CHAPTER 2: Conceptualizing Tourism Disasters, Crises and Risks
2.1.1 Natural disasters and crises 36
The natural disasters and crises that enjoy attention here include the hydro-metereological, climatic change and droughts, floods, cyclones and hurricanes, and geophysical ones.
2.1.1.1 Hydro-metereological disasters
When it comes to climatic variability and drought, Benson et al. (2004:16) maintain that both abnormally low rainfall (drought) and high rainfall can have a negative effect on the agricultural sector. The economy in rural areas can be adversely affected by excessive rainfall.
This applies equally well to drought, which can cause widespread crop and stock losses and affect many countries simultaneously. Long periods of drought, which alternate with periods of heavy rains, can either be ‘amplified or dampened’. According to Benson et al. (2004) such quasi-cyclical phenomena not only affect the agricultural sector, but also those sectors of the economy that depend on water, such as hydroelectricity and local water supply. The tourism sector is not immune to this problems, because if the supply chain is affected, then the industry will run short of the tangible goods it depends on.
2.1.1.2 River flooding
According to scholarly work gleaned from the work of Benson et al. (2004), Lukamba (2008), Mcarthy et al. (2001), Sӧnmez et al. (1999), Pforr (2006) and Lerbinger (2012), excessive flooding can unleash a devastating impact by causing: infrastructural damage and impaired productive capacity; negatively affected economic output; and the destruction of crops and livestock losses and disruption of the socio-economic activities.
2.1.1.3 Tropical cyclones and hurricanes
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These storms have a negative impact on the economy as they cause loss of life. Their impact is more localised for large countries, but devastatingly huge for small countries such as Fiji, Dominica and Montserrat. The storms normally lead to flash flooding, and landslides (Benson et al., 2004 and Pforr, 2006). According to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (1999), hurricane David in 1979 in Dominica and hurricane Mitch in 1998 in Central America are classic examples.
2.1.1.4 Geophysical disasters
These hazards include earthquakes and tsunamis (Benson et al., 2004; Faulkner et al., 2001;
Birkman et al., 2008 and Lerbinger, 2012). Earthquakes can cause infrastructural damage, which extends over large areas, even though they have little impact on plantations. Their greatest catastrophic macroeconomic impact is discernable when they occur in big cities, or metropolitan areas (McGuire, 2002). Tokyo in 1923 is a good example, where volcanoes and tsunamis have localised direct impact (Benson et al., 2004).
2.1.1.5 The impact of global warming as a natural disaster on the tourism sector
The 2001 and 2013 reports of the IPCC, compiled by more than 1000 scientists, indicate that global warming will have far-reaching consequences as discussed hereunder. It maintains that vegetation and animal life will be adversely affected. The Polar Regions are beginning to experience a great retreat of mountain glaciers, and the Arctic Ice has dramatically become thin since the 1970s, with the attendant result that the North Pole is beginning to be ice-free. The ice in the lakes and rivers flowing at higher altitudes in the northern hemisphere melts earlier than it used to a century ago. The northern hemisphere spring snow cover has decreased by 10 percent on the 1966-86 mean. The reports further predicts that the polar and mountainous regions of the northern hemisphere will be eight degrees Celsius warmer by 2100. This could
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result in rising sea levels, caused by the thermal expansion of the oceans, and water rising fast melting mountain glaciers. This trend is going to have tragic consequences for coastal regions, which might become totally immersed in water.
