Risk & Crisis Management in Tourism Sector:
Recovery from Crisis
in the OIC Member Countries
21
3. Recovery Stimulation
Even when the immediate crisis is over, the market can remain sceptical as to the safety of the
destination/facility, so positive actions need to bemaintained over a period of time through longer-
term renewal of infrastructure and through reassurance marketing.
1.4. The Tourism Resilience Cycle
1.4.1. The Resilience Cycle
Resilience is the ability of a system to reduce the chances of a crisis occurring, to absorb the
impacts of a crisis or disaster should it occur, and to recover quickly. Another way of looking at
resilience is the preparedness and ability of systems (in tourism and other fields) to respond to,
cope with and adapt to changes over time without losing their fundamental structures and
functions (Buultjens et al, 2015). The fundamental principles of resilience, based on the work of
C.S. Holling (2001) and others, are that:
1. systems do not evolve in a linear fashion but according to a cycle or loop,
2. the phases of the cycle broadly repeat, but the characteristics of each repetition are not
necessarily identical,
3. the features and speed of recovery after a destabilising event depend on the system’s
adaptive capacity (or vulnerability), and
4. adaptive capacity is based on various forms of capital accumulated during earlier phases
and iterations.
Another way of viewing resilience is that systems fluctuate within what Walker et al (2004) calls
“basins of attraction”. The bottom of the “basin” is the point at which systems are strongest with
a margin on each side within which systems can fluctuate without losing their inherent function.
If a dramatic stress event occurs, it may cause the system to override the margins of its “basin”
and pass into a different state. The way systems switch and regain stability can be illustrated as
a figure–of-eight, with the four principal stages forming a repetitive loop (Figure 1.2).
Figure 1.2: The Resilience Cycle or ‘Holling Loop’
Source: Holling (2001)