Risk & Crisis Management in Tourism Sector:
Recovery from Crisis
in the OIC Member Countries
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quarter (24.4%) of visits in 2016 were for business purposes. A further third of visits
(30.75%) were for VFR purposes, due partly to continuing close ties with the Republic
of Ireland (representing around 8% of all visits), partly to the high number of people of
British descent living in other parts of the world who wish to keep in touch with their
families (e.g. Canada, Australia), and partly to the high number of recent immigrants
from the EU and further afield who invite relations to visit them. Again, these markets
are especially resilient.
 The diversity of the sector, from a large number of small businesses to major multi-
national chains.
 Strong recognition as a country brand. In 2016 the UK ranked 3rd in the world (behind
the USA and Germany) in recognition amongst 20,000 international respondents when
scored across a range of attributes (VisitBritain, n/d).
 Subsequent to the FMD outbreak, there was far greater scrutiny of tourism by
government than previously, with renewal of institutional structures and revisioning of
the countryside: no longer was tourism seen as subsidiary to farming, but instead,
farming began to be seen as the context of leisure opportunities – especially in areas
such as national parks. In effect there has been a realignment of the rural economy
across Britain, from a predominantly agricultural orientation to a service orientation in
which tourism plays a major role (Cochrane, 2009).
5.2.5. Weaknesses and Threats to Tourism in Britain
As shown above, the UK’s tourism industry is diverse and sophisticated, but the FMD crisis of
2001 revealed underlying weaknesses in the sector which partly account for the slow growth of
international arrivals. During and in the immediate aftermath of the FMD crisis, there was
widespread criticism of how the government had handled it. It was claimed that public sector
responses were confused, ad hoc and too extreme; for instance the mass cull of livestock was
said to be unnecessary as the actual number of livestock affected was small, and a vaccine
against the disease was available. Meanwhile, the authorities did little to mitigate the impact on
the nation’s image and secondary effects of the piles of burning carcasses and pall of smoke
which lay over swathes of the countryside. At a deeper level, the government was slow to
recognise that the real crisis was in rural tourism rather than agriculture, and it compounded
the problem by trying to distance itself from responsibility for the devastation which had
befallen the rural tourism industry through its actions (Sharpley and Craven, 2001).
The Culture, Media and Sport Committee (CMSC) is one of a number of select committees
appointed by Parliament to scrutinize the expenditure, administration and policies of
government ministries – in this case the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), which
encompasses tourism as part of its brief. Since the Millennium the CMSC has produced three
reports on the national tourism industry: in 2001, 2008 and 2015.
Based on these reports and other sources, the principal weaknesses identified in the UK tourism
industry are: