HRTM12204 Contemporary Issues in Hospitality and Tourism Management

Introduction

The report is prepared to analyse the different types of issues that may be faced within the tourism and hospitality industry in Australia. The report will discuss the major issues that can be faced by the tourism and hospitality industry due to national disasters and changes in climatic conditions. With the changes in climatic conditions, the weather might become unpredictable and there could be increased chances of natural disasters such as tsunamis, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, etc. The effects of these natural calamities are immense and it can devastate the tourism and hospitality industry largely. Because of the natural occurrences of these disasters with little no early warnings, the travel reservations may be cancelled and the trip can be cancelled, which can create loss for the tourism business in Australia (Goeldner and Ritchie 2012). The topic will also discuss about the various approaches for preventing these negative impacts that may be resulted due to the natural disasters.

Analysis of impacts

Positive impacts

There are not much positive effects that may be created due to the issues caused by natural disasters. One of the major issues faced due to natural disasters’ occurrence could be the destruction of infrastructure and many tourist destinations. Due to the destruction of many tourist destinations, an entire transformation might be possible, which could form an entirely new environment with the growth of new plants, trees and improvement of nature. Though most of the issues tend to bring negative impacts, still it would allow the tourism and hospitality businesses to develop and implement new policies for improving the safety procedures and ensuring that the issues could not bring negative impacts on the industry during emergency in the future (Korstanje and Clayton 2012).

Negative impacts

The negative impacts created by natural disasters are immense for the Australian tourism and hospitality sector and these included negative mindset and getting afraid to visit the places, more spending by Government and physical damages to the area, which could make the tourists and visitors prone to risks. Due to the damages caused to the entire location, houses and infrastructures, millions of Australian dollars might be spent for rebuilding the entire location and again make it favorable for the tourists to visit. The income level decreases for the local people because of lack of tourists visiting the place and this may further result in business decline. Due to natural disasters like floods, droughts, earthquakes and wildfires, natural habitat could be affected along with deteriorating the fertility of the entire place (Lamanna, Williams and Childers 2012). There could be climatic conditions’ changes and changes in weather conditions too, which might even make it unfavorable for the tourists to visit certain places, furthermore declining the tourism and hospitality business in Australia. There was occurrence of cyclones in Queensland, Australia and huge bushfire that destroyed the dry lands and even took the lives of many people. Due to this, the Australian tourism and hospitality industry faced severe drops in tourism rates (Machado 2012).

Recommendations to solve the issues 

The Government of Australia has been committed to the maximization of economic contribution of tourism and hospitality industry and even promoted environmental responsibility principles for fostering the growth of the industry and ensured sustainable development too. It is mainly recommended for maintain a stable economy of Australia and make sure that the Australian tourism and hospitality industry can bring positive impact on the growth in economy of the country too (Rishi and Gaur 2012). The Australian Government has also undertaken initiatives for protecting the natural environment and preserved the natural resources for making the tourism industry thrive and achieve long term success in business too.

The issues could be sometimes considered as positive aspects because the Australian Government had brought major changes by spending a huge amount of money to reconstruct the houses, buildings and places and even created more employment opportunities, furthermore enhance the management of business. The tourism companies must make early predictions for determining the issues that might emerge due to the natural disasters and undertake necessary approaches for improving the level of safety for the tourists visiting the disaster prone areas (Rittichainuwat 2013). After the natural disasters occurred, the media could create publicity of the place and in that case, the companies within the tourism industry could grab these opportunities by providing tour packages at cheap packages for fulfilling the demands and preferences of the tourists.

There should be a proper crisis management plan for restoring the tourism industry after the occurrence of natural disasters. It totally depends on the capability of the country to bounce back and make sure that the crisis situations are managed properly from the security and public relations perspective. The Government with proper collaboration with the tourism and hospitality companies must develop policies and procedures for creating situations and improve the level of security to ensure seamless travel and accommodation facilities for the tourists (Testa and Sipe 2012). It is also recommended to improve the framework within which the tourism company operates, develop innovative solutions for enhancing the level of security, and even predict the future checkpoints and border controls to improve the efficiency of data analysis. Proper management of e-visas, regional visa agreements and expanding of the traveling programs must be done as well to reducing the chances of risks and issues that might emerge during the collaborative and cross border approaches (Walters and Mair 2012).

A crisis management plan could be effective as well for the recognition of crisis situations and manage rebuilding after the crisis, furthermore would help in restoring a positive image of the company  and prevent the reduction in tourist arrivals to certain locations. Health and safety measures should be considered for providing necessary solutions and maintain the safety of tourists in case of emerge situations. Multi faceted pre-emergency plans could be vital for determining the tourists’ requirements and find shelters for the visitors. Police department must be present during the formation of disaster plan for preventing any crimes that might be caused after the disaster. The law enforcement agencies should be contact as well for and proper communication should be established because often the police department might not be accustomed with the ideas of managing the special needs of people within the tourism sector (Wang and Ritchie 2012). Proper telephone networks and internet services should be enabled for contacting emerge departments during any crisis while the names, telephone numbers and email addresses should be considered as well for making the tourists receive follow up calls. To recover from a natural disaster and manage business successfully again is a daunting task and it requires not only the Government help and support but also the local businesses. This would allow the food stores and medicine shops to supply the basic things that are needed for treating the tourists who could be in the verge of risks just after the natural disaster (Mair, Ritchie and Walters 2016).

References

Goeldner, C.R. and Ritchie, J.B., 2012. Tourism: principles, practices, philosophies (No. Ed. 12). John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

Korstanje, M.E. and Clayton, A., 2012. Tourism and terrorism: conflicts and commonalities. Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, 4(1), pp.8-25.

Lamanna, Z., Williams, K.H. and Childers, C., 2012. An assessment of resilience: Disaster management and recovery for greater New Orleans’ hotels. Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality & Tourism, 11(3), pp.210-224.

Machado, L.P., 2012. The consequences of natural disasters in touristic destinations: The case of Madeira Island–Portugal. Tourism and Hospitality Research, 12(1), pp.50-56.

Mair, J., Ritchie, B.W. and Walters, G., 2016. Towards a research agenda for post-disaster and post-crisis recovery strategies for tourist destinations: a narrative review. Current Issues in Tourism, 19(1), pp.1-26.

Rishi, M. and Gaur, S.S., 2012. Emerging sales and marketing challenges in the global hospitality industry: A thematic analysis of customer reviews from the world's top two tourist destinations. Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, 4(2), pp.131-149.

Rittichainuwat, B.N., 2013. Tourists' and tourism suppliers' perceptions toward crisis management on tsunami. Tourism Management, 34, pp.112-121.

Testa, M.R. and Sipe, L., 2012. Service-leadership competencies for hospitality and tourism management. International journal of hospitality management, 31(3), pp.648-658.

Walters, G. and Mair, J., 2012. The effectiveness of post-disaster recovery marketing messages—The case of the 2009 Australian bushfires. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 29(1), pp.87-103.

Wang, J. and Ritchie, B.W., 2012. Understanding accommodation managers’ crisis planning intention: An application of the theory of planned behaviour. Tourism Management, 33(5), pp.1057-1067.

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