Risk & Crisis Management in Tourism Sector:
Recovery from Crisis
in the OIC Member Countries
22
The four phases were explained by Holling (2001) as follows:
α: Reorganization: rapid change after a destabilizing event, with regeneration and renewal of
societal structures.
r: Exploitation: new systems are created through exploitation of social and other forms of
potential produced in previous phases. New institutions may emerge and new political,
cultural and social relationships formmore easily.
K: Conservation: the gradual construction of a new stable state, when structures are
institutionalized and new capital is formed. Structures can become increasingly
interconnected, leading to rigidity and inflexibility.
Ω: Release: a disturbance event (or series of events) which destabilizes existing systems,
releasing the rigidity of structures and leading to the rapid changes.
There is occasionally a very clear demarcation between one phase and another, for instance in
the case of a major natural disaster or political disturbance which disrupts normal systems, but
more often there is no clear dividing point between the stages, with one evolving gradually into
another.
1.4.2. Resilience Theory in Tourism
Cochrane (2010) explains the operation of resilience theory in tourism. A system which renews
itself after a destabilising event – the “reorganisation” phase – moves into the “exploitation” phase
with the appearance of an orderly system through making use of various forms of potential (i.e.
social, human, natural, financial) developed over previous cycles, and channelling these into new
structures. This is followed by the longer “conservation” stage inwhich the different forms of capital
again build up. The system becomes increasingly conservative, interconnected and, therefore,
stable - though flexibility is needed to ensure the system does not become rigid and incapable of
absorbing stress. When a destabilising event occurs, the “release” phase utilises stored capital to
readjust to the collapse of the old system and lead to another “reorganisation” phase.
Using resilience theory as a framework, the factors that cause vulnerability in systems, as well as
those that improve the system’s capacity to absorb disturbance, can be analysed. Vulnerability to
unexpected events reflects three categories of sensitivity factors:
 Physical, social or institutional exposure to stress,
 Sensitivity to the stress or deviation including the ability to anticipate and cope with it,
depending on political, social and institutional characteristics, and
 The ability of the system to recover, based on existing structures and to adapt these
structures to withstand future deviations more successfully i.e. resilience.