Risk & Crisis Management in Tourism Sector:
Recovery from Crisis
in the OIC Member Countries
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development; and negative environmental impacts such as pollution, encroachment by tourism
developments on national parks and other protected areas, biodiversity loss on golf courses due to
over-use of pesticides, animal welfare abuses (especially concerning elephants), and other forms of
environmental and ecological damage.
There has been negative publicity in particular regarding environmental damage. The coastline
around some resorts became badly damaged due to mass marine tourism, removal of mangrove
forests which used to form a barrier to coastal erosion, and dumping of garbage and untreated
sewage into the sea. Regulation of tourism has been so weak in some places that in 2016 the
Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plants Conservation closed the island of Koh Tachai to
tourists because its carrying capacity had been exceeded (BBC News, 2016). Similarly, the Phi Phi
islands came under increasing environmental pressure because of the heavy increase in tourism
numbers due to its location as the backdrop to the popular 2000 film ‘The Beach’.
In addition to these general issues, several specific crises have affected Thai tourism in the last 15
years. These fall into the categories of political crises, economic crises, disease outbreaks and
natural disasters.
 2003: An outbreak of ‘Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome’ (SARS) spread across East
and Southeast Asia. Even though Thailand was barely affected by the disease itself, it
was heavily affected by the decline in tourism generally across the region, with an
overall reduction in visitor arrivals of around 7% compared to the previous year.
 2004/5 : On 26 December 2004 a huge tsunami generated near the Indonesian island of
Sumatra struck coasts around the Indian Ocean, killing an estimated 10,000 people in
Thailand including around 3,750 foreigners. The principal places affected were popular
tourism spots and this was the height of the ‘winter’ season, when sun-seeking
Europeans were on holiday from the cold northern hemisphere winter. Total damages
and losses were assessed at US$2,198 million (1.4% of GDP for that year) (Nidhiprabha,
2007). But although the disaster caused a drop in monthly arrival figures in the first few
months of 2005, the damage to the infrastructure was not great and figures turned
positive from June onwards. Growth of 1.4% was recorded over the year, and in 2006
figures rose by over 20%.
 2006: A military coup – the first non-constitutional change of government for 15 years
– caused anxiety amongst key markets, but civil unrest was limited in extent and there
was no significant impact on visitor arrivals overall.
 2008: A political crisis included occupation and closure of the principal international
airport for 8 days, leading to flight cancellations and knock-on effects such as
cancellation of tours and hotel bookings. Even though this happened at the end of the
year, arrivals showed a slight fall compared to 2007.
 2008-9: The global financial crisis caused arrivals to decline slightly but they rebounded
the following year. Domestic tourism was also affected, with a 10% fall in visitor spend
in 2009 as people decided to save theirmoney until the situation recovered (PwC, 2015).