of the September 1999 earthquake in Taiwan on the tourism industry, Huang and Min (2002) found that the recovery period exceeded 11 months, with restricted growth in inbound tourist arrivals. In the case of Japan, the impact caused by earthquakes was found to be temporary in nature (Wu & Hayashi, 2014). In the weeks following the Nepal earthquake in April 2015, many tourists were evacuated or departed and forward bookings plummeted (Beirman et al., 2018). Cró and Martins (2017) found no structural breaks in international tourist arrivals for New Zealand. They conclude that this may be due to the earthquake damage being localized in Christchurch. The results of this study were based on national level aggregated data and therefore do not necessarily portray the impacts of the earthquake on the local economy. Prayag et al. (2019a) analysed the impact of the 2010 and 2011 Canterbury earthquakes on domestic and international tourism expenditure for Christchurch. They found that the impacts on international tourism was absorbed quicker than that for domestic tourism. They also showed stability in both visitor expenditure and exchange rates post-quake for the international tourism market. This stability can be attributed partly to the response of the tourism industry. As Tucker et al. (2017) noted, the marketing and promotion activities of the city, for example, have had an emphasis on rebirth and renewal as opposed to devastation. Altogether, research shows that crises and disasters obviously have some effects on tourism demand but the magnitude of such effects is inconsistent across disasters, locations and time. However, of key importance in understanding the effects of earthquakes on tourist demand is to recognize that media coverage and the framing of earthquake impact at a destination is of much more direct importance to influencing demand than the actual physical impact. Therefore, the development of effective communication strategies by DMOs is of central importance to effectively managing visitor demand following an earthquake (Hall, 2014; Orchiston & Higham, 2016)
Some studies have examined the growth of so-called ‘dark tourism’ as a segment following a disaster (see Wright, this volume). Studying visitors’ perceptions, attitudes and behaviours at earthquake related sites has received some attention in the literature. For example, Yan et al. (2016) examine the motivation and emotional reactions of visitors to Sichuan, China, following the Weichuan earthquake. They found that curiosity, leisure related motivations and learning were strong drivers to visit the Weichuan earthquake relics. Hall (2012) criticized the use of the notion of dark tourism in the context of the Christchurch earthquakes as he found that the majority of the domestic tourists he interviewed after the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes were motivated by wanting to better understand the effect of the earthquakes on heritage and on the city as a whole, with the desire to visit substantially influenced by their sense of place and their connection as VFR travellers. An understanding of post-disaster tourist behaviour is increasingly important for future disaster response and planning as tourists are often a key stakeholder affected. Beyond understanding new segments such as dark tourism, an understanding of how specific segments react both psychologically and behaviourally would allow the development and design of strategic marketing communications to mitigate apprehension caused by misperceptions and confusion surrounding the extent of the disaster and its associated risks. This would also facilitate the development and design of strategic marketing communications (Wu & Walters, 2016).
Another emerging segment following a disaster is that of volunteer tourism. For example, in the case of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake in Japan, Fukui and Ohe (2019) reported a massive influx of volunteer tourists from other prefectures in Japan and internationally but this had fallen substantially six months after the disaster. There is increasing recognition that volunteer tourists can make meaningful contributions to the recovery of communities provided that their activities are appropriately managed. For example, volunteer tourists played a central role in Nepal’s tourism recovery following the April 2015 earthquake (Beirman et al., 2018; Wearing et al., 2020). However, the timing of such arrivals on the context of recovery is a significant issue. Another segment that has been highlighted of interest is that of accessible tourism following a disaster. The travel mobility of earthquake survivors as well as making a destination accessible to visitors with disability should be considered as part of the recovery. However, there are limited studies examining the needs of such segments. The study by Tao et al. (2019) on the Sichuan earthquake found that survivors would limit their involvement in travel opportunities to avoid public scrutiny. Negative experiences related to perceived unfriendly attitudes of facility staff and displeasure at being stared at by others are common barriers that impact earthquake survivors travel.
The experience of the 2004 earthquake and Indian Ocean tsunami highlights the gap in hazard risk perception between tourists and the local community. Interviews with British tourists visiting locations affected by the disaster revealed that many of them did not evacuate after the initial tremors (Kelman et al., 2008). More disturbing is the fact that nearly half of the fatalities in Khao Lak, Thailand consisted of tourists who had low awareness of local hazard risks and evacuation strategies. This situation highlights the role and responsibilities of tourism and government stakeholders in ensuring tourist safety and security as well as that of local people (Nguyen et al., 2018; see also Subadra, this volume). Many foreign victims of the Asian tsunami had come from low-seismicity countries, where hardly any earthquake induced damage had been documented throughout their written history (Thoresen et al., 2009). Tourist studies should, therefore, focus on understanding the general orientation of tourists toward disaster related risks, awareness of disaster risks and their perceptions of the effectiveness of different emergency response mechanisms, as well as the willingness of local tourism stakeholders to communicate risk and the manner in which hazard risks and evacuation strategies are best conveyed to visitors. Among such issues is the need to present disaster information for tourists in multiple languages (Nguyen et al., 2018).
Supply-Side Perspectives
Much of the research on the impact of disasters in the tourism industry is supply-side oriented (Ritchie, 2008; Wu & Walters, 2016). Many tourism operators are small and micro-enterprises that often lack the resources and capabilities to rebound quickly following a disaster (Mair et al., 2016). They rely on collaborative approaches between national and local government, DMOs and other stakeholders to manage recovery marketing. A key part of managing recovery of tourism destinations is restoring the image and reputation of the place (Khazai et al., 2018). Marketing and promotions are key to assisting a tourist destination to recover after a disaster (Hystad & Keller, 2008). Post-disaster marketing should be aimed at correcting misperceptions and providing information about the recovery phase as well as balancing demand with the capacity to host tourists during a rebuild (Hall, 2014). It is also an opportunity for the destination to correct negative media coverage, if any, about the scale of the disaster, the extent of the damage or the size of the area affected (Mair et al., 2016), as well as the nature of community responses (Carter & Kenney, 2018). The issue of inaccurate media coverage and its effects on destinations and businesses following a crisis has been highlighted in previous studies (Sonmez et al., 1999). For example, initial international reporting of the Kaikoura earthquake in 2016 suggested that the quake had hit north-east of Christchurch, which immediately resonated with the public as another earthquake in Christchurch, although it was Kaikoura that was substantially affected as a destination (Fountain & Cradock-Henry, 2019; see also Fang et al., this volume). The further the generating market is from the affected destination, the more vulnerable it seems to be to sensationalized and inaccurate media coverage, which is often the root cause of negative perceptions about a destination (Hall, 2010; Walters & Clulow, 2010).
The timing of recovery marketing efforts should be a collective one, across local, regional and national tourism stakeholders. More importantly questions about the appropriateness, ethics, timing and effectiveness of different recovery phase marketing strategies need to be addressed (Orchiston & Higham, 2016). As an example, Tourism New Zealand (TNZ), the central government agency for marketing New Zealand internationally as a tourist destination, removed images of Christchurch from all international marketing material after the 2011
February earthquake. In parallel, existing advertising from news websites were removed and key word searches associated with the Canterbury earthquakes were purchased
