qxd 8/24/05 8:08 AM Page 139 III Tourism and Safety Issues Yoel Mansfeld and Abraham Pizam This section is composed of five chapters that dis- cuss the issue of the physical safety of tourists while visiting certain destinations or participating in a variety of dangerous tourist activities. The exposed dangers contained in this section range from partic- ipation in commercial adventure tourism activities, encounters with wildlife, infection from various dis- eases, and/or being injured by natural disasters and unsafe travel conditions. Geoffrey Wall, in a chapter describing the unfold- ing of the crisis that occurred in Toronto, Canada, as a result of the SARS epidemic, analyzes the influ- ence that the media had on public perception of the H7898_Ch08.qxd 8/24/05 8:08 AM Page 140 Tourism Security and Safety: From Theory to Practice gravity of the event. He suggests that the Canadian media has been somewhat responsible for arousing fears where minimal risks, in fact, existed.
In addition, he raises some serious questions about the role that the various governments should have in crisis management and disaster reduction and mitigation plans and he advocates the creation of such plans for the private sector and especially the tourism industry. Last, but not least, he describes the various recovery methods that were used in the SARS case and analyzes their short-term and long-term effec- tiveness. In their chapter on Australia’s commercial adventure tourism, Damian Morgan and Martin Fluker review the research findings and common practices relevant to risk management for operators in this sector. This review highlights two salient points: first, a model of the risk management operating environment for commercial adventure tourism operations, and second, suggestions for research to enhance understanding of this dynamic tourism sector.
The authors conclude by suggesting that managers in this industry have the responsibility of: (a) pro- viding their clients with experiences that are adventurous but within an accept- able margin of safety; and (b) informing their clients about the physical risks involved in these activities before they commit to the adventure. Because future clients will be seeking new and more challenging adventure experiences, this industry, in the authors’ opinion, will become more regulated through legislative and accreditation requirements, in order to improve safety standards and meet client needs. Wilson Irvine and Alistair Anderson’s chapter explores the impacts of foot and mouth disease on peripheral tourist destinations in the Grampian region of Scotland, which was indirectly affected by the disease; and the Cumbria region of England, which was directly affected by the presence of the disease. The empirical data, collected by two surveys, showed that Cumbria, which was closed to visitors, was very badly affected, but the Grampian area experienced no cases of foot and mouth.
Despite this, the impact on the tourism industry of both destinations was similar. In the authors’ opinion this seems to confirm that perceptions, rather than facts or real circumstances, created the disastrous effects of this catastrophe on the tourism industry. The authors conclude with the claim that tourism decisions seem to be made in the heart, not in the head, and therefore it is the responsibility of public agencies to mitigate against these unrealistic perceptions through tourist education. Based on the information provided by travel advisories of the main English- speaking generating markets to China, Zelia Breda and Carlos Costa identified the following travel risks/hazards to China: Crimes ■ Frequent pickpocketing and minor thefts at train and bus stations of large cities.
■ Infrequent violent crimes such as robberies and murder of tourists in some rural locations. ■ Frequent attacks and robberies of foreigners in popular expatriate bar and night- club areas in Beijing and Shanghai and in the shopping district of Shenzhen. ■ Minor thefts and sexual harassment on overnight trains and buses. ■ Robberies by armed bandits in the most remote areas of China.
■ An increase in drug smuggling and related crimes in the Yunnan province.qxd 8/24/05 8:08 AM Page 141 Tourism and Safety Issues Health Hazards ■ Possible infection by the following diseases: ● Cholera; ● Hepatitis A; ● Malaria; ● Tuberculosis; ● Typhoid fever; ● Mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever and encephalitis B; ● Rabies; ● Avian influenza; ● HIV/AIDS; and ● SARS. Local Travel Safety ■ Road and traffic accidents; ■ Pedestrian accidents; ■ Air accidents on internal flights; ■ Incidents of overcrowded ferries, which sank resulting in the loss of lives; and ■ Attacks of piracy (against private yachts) in the South China Sea. Natural Disasters ■ Earthquakes; and ■ Severe rainstorms that can cause flooding and landslides. Political Situation ■ Restrictions on undertaking certain religious activities, including preaching and distributing religious materials.
■ Regulations against any public demonstrations that do not have prior approval from the authorities. The authors conclude that the tourism industry in China was in the past nega- tively affected by health hazards (i., SARS), changes in politics (i., Tiananmen Square incident and the cross-strait relations), and economics, but only for a short duration, after which it recovered quickly and continued to grow at an accelerated pace. Gianna Moscardo, Matthew Taverner, and Barbara Woods’ chapter discusses the potential impacts of wildlife on tourist safety. It is based on the results of two studies, one of which was a critical incidents study of the worst wildlife tourist experiences, while the second was a survey of tourists’ perceptions of the risks associated with different wildlife in the North Queensland region of Australia and the impact these risk perceptions had on their travel behaviors.
