CHAPTER 2: Conceptualizing Tourism Disasters, Crises and Risks
2.1.3 Diseases 50
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Terrorism is highly disruptive to the tourism sector and the economies of destinations, and as such, needs to be dealt with rigorously. Lerbinger (2012:200-206) advances the following measures to deal with terrorism. A synopsis is as follows: reduce vulnerability to threats, becoming aware of an organisations’ vulnerabilities and seeking ways of reducing them;
installing security measures, and reducing the frustrations that lead to aggression; strengthening security measures: beefing up security offices and assigning intelligence function to them;
employing chief risk security officers to take charge of duties related to cybersecurity like e- discovery, records retention, disaster recovery; defusing frustrations (removing conditions that trigger frustration amongst people); engaging in intelligence activities (create “space” for intelligence personnel to infiltrate terrorists with a view to alert a target person or organization of an imminent action); improve preparedness (put in place employee awareness and education programs to make “counter-epsionage mindset” part of the corporate culture, and improve alert systems); exercise security measures and enforce laws to deter illegal actions; arrest and imprison the perpetrators of aggressive acts; take defensive action and institute product recalls.
Terrorism, war and political instability cannot be easily avoided by governments and economic sectors including tourism. To this end, Lerbinger (2012:186) cautions that all organisations must be prepared for terrorist acts which might take the following forms: “kidnapping of executives, workplace violence, mailing of bomb or anthrax-laden letters, extortion attempts, corporate espionage, cybercrime, placement of malicious rumours and defamation by the Internet.”
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However, it is prone to certain health hazards. Tourists are prone to health risks in places where there is, for instance, poor hygiene and sub-standard accommodation. Travelling is a major factor in the outbreak of diseases since human movement acts as an outlet for spreading diseases. Diseases have an adverse effect on the sector and its visitors.
Henderson (2007) maintains that sanitation standards at destinations are at the core of the causes of certain diseases. He cites an example of special interests tourists in South East Asia and the South Pacific, which is prone to vector- and water-borne diseases. Such diseases are on the increase, due to: more remote sites are opened up for tourism; foreign travelers increasing; lack of money and health care facilities to cure diseases; the process of globalisation, the attitudes and anxieties of tourists; and an increase in the use of cruise ships wherein gastrointestinal diseases are regularly recorded. Laws et al. (2007) further point out other diseases such as avian influenza (‘bird flu’) in Hong Kong. This is a strain that can kill people, and which discouraged visitations in the late 1990s. Bioterrorism is another serious health issue (Henderson, 2007 and Lerbinger, 2012).
Lerbinger (2012) highlights the issues pertinent to bioterrorism in the following fashion:
Americans became exposed to bioterrorism when many anthrax-laced letters were sent out by an unknown person in September 2001, which occurred in the aftermath of the World Trade Centre and Pentagon terrorist attacks. The letters were meant for lawmakers and the media.
Finally, they killed five people, injured seventeen, and caused major disruptions in the Senate.
Other destructive forms of bioterrorism comprise, inter alia, the unleashing of smallpox, anthrax, Ebola, gene-spliced bacteria. The most fearsome scenario is the use of bioterrorism in war. Current history is replete with many countries that have biological weapons. Iraq, Iran, Libya, and China, constitute classic examples (Lerbinger, 2012).
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Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and foot and mouth disease are other health scares, which afflicted (Henderson, 2007; Maditinos-Vassiliadis et al., 2008 and Laws et al., 2005) the tourism industry negatively. Laws et al. (2012) argue that SARS originated in the Southern Chinese Province of Guandong in 2002. These scholars maintain that it has a mortality rate of 14-15%, and has no cure so far. They further indicate that a total of 8 096 cases in 29 countries, and 774 cases in Asia and China were recorded by July 2003. So far, the SARS remains a classic example of an epidemic, which has had a negatively pronounced impact on the tourism sector worldwide. Maditinos-Vassiliadis et al. (2008), Laws et al. (2005) and World Travel and Tourism Council (2003) capture them in the following manner: international tourism arrivals fell 1,2% to 694 million in 2003; air travel to destinations affected by the advisories decreased drastically; many companies in the USA, in particular, reported a 20% drop in employee travel as a result of SARS; tourist arrivals in the Asian countries such as China, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Singapore decreased by 41%, and this amounted to 9% drop compared to the year 2002;
the FIFA Women’s World Cup, initially scheduled for China, was moved to the USA; the International Ice Hockey Federation cancelled the 2003 IIHF women’s world championship tournament, which was scheduled to take place in Beijing; the Chinese cuisine restaurants in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Chinatowns in North America recorded a 90% decrease in customer supply; the airlines in Singapore were forced to rationalise and stop operations; and visitor attendance at tourist attractions were reduced, alongside retail spending.
Diseases affect tourism and tourists, and cause health and economic losses. It is incumbent upon the industry and various stakeholders to introduce response strategies to manage them.
The selected response strategies to diseases, as proposed by Henderson (2007), Laws et al.
(2005) and Lerbinger (2012), are posited as follows: pandemic preparedness; provision of
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improved health infrastructure; vaccine campaigns; preparedness by the given organisation;
dealing with ethical issues in advance; public education; adherence to World Health Organisation’s alert levels; as well as quick and decisive response.