The 2001 IPCC report forecasts that, for example, a mere 1-metre rise in sea level can lead to Maldives in the Indian Ocean being completely submerged in water and flooded, a 1,8 meter rise in Bangladesh can lead to a destruction of 16 percent of the land surface inhabited by 13 percent of its population. Global warming is going to lead to an increase of extreme metereological events by up to four percent at high and middle latitudes, and more frequent floods (Mazilu et al., 2004; Mazilu, 2004; World Disasters Report, 2001) rainstorms and windstorms will occur. The IPCC Report (2001) contends that global warming means warmer areas, strong storms, bigger and more powerful waves, pronounced coastal erosion, heavy rains and severe drought. It cites parts of Africa, Asia and Southern America as potential ‘victims’
of drought, while temperatures in the mountainous regions such as the Alps and the Pyrenees will pose danger to towns, ski resorts, villages with more frequent and more destructive landslides. Countries such as Switzerland will experience more landslides, rock falls and mudflows. The tops of some mountains in Western Europe have increased temperatures, where the Swiss ski resort of St. Moritz is a typical example of destabilised mountain tops that threaten adverse effects on visitors. According to the Report, about 40 percent of the people of Solomon Islands were killed by floods in the 1990s. Other low-lying Southwest Pacific islands such as Tonga and Micronesia were also negatively affected as the latter happened. Major disasters and crises also affected one in 12 people in Australia, one in 200 in the USA, and one in 200 in the UK over the same period. The overarching negative consequences of disasters and crises include, inter alia, disrupted national economies, disrupted fabric of the global communities as agriculture, wildlife, water supplies, and health become increasingly endangered. Other
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problems include increasing populations (IPCC, 2001 and McGuire, 2002), falling incomes, rising environmental despoliation, critical shortage of resources, expansion of deserts, food shortages (World Disasters Report, 2001; Benson et al, 2004 and Lerbinger, 2012) famine and diseases, and wars. According to the reports (World Disasters Report, 2001 and IPCC, 2001), other notable consequences of global warming will include: firstly, pollution – this will in turn affect the health of the global society negatively; secondly, destruction of the temperate and tropical forests, which trap greenhouse gases from the atmosphere; thirdly, loss of plant and animal life as most species will be unable to adapt and cope in new conditions (this category includes grasslands, wetlands, coral reefs and atolls, mangrove swamps, and sensitive polar and alpine ecosystems); fourthly, leisure activities will be affected; lastly, in certain areas of the world it will be too hot (summers) for sun seekers, while the diminishing snow will adversely affect the winter sports industry in its entirety.
Mazilu et al. (2004:395) maintain that global warming does not only produce important changes in areas such as water supply, agricultural production, human settlements and distribution of various diseases, but also influences the tourism industry by creating difficulties for the economies of the affected countries, as it decreases their capacity to support their own populations and touristic programmes. According to Mazilu et al. (2004) the impact of the climatic elements (global warming) on the tourism industry is reversed or altered seasonality;
the increase of rainfall in some parts of the world and the decrease thereof in others; an increase in diseases (infectious and vector-borne diseases); spiralling insurance costs and associated financial losses; food insecurity, affecting food supplies for both citizens and visitors;
manpower shortages; and severe drought.
The other effects of the climate change on (Mazilu et al., 2004) the tourism industry include about 4 777 natural disasters, which occurred at the beginning of the 21st century, and affected
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880 000 people of which 1 880 lost their homes. These losses amounted to about 700 billion of USD. The current concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will increase, of which the US emits 5,9 billion tons a year; China 4,7 billion; Russia 1,7 billion; Japan 1,3 billion;
India 1,1 billion; Germany 862 million; and Canada 588 million, followed by Great Britain, Korea, Italy, South Africa, Ukraine, Spain and Brazil. Nearly 183 bird species will be extinct, constituting 12 percent of the world total and 1 130 small mammal species, amounting to 25 percent of the entire world fund. The number of people to be affected by major disasters in the next 10 years is expected to reach 211million, through deforestation and drought. The most affected destinations will be Asia, South and Central Europe, and Sub-Saharan Africa (Mazilu et al., 2004).
According to Mazilu et al. (2004), the turnaround strategy to remedy the situation above include, inter alia, the need to intensify training and education in respect of environmental protection; drastic reduction of major pollutants in human settlements, which offer tourism- related functions or activities; a decrease of mass consumption and mass tourism; consumption and utilisation of the lesser known tourism products and services, with a view to alleviating mounting pressure upon better-known; a more strict application of environmental laws and regulations; the issuance of clear statements and directives of some environmental objectives to all stakeholders in the tourism industry to utilise alternative energies, reduce pollution, conserve green areas and collect waste selectively; and finally, as tourism is one of the economic sectors which pollutes the environment, it has to find a way of reducing its own emissions by 50 percent by 2020, and beyond.
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The tourism industry as a whole is vulnerable to a wide range of disasters, crises and risks.
Some are of short duration, while others last an extended period of time. They affect the industry in the destination itself, in origin markets or competing destinations.