David Beirman - Restoring Tourism Destinations in Crisis

• ANC African National Congress
• ASTA American Society of Travel Agents
• ATC Australian Tourism Commission
• BTA British Tourist Authority
• CTB Ceylon Tourist Board
• EMTA Eastern Mediterranean Tourism Association
• FAA Federal Airports Authority
• FVB Fiji Visitors Bureau
• IATA International Air Transport Association
• ICTO International Council of Tour Operators
• IGTO Israel Government Tourism Office
• IHA International Hotels Association
• MAFF Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (UK)
• MEMTA Middle East and Mediterranean Tourism Association
• MICE meetings, incentives, conventions, exhibitions
• PAL Philippine Airlines
• PATA Pacific Asia Travel Association
• PCVC Philippines Convention and Visitor Corporation
• SAA South African Airways
• SATOUR South African Tourism
• TAG Tourism Action Group (Fiji)
• TCSP Tourism Council of the South Pacific
• TIA Tourism Industry Association
• TPC Tourism Policy Council
• TT Tourism Tasmania
• USTTA United States Travel and Tourism Authority
• VFR Visiting Friends and Relatives
• WTO World Tourism Organization
• WTTC World Travel and Tourism Council

There are many people who have provided invaluable assistance to the completion of this volume. First and foremost, I would like to thank Allen & Uliwin for having agreed to publish this book. A very special thanks to Elizabeth Weiss and Catherine Taylor who have so professionally and patiently guided me through the publication process. I have been fortunate in receiving generous cooperation from many of my fellow directors of national and state tourist offices based in Australia and some of their head office: colleagues. A very special thanks to Erdal Aktan Turkish Tourism Office; Virginia Haddon; South African Tourism; Deirdre Livingstone and her crisis management team from the BTA's London office; Sharon Hannaford and John Koldowski of PATA's Bangkok office; and to Perry Hobson, Head of School of Tourism and Leisure at Southern Cross University, Lismore who, along with John Koldowski, read and appraised the manuscript. Thanks also to Josaia Rayawa of the Fiji Visitors Bureau, Elhamy Elzayat, CEO and chairman Egyptian Association of Travel Agents, Cpnsuelo (Garcia Jones, from the Philippines Department of Tourism, Malcolm Wells of Tourism Tasmania and Barry Schipplock, Visit USA (Australia) and Daniel Young of USTTA Associates who carefully appraised my United States chapter.

A very special appreciation to my own colleagues from the Israel Ministry of Tourism in Jerusalem and in eighteen cities around the world with whom I have shared the experience of managing Israel's own tourism marketing crises. Ruth Eilat, Suzan Klagesbrun and Noga Sher-Greco have been at the forefront of managing Israel's tourism marketing challenges from the Israel end. A very special thanks to my inspirational research assistant Liz Angus, whose invaluable contribution in the form of ideas, information sourcing and editing at the initial manuscript stage helped shape this book. To all these people and many others, some of whom preferred not be named but who willingly gave of their time, effort and expertise to assist me with this book, I extend a heartfelt thanks.

To all my professional colleagues in both the travel industry and tourism academia, I hope your crises are few but you are well prepared to manage them and market your way to restoration and recovery. If this book helps at all in achieving that goal then the effort has been well worthwhile.

No tourism destination is immune from crisis. Consequently, the global tourism industry requires strategies and a set of directions which enable and prepare destination tourism authorities to manage a crisis event from its onset and rapidly implement a recovery strategy. The field of tourism crisis management is in its infancy and my overriding motivation for writing this book was to help fill some of the many gaps which exist in the literature. There remains enormous scope for future research in this subject.

The prime research focus is an analysis of the marketing dimension as it applies to specific crisis events: war, terrorism, natural disasters; crime waves and epidemics, and the appropriate restorative approaches. There is no doubt that destination crises arise from many causes including business collapse and industrial dispute. Destination restoration also involves a multitude of factors other than marketing. The issue of retraining and redeploying people whose livelihoods are affected by a crisis, though significant, is outside the scope of this work. The field of crisis management is very broad in scope and I have sought here to cover only those areas where I have specialist knowledge. Although the main topic covered is tourism destination marketing in crises, the principles of crisis management and restoration marketing apply to every business in which marketability is vulnerable to external crisis.