Risk & Crisis Management in Tourism Sector:
Recovery from Crisis
in the OIC Member Countries
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6. POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
6.1. Introduction
This section broadly follows the structure of Faulkner’s 2001 Disaster Management Framework. It
covers the different types of crisis and disaster affecting tourism systems in countries or
destinations generally and emergencies affecting individual businesses. The aspects covered are
institutional arrangements, crisis planning and responses, fiscal and legislative measures, and
market responses. Recommendations will cover both public sector and private sector and are
informed by the experiences of the eight countries studied indepth for this project aswell as others.
The aim throughout is to support governments and private enterprises in creating resilient tourism
systems which are able to withstand and recover from crises and disasters, whether due to
anthropogenic or natural causes.
Consideration is given to dealing with anxiety aroused towards visiting Islamic countries or
cultures due to the Islamaphobia.
To a large extent the recommendations made here are standard responses evidenced by the
tourism and hospitality industry worldwide, but there are elements of risk and crisis management
in Islamic states which differ from standard international practice because the challenges they face
are exacerbated by socio-political upheavals currently taking place in the Islamic world, and by the
response to these in source markets (especially Western ones). The recommendations do not
constitute specific advice to individual governments or businesses, but cover the principal known
and evidenced methods of risk and crisis management, which can be adapted to country-specific
and sector-specific circumstances.
Section 6.2 gives the overall conclusions to the eight case study countries studied, while Section 6.3
builds on that by covering strategies and actions to be taken by government bodies such as
departments and directorates-general of tourism, NTOs, and higher-level public-private sector
organisations such as DMOs or local enterprise partnerships. Section 6.4 recommends actions to be
taken by private enterprises.
6.2. Conclusions from the Case Studies
There are some similarities between the responses of the different case study countries to the crises
they have experienced in their tourism sectors. An outline of the key responses is given below,
grouped under the headings of risk and pre-crisis management, market responses, destination
responses, and critical success factors.