Tourism and Earthquakes. Группа авторов

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      Figure 1.1 System dimensions of tourism in earthquake affected destinations (after Hall, 2005)

      Blackman et al. (2017) argue that there are several effective means for achieving disaster resilience but these often fail on the basis of the purpose of long-term disaster recovery and actual implementation of systems and plans. The most difficult aspects of recovery are to assess the direct impacts of the earthquake, psychosocial wellbeing and perceptions of the recovery as well as the performance of recovery agencies (Bidwell, 2011). Destinations can experience a significant drop in both domestic and international visitor numbers and can lose lifeline infrastructures that stall recovery and reduce accommodation capacity. This can present a challenge to DMOs at both national and regional levels (Orchiston & Higham, 2016). Yet, these challenges are often compounded by governance structures that impede DMOs collaboration with other agencies in the recovery process as well as the overall nature of governance (Amore & Hall, 2016a, 2017). Although rebuilding infrastructure is not necessarily part of their mandate, DMOs can play a significant role in minimizing negative impacts, assisting in defining the roles and responsibilities of tourism stakeholders, and disaster planning and response (Nguyen et al., 2018). Pike (2004) argued that DMOs can contribute to disaster management through their capacity to establish effective media relations, communicate with tourists and visitors, support local businesses, enhance disaster risk awareness among tourism operators and outsource roles when needed (see also Pottorff & Neal, 1994; Drabek, 1999, 2000; Ritchie, 2008; Mair et al., 2016). They may also coordinate specific aspects of disaster management planning from a destination perspective although it is important that such activities are undertaken in conjunction with the responsible government agencies for disaster response (Orchiston, 2013).

      Tourism infrastructure does not exist in a vacuum, rebuilding these often require broader considerations of leisure and recreation facilities for residents and consultation with stakeholders that are not necessarily part of the tourism system (Amore & Hall, 2016b). Examples from the Canterbury earthquakes show that two years after the February 2011 earthquake event, residents felt that many factors were still having major negative impacts on their everyday lives. These incudes such things as the inability to make decisions about house damage, repairs and location; being in a damaged environment; loss of recreational, cultural and leisure facilities; additional financial burdens; distress and anxiety associated with aftershocks; loss of usual access to the natural environment and outdoor recreation venues; loss of meeting places for community events; and a lack of opportunities to engage with others in the community through arts, cultural, sport or other leisure pursuits (Morgan et al., 2015; Hall et al., 2016). These issues have significant implications not only for residents quality of life but also affects the tourism industry in terms of, for example, the events venues, art centres and recreation and sport venues that will be rebuilt and for which taxpayers often provide a substantial amount of financial support (Hall & Amore, 2019).

      Destination recovery should therefore ideally take more than just an economic perspective that focuses on the restoration of visitor numbers and growth to pre-disaster levels (Hall et al., 2018). There is also a social dimension whereby locals may still experience mental distress even after the tourism destination’s economy has recovered (Ritchie, 2009) and which may provide a base for resentment towards tourists and/or the development of tourism infrastructure especially while ‘local’ infrastructure and needs remain unmet. The local community perceptions and acceptance of tourists, and of tourism as a pathway for recovery, may therefore be considerably different after a disaster than it was before and therefore, community recovery cannot be isolated from the recovery of the tourism industry (Hall et al., 2018). Despite these vulnerabilities, the tourism industry can be reluctant to adopt mitigation strategies of a structural (e.g. investing in reconstruction and maintenance) and non-structural nature (e.g. early warning signs, communication, education and evacuation drills) due to financial reasons (Nguyen et al., 2018) or even a concern with worrying tourists as to the degree of risk. The industry may also not work collaboratively with other sectors and stakeholders to facilitate recovery. In effect, the tourism industry can end up engaging in rather costly, non-financially beneficial, approaches to rebuilding elements of the destination which do not minimize exposure to hazards and actually weakens disaster resiliency over the long term.

       Demand-Side Perspectives

      The literature on the impacts of disasters on tourists is heavily biased towards estimating tourism demand post-disaster or comparing pre- and post-disaster demand levels. There is a general agreement in this literature that after a disaster, tourism numbers generally decline (Khazai et al., 2018), with the impacts of earthquakes on tourism numbers examined by several studies (Cró & Martins, 2017; Huang & Min, 2002; Mazzocchi & Montini, 2001). For example, Mazzocchi and Montini (2001) found that the average stay in Umbria, following the central Italy earthquake of September 1997, was increasing due to media reporters and technicians that were covering the disaster staying longer rather than tourists. Examining the СКАЧАТЬ