Risk & Crisis Management in Tourism Sector:
Recovery from Crisis
in the OIC Member Countries
19
Six functions of risk management were identified by PATA (2011):
1. Identify: Identify risks or hazards before they become realities.
2. Analyse: Create decision-making information by evaluating the probabilities, time-frames
and potential impacts of each risk and then classifying and prioritising them.
3. Plan: Use the decision-making information to formulate contingency action plans for
mitigating the potential impact of each risk.
4. Track: Monitor the likely effectiveness of these plans by reviewing data on evolving risks.
5. Control: Revise the risk mitigation plans according to data from the tracking stage.
6. Communicate: Implement internal and external information policies to ensure
stakeholder buy-in and support in monitoring changes in the risk environment.
The specific risks and crises likely to occur within tourism systems will be outlined in Section 1.4
below. However, a more nuanced view on crisis management is also necessary. Scott et al (2008)
claim that the standard perspective of recovery based on a series of remedial steps leading to
normality is inadequate. Instead, a more evolutionary perspective is needed based on the
presumption that there is no unique solution to a crisis. This form of analysis focuses on the effects
of a crisis on operations, relationships with network partners, the ways in which these develop as
responses to the crisis, and the emergence of new states of operation based on organizational
learning. These factors are fundamental to an understanding of the emerging discourse of
resilience, which are considered below in the context of tourism.
1.3. Tourism Crisis Management Frameworks
A crisis is “an event, in whatever form it occurs, that creates a shock to the tourism industry
resulting in the sudden emergence of an adverse situation” (Laws and Prideaux, 2005, p. 1), while
crisis management is the “strategies, processes andmeasures which are planned and put into force
to prevent and cope with crisis” (UNWTO, 2011). This process involves understanding how
businesses react to crisis, what measures need to be taken and what effect these will have.
Most crises cannot be predicted and many cannot be avoided, meaning that no destination is
immune from them (Faulkner, 2001). Tourism managers and researchers therefore need to
understand the potential nature and crises and their likely development and possible magnitude.
Faulkner (2001) proposed a framework for understanding the phases of a crisis and the responses
necessary from stakeholders.2 The framework specifies 6 stages, as shown in Table 1.1, which fall
into three overall stages which relate closely to the iterative phases of the planning cycle (i.e. plan
strategies, implement actions, evaluate success, revise plan).
2 The framework is normally known as ‘Faulkner’s Tourism Disaster Management Framework’, but in keeping with the
nomenclature outlined earlier in this report, the term ‘crisis’ will be used to cover the range of natural disasters and anthropogenic
situations which can occur.