Emergency Preparedness for Disasters and Crises in the Hotel Industry

Abstract

Safety and security are the most important issues to tourist while traveling and the first aspect they consider is to be protected from hazards. Emergency planning and preparedness for a crisis are the most significant components of dealing with disasters. Hospitality practitioners noticed a rising number of natural and man-made crises that harm the hospitality industry, regarding its vulnerability to crisis and internal and external hazards. By using secondary data, this study aims to shed some light on this issue, contributing to knowledge and awareness on emergency preparedness for the hospitality industry. Moreover, the study aims to explain the management's commitment to adopt, develop, and update emergency plans. The results of this study explain that tourism as an international mobile industry must respond to internal and external hazards such as disease movement and terrorist attacks. Marketing safety is important to promote hotels and tourist destinations to the guests and holiday advisors. Hotels have a long history of being a soft target for terrorist attacks, as can be seen in several accidents that have shaken the hotel industry in the past few decades. Hotels invest a lot to install protective techniques, but terrorists are becoming more organized. Practitioners propose disaster management frameworks using several measurements. Recovery from crisis and learning help business retention that minimizes negative impacts and prevent losses. Finally, evaluation and feedback are very important to overcome the hazards and return to normal, as well as adopting new ideas to deal with emergencies. Single-and double-loop organizational learning should benefit proactive preparedness.

Exploring disaster resilience within the hotel sector: A systematic review of literature

“…The concepts of disaster and crisis, as applied to tourism businesses, have been examined by many scholars [1,17,24,58,79]. Rockett [84] writes that definitions may be transient over time, but can serve our current need and allow for common understanding.…”

Tourism sector preparedness in zones with a high seismic risk: A case study of the capital region of Japan

“…Hotels have been categorized as high-risk buildings, especially for fire disasters, because of the presence of highly flammable materials and the chance of pervasion of smoke and fire to the rest of the building or even to neighboring buildings [43]. Therefore, fire disasters are paid much more attention than others.…”

Deployment of Wi‐Fi network as an emergency survival communication network in Wakkanai, Hokkaido

“…Although networks can be reestablished in disaster areas, doing so may not be feasible in large-scale emergencies. Some authors [3] even suggest the use of a wireless opportunistic network based on mobile devices carried by emergency personnel to forward the data created and collected in disaster areas to coordination points [3][4][5]. These approaches are all post-disaster measures.…”