The study found that different tourists react differently to the same species of wildlife. Some see them as dangerous but attractive, others see them as dangerous and unattractive, while for still others they can be perceived as attractive but not dan- gerous. The study also discovered that although tourists overestimated the level of risk associated with contact with wildlife, a large proportion of them did not intend to change their behaviors in response to potential risks from wildlife encounters.qxd 8/24/05 8:08 AM Page 142 H7898_Ch08.qxd 8/24/05 8:08 AM Page 143 8 Recovering from SARS: The Case of Toronto Tourism Geoffrey Wall Learning Objectives ■ To suggest that the tourism industry is operating in a turbulent environment and must expect to have to respond to a diversity of extreme events. ■ To illustrate the importance of the media in conveying information about extreme events.
■ To demonstrate that perceptions of risk, even where little risk may occur, have far- reaching consequences for tourism. ■ To indicate the range of responses made by one city to address the negative conse- quences of an adverse situation on its tourism industry. ■ To stimulate thought about the roles of the public and private sectors in risk man- agement for the tourism industry. Introduction The tourism industry is operating in a turbulent environment in which both global and local events have major consequences for economic success.
Whether they be wars, political crises, terrorist activities (real or imagined), natural disasters, health emergencies, or other extreme events, they all have swift and usually negative repercussions for those involved in tourism. Of course, this is nothing new. What is novel is that, fueled by the speed and reach of communications, information, in both words and pictures, is disseminated almost instantaneously throughout the world. As a result, the rapidity of the onset of the consequences of even distant 143 H7898_Ch08.qxd 8/24/05 8:08 AM Page 144 Tourism Security and Safety: From Theory to Practice events is virtually immediate, leaving little time to put effective damage-control initiatives in place, and the magnitude of the repercussions of the events is exag- gerated.
Fortunately, there is evidence that tourism can rebound fairly quickly once the threatening situation has passed. However, in the meantime, a great deal of damage occurs, economic dislocation of destinations and businesses takes place, costs of responding to the crisis increase at a time when income is curtailed, the market is soured, misinformation and incomplete information abound, uncertainty prevails, and recriminations occur at a time when calm and measured responses are called for and a cohesive set of responses is required. It is also novel that the events that individually appeared to be unusual and extreme are being seen as examples of a class of “unexpected” damaging events that are less surprising in the increasingly turbulent environment in which we find ourselves. In fact the grouping of natural disasters, wars, terrorist events, chemical spills, epidemics, and other such undesirable phenomena into a class of cata- strophic events requiring forethought, planning, and management, while not new, is now widely recognized as being appropriate.
While differing in detail, such phe- nomena have in common the destruction of lives and property, to different degrees and at different speeds, but often on a massive scale. Recognition of the similari- ties and differences between such damaging occurrences is at the root of an impor- tant new research and policy direction for it changes the focus from discrete, unique events that are unmanageable, to a recognition that these are rare but recur- ring phenomena that may be planned for and whose adverse consequences, if not avoided, may be mitigated. In a turbulent environment, one strategy that merits consideration is risk man- agement. Risks cannot be eliminated but they can be reduced.
However, it is important to consider who should bear the risks—and the answer will vary from place to place and with the nature of the risks. In the Western world and increas- ingly elsewhere, the tourism industry is dominated by the private sector but it oper- ates in an environment that is also managed by the public sector. What risks should be assumed by the private sector and what is the responsibility of governments for risk mitigation in an increasingly turbulent environment? The availability of accurate and timely information is necessary to inform deci- sion makers, but such information is not easily acquired in times of stress. It has been said before that “perception is reality”—tourists respond to what they per- ceive the situation to be and this may or may not mirror reality depending in large part upon the accuracy of the information to which they are exposed.
The very ability of potential tourists to exercise choice—to decide whether or not to go, when or where to go, and what activities to participate in—creates problems for most tourism operators with a fixed plant that makes it difficult to respond to short-term vicissitudes in the market. Thus, given the above discussion of an increasingly turbulent world, this chap- ter examines the decisions made particularly by governments and, to a lesser extent, by the private sector, in the aftermath of an extreme event with far-reaching consequences for the tourism industry. It is also concerned with the management of information. The event of concern is the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) outbreak and, though global in its repercussions, the perspective is pri- marily from Toronto, Canada.
Tourism is an important activity in Toronto. The Greater Toronto Hotel Association alone represents establishments employing more than 30,000 people and its hotels bring in approximately $Can 2 billion 144 H7898_Ch08.qxd 8/24/05 8:08 AM Page 145 Recovering from SARS annually in revenues (all $ figures in this chapter are in Canadian dollars). Of course, this does not include tourism activity in many attractions, transportation, shops, and other tourism-related businesses. Altogether, Toronto receives about 16 million visitors annually who generate about $7.2 billion in revenue (other sources indicate half this expenditure).
The volume of tourism economic activity that is at risk is substantial. Context and Methods In the context of extreme events, SARS has more in common with a drought than a major earthquake. In the case of SARS, globally, not many people died compared with many other disasters, the recognition of the challenge posed by SARS was fairly slow, the disaster event lasted a relatively long time (allowing for manage- ment strategies to be implemented during the event), but millions of people were affected. Nevertheless, the accumulation of many small dislocations and the costs of response measures were massive.