Risk & Crisis Management in Tourism Sector:
Recovery from Crisis
in the OIC Member Countries
57
3. TOURISM SECTOR CRISES IN THE OIC MEMBER STATES
This section covers crises and disasters affectingOIC countries. The first part will examine the types
of crisis faced by OIC countries and list the principal events which have affected them, followed by
examples of the impact on tourism and some actions taken to counter the effects. The section
includes a discussion of Islamophobia, which may be affecting the propensity to travel to Islamic
countries from some source markets.
The countries of the MENA region in particular have experienced challenges in attracting tourists
from traditional source markets because of developments from 2010.
3.1. Types of Crisis Faced by the OIC Countries
A typology of the range of crises and disasters which can affect tourism was outlined in Section 1.
These were categorised as:
 Environmental Events
 Societal/Political Events
 Health-related Events
 Technological Events
 Economic Events
In addition, two further categories of crisis which can affect individual businesses were included:
 Accidents affecting tourists
 Incidents affecting businesses
For the purposes of this section, the last 2 categories of accidents and incidents are omitted, since
these aspects generally affect individual businesses only.
The tourism and hospitality industries of member countries of the OIC are vulnerable to the same
types of challenges as other countries. A review of the literature and recent historical events
indicates a number of crises in each category affecting OIC countries: these are outlined in Tables
3.1–3.5. The tables are not intended to be exhaustive lists of all crises in these countries. They
include OICmember countries which have (or have had) a significant tourism industry, and include
only themajor eventswhich have caused significant fears for the safety and security of international
tourists, damage to the tourism infrastructure, or significant reputational damage affecting visitor
arrivals. Crises which have affected global levels of tourism, such as the 2008 global financial crisis,
have not been included as this affected the tourism industry almost everywhere.
For the purposes of this report, OIC countries have been divided into three categories:
1. OIC countries with a significant (or nascent) tourism industry but no recent crises (21).
These are: Albania, Algeria, Bahrain, Benin, Brunei, Djibouti, Dubai, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau,