Risk & Crisis Management in Tourism Sector:
Recovery from Crisis
in the OIC Member Countries
32
Crises of longer duration may lead to a prevailing poor image and weak market perception as a
desirable destination for discretionary travel. An example of this is Jordan, which although itself
enjoying high levels of peace and security, is located in a region experiencing high levels of political
turmoil and conflict (Oxford Business Group, 2015). On the other hand, Sri Lanka succeeded in
retaining a successful tourism sector despite its long-running civil war.
Some commentators have linked the speed of recovery from crisis to the underlying stage of the
destination on the ‘Tourist Area Life-Cycle’ curve, in that underlying growth patterns will soon
recover if the trend has been upwards for some time before the crisis (Putra and Hitchcock, 2006).
However, later analyses have determined that the speed of recovery lies in the various forms of
capital (financial, human, cultural) built up in the pre-crisis period. Thus, countries with a well-
established and diversified tourism sector which has strong participation from local stakeholders
and local ownership as well as firm partnerships with tourism intermediaries (travel agencies, the
media) and other international linkages are more likely to recover quickly than fragile destinations
over-reliant on a narrow product offer and with an undiversifiedmarket base. Ghaderi et al (2012)
report that tourism to theMalaysian resort island of Penang recovered within 4-6weeks from each
crisis encountered, while Carlsen andHughes (2008) note that tourismto theMaldives fromcertain
markets took just 3 months to recover after the tsunami (though other markets took longer). The
rapid recovery was thought to be due to effective marketing campaigns, including familiarization
trips for journalists, road shows and increased spend in major markets.
There is some disagreement on the recovery time needed for different types of crisis. Morris (2016)
reports on research by the World Tourism & Travel Council that destinations generally recover
faster from a one-off, relatively small-scale terrorist incident than from long-running political
turmoil or a serious environmental disaster (Table 1.2).
Table 1.2: Crisis Recovery Time
Crisis Category Average Recovery Time
(months)
Political Turmoil 26.7
Terrorism 13.0
Pandemic 21.3
Environmental Disaster 23.8
Source: WTTC – World Travel and Tourism Council (2016)
However, the survey carried out for this study indicated that recovery times for individual
businesses were significantly longer, taking an average of 4.7 years to 9.60 years to recover fully.
As shown in Figure 1.4., the quickest events to recover from were political crises, followed by
natural disasters, while disease epidemics and economic crises took the longest to recover from.