Crisis management in travel industry.

Abstract

The report examined crisis management concepts and impacts on tourists. Specific example of 9/11 crisis recovery was provided.

Keywords: Crisis, crisis management, risk management, tourist behaviour, 9/11 crisis.

Tourism business is a risky business, at least for the reason that the whole industry operates in and is affected by the fluctuating environment every day. The environment is changing in respect of all PESTE aspects (political, economical, social, technological and environmental factors) and that potentially can lead to the crisis. As time is passing by, organizations are experiencing crisis more and more frequently due to a variety of factors, including an increased reliance on technology, complex corporate structures, the industrial and information revolutions (Perrow, 1984; Seeger, Sellnow, & Ulmer, 1998), and terrorism (Coombs, 1995) (in Massey, 2005). Since the terrorist attacks in USA on the 11th of September, the number of organizations with crisis management plans (CMP) was increasing, however only 57% of major companies have a CMP, and of those, unfortunately, 13% developed their CMP only after experiencing a crisis (Barton, 2001).
The aim of the report is to analyze crisis management concepts in travel industry. The objectives of the report are: to discuss crisis types in travel industry. Then to describe crisis management concepts. Further, to provide explanation on crisis impacts on tourists behaviour. Finally the report will provide an example of crisis in travel industry, as well as how this crisis was managed.
Crisis management concepts were discussed in the report, including phases of crisis management. However, more general ideas on this topic were provided as well. It was stated by World Tourism Organisation (2003) (in Page and Connell, 2009) that there is a general scheme of crisis management, which will suit every company. So, it consists of pre-crisis stage, with the active preparation of a crisis management plan. Then "During the crisis" stage, with active process of minimizing damages, losses etc. Finishing with "Post-crisis" stage, with a recovery strategy too boost tourist confidence in the company or destination and effective promotional campaigns.
Further the report provided ideas on potential risks to the travel industry. The report referred to the general ones and the one, which is usually not accepted as a risk, at all. So, by the general ones the report assumed: changing economic conditions, environmental impacts, competition in the industry, fluctuations in exchange rates, fuel costs, changes to regulations, loss of key personnel, industrial relations, political instability, terrorism and natural disasters. Additionally, the report focused on the most harmful risk, which is sun-factor. Even though, sun-safety concerns nowadays are not that much spread in public as terrorism concerns, still it is likely to cause deaths of more people. Maybe the reason for that is that people just do not think that ordinary sunburn may cause the skin cancer and that this is the most common form of cancer in the world (Robinson and Gelder, 2010).
Moreover, the report briefly described crisis impacts on consumer behaviour. A little bit of theory on decision-making process is included in this chapter. Example of crisis impacts on the consumer behaviour is provided. The chapter concludes with the thought that at least for one reason - crises impact tourist decision-making not in the beneficial way for tourism - organisations should develop CMP.
Finally, the report provided a specific example of crisis management. As the report referred to the most well-known crisis in the tourism industry - 9/11 crisis - mainly recovery process was described. Both sides of the crisis recovery were covered - technical and administrative recovery. It was stated in the report, that security measures were mainly changed after the crisis. Additionally, from the administrative point of view of the crisis recovery, main force was put into the communication with public. People have lost trust in the air travel, so the main goal was to convince the public that air travel is safe through the range of communication channels.
Overall, all previously mentioned topics were discussed in the report and the main idea, which the report came up to, was that it is crucial to have a CMP for every company - it will barely save the company from the crisis, but still it would help to be ready for that.

References:
Glaesser, D. (2006) Crisis management in tourism industry. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Massey, J.E. (2005) Public Relations in the Airline Industry: the crisis response to the September 11th Attacks. Journal of Hospitality & Leisure Marketing. Vol. 12, pp.97-114.
Moss, S.E., Ryan, C. and Moss, J. (2008) The lifecycle of a terrorism crisis: Impact on tourist travel. Tourism Analysis. Vol.13 issue 1. pp.33-41.

The author of the discussion paper has explained in great detail the reasons and the practical elements for the increase of crisis management in the tourism industry in the 21st century. Interesting to note however from the paper that only 13 % of organizations developed crisis management plans after the 9/11 terrorist attacks as this number could have been expected to be much higher. The actual implications of a crisis management plan are explained which are helpful for those who are unfamiliar with the term. Even though the paper has an example of crisis management regarding 9/11 it would have been interesting to hear of an example of an organization applying their crisis management plan and the different actions done.

In the paper it is stated that the tourism business is a risky business which is quite accurate as it truly is affected by so many different factors such as the political environment, climate changes, by the financial world etc. Tourism is also risky to the consumers because of the unknown nature of the product/service when they are purchasing items. Experience goods have a range of risks associated to them with many of them mentioned in the paper. Interesting point risen in the paper is the one of organizations are in danger of falling into crisis because of the increased reliance on technology. This can be seen more accurate especially in the 21st century as for example the Internet is expanding in forms of its power on every day life which forces organizations to adapt and to stay up-to-date.

The author mentions potential risks for organizations in the travel industry with one of them being the risk of getting skin cancer from the sun. Now as this is clearly a risk for people, as not so much for the organizations, it is interesting to note that the risk of skin cancer is not thought of as such a big or a potential risk by the public as for example terrorism which is clearly more talked about.

Overall the paper was an interesting read which explained the idea of crisis management. I concur with the author that crisis management plans should be made by tourism organizations as it is always good to be prepared for the worst. Crisis situations can be resolved quicker if organizations have some kinds of plans and ideas for worst case scenarios. Of course it is complicated to prepare for certain crisis such as terrorism or natural disasters because of the unpredictable nature of them, but precautionary plans can prove to be essential.

The author in this piece of work has mentioned right that the Tourism business is a risky business and getting affected by the fluctuating environment every day. The issues of PESTE aspects (political, economical, social, technological and environmental factors) and that possibly can lead to the crisis, was good point of the author. General it is well analysed the fact that as technology changing and increasing every year, the terror attacks on tourism industry rising. The interesting and very important fact that was mentioned also was the issue that after terror attack of 9/11 on America the organizations had 57% increased the crisis management plan on going and 13% of them were only developed after the experience of crisis. However this paper is completely engages with the strand as terrorism is a vast problem of the tourism industry as and all of the industries.
The fact that the paper analyse the crisis management plan and its stages of pre-crisis, during the crises and post-crisis point the understanding of minimizing the damages and losses for finally avoidance of crisis. Also a good point of the paper is that the crisis management plan needs to be involved in every organization specially now days with such a disasters and terrorism that organizations got affected and specially after the 9/11 attack.
Therefore the author analysed the crisis management well and the 9/11 attack was supported and discussed properly and was related too, one example of an organization before and after crisis with support of crisis management plan was missed. There should be a paradigm of an example of how the organizations work and use the pre and post- crisis stages.
Another issue that could be mentioned is the media. The media could be negative and positive attention to the tourist destinations. Media can scare the tourists with their statistics of the disasters and terrorism attracts so can cause tourist arrivals declines to the destination.
Furthermore the author right mentioned that the sun- factor is very dangerous issue for the tourists and unlikely cause deaths of a lot of people nowadays. But the point was not good enough examined in the way of how it could be managed and be avoiding in terms of tourist's health and safety in the future.
Finally, in this piece of work is clear examine the fact that travellers has a real risk of terrorism and is affect and scare them to travel. It is obviously pointed in this paper that the natural disasters are different and more difficult to predict and take longer time in terms of recovery and state of despair for a long time. Although some limitations were mentioned the whole piece of work was very interesting and sophisticated done.