede the tourism industry’s ability to respond effectively to the negative impacts of disasters (Nguyen et al., 2018; see also Subadra, this volume, and Das & Chakrabarty, this volume). Much of the existing tourism literature focuses on disaster planning and management with greater attention needed to understand the actual recovery process of destinations (Amore & Hall, 2016a, 2016b, 2017; Orchiston & Higham, 2016; Hall & Amore, 2019; see also Amore, this volume).
Figure 1.1 System dimensions of tourism in earthquake affected destinations (after Hall, 2005)
Blackman et al. (2017) argue that there are several effective means for achieving disaster resilience but these often fail on the basis of the purpose of long-term disaster recovery and actual implementation of systems and plans. The most difficult aspects of recovery are to assess the direct impacts of the earthquake, psychosocial wellbeing and perceptions of the recovery as well as the performance of recovery agencies (Bidwell, 2011). Destinations can experience a significant drop in both domestic and international visitor numbers and can lose lifeline infrastructures that stall recovery and reduce accommodation capacity. This can present a challenge to DMOs at both national and regional levels (Orchiston & Higham, 2016). Yet, these challenges are often compounded by governance structures that impede DMOs collaboration with other agencies in the recovery process as well as the overall nature of governance (Amore & Hall, 2016a, 2017). Although rebuilding infrastructure is not necessarily part of their mandate, DMOs can play a significant role in minimizing negative impacts, assisting in defining the roles and responsibilities of tourism stakeholders, and disaster planning and response (Nguyen et al., 2018). Pike (2004) argued that DMOs can contribute to disaster management through their capacity to establish effective media relations, communicate with tourists and visitors, support local businesses, enhance disaster risk awareness among tourism operators and outsource roles when needed (see also Pottorff & Neal, 1994; Drabek, 1999, 2000; Ritchie, 2008; Mair et al., 2016). They may also coordinate specific aspects of disaster management planning from a destination perspective although it is important that such activities are undertaken in conjunction with the responsible government agencies for disaster response (Orchiston, 2013).
Tourism infrastructure does not exist in a vacuum, rebuilding these often require broader considerations of leisure and recreation facilities for residents and consultation with stakeholders that are not necessarily part of the tourism system (Amore & Hall, 2016b). Examples from the Canterbury earthquakes show that two years after the February 2011 earthquake event, residents felt that many factors were still having major negative impacts on their everyday lives. These incudes such things as the inability to make decisions about house damage, repairs and location; being in a damaged environment; loss of recreational, cultural and leisure facilities; additional financial burdens; distress and anxiety associated with aftershocks; loss of usual access to the natural environment and outdoor recreation venues; loss of meeting places for community events; and a lack of opportunities to engage with others in the community through arts, cultural, sport or other leisure pursuits (Morgan et al., 2015; Hall et al., 2016). These issues have significant implications not only for residents quality of life but also affects the tourism industry in terms of, for example, the events venues, art centres and recreation and sport venues that will be rebuilt and for which taxpayers often provide a substantial amount of financial support (Hall & Amore, 2019).
Destination recovery should therefore ideally take more than just an economic perspective that focuses on the restoration of visitor numbers and growth to pre-disaster levels (Hall et al., 2018). There is also a social dimension whereby locals may still experience mental distress even after the tourism destination’s economy has recovered (Ritchie, 2009) and which may provide a base for resentment towards tourists and/or the development of tourism infrastructure especially while ‘local’ infrastructure and needs remain unmet. The local community perceptions and acceptance of tourists, and of tourism as a pathway for recovery, may therefore be considerably different after a disaster than it was before and therefore, community recovery cannot be isolated from the recovery of the tourism industry (Hall et al., 2018). Despite these vulnerabilities, the tourism industry can be reluctant to adopt mitigation strategies of a structural (e.g. investing in reconstruction and maintenance) and non-structural nature (e.g. early warning signs, communication, education and evacuation drills) due to financial reasons (Nguyen et al., 2018) or even a concern with worrying tourists as to the degree of risk. The industry may also not work collaboratively with other sectors and stakeholders to facilitate recovery. In effect, the tourism industry can end up engaging in rather costly, non-financially beneficial, approaches to rebuilding elements of the destination which do not minimize exposure to hazards and actually weakens disaster resiliency over the long term.
Demand-Side Perspectives
The literature on the impacts of disasters on tourists is heavily biased towards estimating tourism demand post-disaster or comparing pre- and post-disaster demand levels. There is a general agreement in this literature that after a disaster, tourism numbers generally decline (Khazai et al., 2018), with the impacts of earthquakes on tourism numbers examined by several studies (Cró & Martins, 2017; Huang & Min, 2002; Mazzocchi & Montini, 2001). For example, Mazzocchi and Montini (2001) found that the average stay in Umbria, following the central Italy earthquake of September 1997, was increasing due to media reporters and technicians that were covering the disaster staying longer rather than tourists. Examining the
