Tourism, Security and Safety From Theory to Practice

Concept Definitions
Crisis management
The planning, coordination, and execution of response and
recovery strategies to tourism and hospitality business crises caused by natural
disasters, epidemics, terrorist attacks, and management failures.
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Malevolent crisis
Tourism and hospitality business crisis caused by people with
vicious ill intention to harm people and facilities, such as terrorist attacks, extor-
tion, and product tampering.
Skewed values
Placing unrealistic financial expectations over corporate values
results in unethical or even illegal business conduct.
Time compression
Due to the suddenness of a crisis occurrence, managers have
limited time to respond to the crisis and experience enormous stress and anxiety.
Anthrax
An acute infectious disease caused by the spore-forming bacterium
Bacillus anthracis
in wild and domestic lower vertebrates (cattle, sheep, goats,
camels, antelopes, and other herbivores), but it can also occur in humans when
they are exposed to infected animals or tissue from infected animals.
Review Questions
1. How can you define different types of business crises that pose a potential
threat to normal tourism operations?
2. Why is terrorism described as a malevolent crisis to the tourism industry?
3. To what extent was the hotel industry in Washington, DC affected by the
September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the Pentagon?
4. How did the tourism and hospitality industry in Washington, DC plan and coor-
dinate crisis management immediately after the terrorist attack?
5. Why was the timing for launching the marketing campaign so crucial for a suc-
cessful recovery?
6. What are the major themes of the recovery marketing campaign and the tar-
geted markets?
7. What do you think of the effectiveness of the recovery marketing campaign?
8. How can you develop a response and recovery process for managing a cata-
strophic crisis caused by terrorist attacks?
Note
1 
This chapter was previously published as: Stafford, G., Yu, L., Armoo, A. K.
(2002). Crisis management and recovery: How Washington, DC hotels responded
to terrorism. 
Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly,
43(5),
27–40. Revision was made to the original article to reflect the latest hotel industry
recovery in Washington, DC.