Risk & Crisis Management in Tourism Sector:
Recovery from Crisis
in the OIC Member Countries
36
strong pre-existing relationships between stakeholders. This illustrates one of the key elements of
tourism business resilience referred to in Section 1.4. above.
1.7.2. Source Country Travel Advisories
Finally, the role of source country travel advisories is considered. Governments issue travel
advisories to inform their citizens of safety or security issues affecting a particular country or
region. They are generally issued across the full range of destination crises, or where a government
is no longer able to respond to difficulties experienced by its citizens: for instance, if consular
services are undermined by local unrest. There is sometimes a distinction between long- and short-
term advisories, the former covering long-standing situations such as civil wars, with the latter
covering temporary issues such as environmental disasters or election-related demonstrations. In
either case, the advisory can have a devastating effect on a tourism-dependent destination
(UNWTO, 2011). The UNWTO recommends issuing a reassuring – but truthful – statement on the
situation, noting awareness of the advisory and stating that all possible measures are being taken
to resolve the situation.
Of course, travel advisories are literally ‘advice’ and cannot prevent people from travelling to a
destination. However, travel insurance will generally be invalidated if travel is undertaken in
defiance of advisories, which means that these constitute a strong prohibition against travel. More
experienced travellers are likely to access the considerable independent advice available on social
media, blogs and forums such as TripAdvisor, the Lonely Planet discussion forum ThornTree, or
websites such as
1.8. Conclusion
The clear use of a framework to guide preparations for a crisis will help those concerned with
managing it to adhere to an agreed set of actions, while understanding the resilience cycle and how
it affects businesses is essential background for the key stakeholders in a tourism system as it will
give insights into the actions to be taken to prepare for and recover from crises. The principles and
key actions of crisis communications should be integrated into the crisis management framework.
The next section of the report will cover practical strategies and actions to be taken at each stage of
the crisis management process.