Tourism, Security and Safety From Theory to Practice

part upon the accuracy of the information to which they are exposed. The very
ability of potential tourists to exercise choice—to decide whether or not to go,
when or where to go, and what activities to participate in—creates problems for
most tourism operators with a fixed plant that makes it difficult to respond to
short-term vicissitudes in the market.
Thus, given the above discussion of an increasingly turbulent world, this chap-
ter examines the decisions made particularly by governments and, to a lesser
extent, by the private sector, in the aftermath of an extreme event with far-reaching
consequences for the tourism industry. It is also concerned with the management
of information. The event of concern is the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome) outbreak and, though global in its repercussions, the perspective is pri-
marily from Toronto, Canada. Tourism is an important activity in Toronto. The
Greater Toronto Hotel Association alone represents establishments employing
more than 30,000 people and its hotels bring in approximately $Can 2 billion
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annually in revenues (all $ figures in this chapter are in Canadian dollars). Of
course, this does not include tourism activity in many attractions, transportation,
shops, and other tourism-related businesses. Altogether, Toronto receives about 16
million visitors annually who generate about $7.2 billion in revenue (other sources
indicate half this expenditure). The volume of tourism economic activity that is at
risk is substantial.
Context and Methods
In the context of extreme events, SARS has more in common with a drought than
a major earthquake. In the case of SARS, globally, not many people died compared
with many other disasters, the recognition of the challenge posed by SARS was
fairly slow, the disaster event lasted a relatively long time (allowing for manage-
ment strategies to be implemented during the event), but millions of people were
affected. Nevertheless, the accumulation of many small dislocations and the costs
of response measures were massive. SARS was a new disease but, aided by
advanced communication systems, it was not the first to have a global reach, and,
from that perspective, it was not without precedent. At the time that this chapter
was being prepared, the media was engrossed with bird flu. Not long before that it
was mad cow disease and shortly before that it was foot and mouth disease.
Although SARS originated in China, at the time that SARS was first reported
in the Western press, the author was in Beijing and first learned about it in an 
e-mail from Canada. Like many others, he subsequently had his Asian travel cur-
tailed and his Asian projects disrupted—it was difficult to undertake tourism
research or training in China in the summer of 2003! Thus, the author has personal
experiences of the consequences (but not the disease) that he can draw upon.
However, the main sources of information for this chapter come from elsewhere.
This contribution is based primarily upon a systematic analysis of the contents of
two Canadian newspapers from April 2003 to the present (September 2004). The
two newspapers are the 
Globe and Mail
(GM) that is published daily in Toronto
but has broad national and international coverage; many regard it as Canada’s
national newspaper. The second paper, 
The Record,
is published daily in Kitchener,
Ontario, which is located approximately 100 km west of Toronto. It contains inter-
national stories but primarily serves a regional market.
For many years the author had been clipping and saving all of the articles on
tourism in the two papers. Thus, data acquisition was in progress prior to the onset
of the event. It was therefore only necessary to sort the clippings to take out those
pertaining to SARS. The clippings were then arranged chronologically and by
newspaper. The articles were then reread to identify the stakeholders involved, crit-
ical events, actions proposed, and actions taken. The empirical part of the chapter
reports the results of these activities.