Risk & Crisis Management in Tourism Sector:
Recovery from Crisis
in the OIC Member Countries
52
tourists with prior experience of a destination were less likely to be deterred from visiting it after a
crisis. At the same time, there is some evidence that newer markets offer untapped potential and
are more willing to travel when offered information about a destination. For instance, Bali turned
to the markets of the Middle East, Russia and East Asia after the Bali bombing of 2002 caused
Western markets to impose travel advisories on Indonesia (Fallon, 2008; Hitchcock and Putra,
2008).
Another example is Kenya. Faced with a succession of terrorist attacks along the coast and in
Nairobi, as well as political developments. Its recovery involved focussing on one market segment
for each of its primary product areas, and onmarket diversification. Targeting the US safari market
segment in 2016 saw a recovery in the US market, which overtook the UK as the main generating
market. India ranked third because of the strong Indian diaspora in Kenya. Arrivals from other
African countries also grew, with Uganda-based expatriates taking advantage of visa-free Interstate
passes, and South Africa because of eased visa regulations (as mentioned above). China became the
fifthmost important market for Kenya, passing traditional Europeanmarkets of Germany and Italy.
Adestinationwhich changed the focus of itsmarketing in the recoveryperiod is theMaldives, where
after the 2004 tsunami the Maldives Tourism Promotion Board allocated US$ 1.5 million to fund
initiatives for joint marketing and promotions in order to stop cancellations. This was successful
although the key to recovery was the growth in tourists from emerging generating countries –
specifically Russia and China - which were the only two markets to show growth in 2005 in the
aftermath of the tsunami. Whilst pre-tsunami, Maldives’ top five markets were Italy, the UK,
Germany, Japan and France, by 2011 China had become the leading market with Russia the fifth
most important, these two replacing Japan and France (Carlsen and Hughes, 2007).
In Nepal, less than a month after the 2015 earthquake and in an effort to stimulate the return of
tourists, the Nepal Tourism Board targeted consumers likely to be interested in trekking and
adventure tourism, on the grounds that this segment would be less risk averse since they engage in
sports with an element of risk. The initiative was taken via social media by linking to a travel article
entitled ‘Adventure travelers leading the way in Nepal’s tourism recovery’, thus leveraging an
article already written by another party (Ketter, 2016).
As part of this approach, new segments that are less susceptible to reports of political unrest or
disease outbreaks can be targeted. This includes regional tourists who are likely to have a more
realistic view of the severity of the political or health situation in the country than long-haul
markets, and more price-sensitive tourists. For instance in Macedonia, after years of unrest, the
government boosted subsidies for tour operators focusing on visitors from Bulgaria, Serbia, and
Bosnia, while in an effort to recover from recent crises, Egypt decided to grant Indian tourists,
historically not major visitors to Egypt, a visa on arrival and to launch a direct flight between Cairo
and New Delhi (World Economic Forum, 2015). As a result, it was reported in May 2017 that
arrivals from India had risen by 30% in the first quarter of the year (Egypt Today, 2017). Research
on the MICE sector for visits to Thailand found that regional markets were more resilient and less
likely to cancel bookings, partly due to the geographical ignorance of long-haul markets
(Campiranon and Arcodia, 2007). New tourist segments – frequently in the form of independent