Tourism, Security and Safety From Theory to Practice

Table 1
Causes of Crisis for Business Organizations
Specific 
Major Factors
Environment
Type of Crisis
Example of Crisis
External factors
Physical 
Natural disaster
Earthquake and tsunami damage
environment
coastal resort property; volcano 
eruption scares away tourists
Technology failure
Oil spill contaminates a resort beach
and prevents tourists from visiting
the resort
Human/social 
Confrontation
Hotel union strike disrupts
environment
normal operations; special interest 
group boycotts fast food
Epidemic
Mad cow disease and foot and mouth 
disease raise concerns of food
safety and health problems; SARS
epidemic spreads through human
contact
Malevolence
September 11 attack on NY and 
Washington, DC; product 
tampering by poisoning food;
extortion by threatening to intro-
duce a virus into computer reserva-
tion systems
War/political 
Second Gulf War keeps many
conflict
international tourists from the
Middle East region; recent political
upheaval diminishes tourism to
Haiti, Venezuela, and some African
countries
Internal factors
Management 
Skewed values
Cruise ships dump waste oil into the
failure
ocean, placing economic value over
concern for the environment
Deception
Knowing the food item is 
contaminated, the restaurant 
continues to serve it to the 
customers
Misconduct
Corporate CFO embezzles funds and 
receives kickbacks
Source:
Adapted from Lerbinger, O. (1997). 
The Crisis Manager: Facing Risk and Responsibility.
Mahwah, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 10–14.
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many European countries had to destroy cash crops to prevent radiation from
entering food supplies.
Crises of the human and social environment refer to confrontation, epidemics,
malevolence, and war. Individuals or interest groups who fight business for certain
issues purposely provoke confrontation crises, since they know the use of con-
frontation is most effective in attracting media, and eventually, management atten-
tion. Labor union strikes and boycotts of products and services are some
commonly used confrontation tactics. Epidemics in livestock or the human popu-
lation immediately halt travel to the infected areas, as clearly demonstrated by the
SARS epidemics in 2003. Any political conflicts such as war will completely close
the country or region at war to tourists and this is best illustrated by the Iraq war
and the political upheaval in Sudan. Crises of malevolence refer to the criminal
means or extreme tactics deployed by individuals or groups against a business
organization or an entire industry. Malevolent acts include product tampering,
extortion, corporate espionage, and terrorism. These extreme measures aim to
destroy a company’s business or a country’s economic system.
Crises of management failure include skewed values, deception, and misconduct.
Unreasonable financial expectations and failures of corporate governance are often at
the root of these unethical or sometimes criminal behaviors by corporate leaders. Such
crises can destroy owners’ and shareholders’ value in the company, as best illustrated
by the accounting scandals exposed in Enron and WorldCom in the United States.
All these crises share three distinct characteristics: suddenness, uncertainty, and
time compression (Lerbinger, 1997, pp. 6–9). A crisis normally occurs suddenly
even though some early warning signs are usually detectable. A crisis that is unpre-
dictable and erupts suddenly is always the most shocking (Mindszenthy, Watson,
and Koch, 1988). Terrorist attacks, in any size, shape, or form, fit such a pattern of
crisis. Lippman refers to this element of surprise as “shadowy, mobile, and unpre-
dictable” (1999, p. A14). To the terrorists, the element of surprise helps them
achieve their aim.
Due to the element of surprise associated with terrorist attacks, there is the prob-
lem of uncertainty—uncertainty of the kind of crisis an organization is likely to
face or the kind of crisis for which one should prepare. Uncertainty is a major con-
cern confronting business management especially when the organization’s busi-
ness is global and complex. Managers are normally tied to the daily operations of
their organization. They have limited time or resources to scan the business envi-
ronment for predictable external changes. Low-probability, high impact events,
such as a terrorist attack on the United States homeland, were likely given little or
no attention by management. Therefore, managers were generally poorly prepared
for a terrorist-related crisis. When dealing with a crisis, management faces great
pressure to make decisions rapidly and with incomplete information. Time com-
pression adds to the enormous stress and anxiety that a crisis causes, not only for
managers, but also for employees. Managers tend to look at aberrant events and
determine the cause. They examine what is likely to happen next and determine
how to best mobilize resources to deal with that next set of events. In the
September 11 terrorist attacks the targets were symbolic and the victims were irrel-
evant to the perpetrators, and the perpetrators are unknown and apparently uncon-
cerned about their own safety. Managers managing the effects of such events close
to home will have grave difficulty if they have not at least thought carefully about
the basic process of managing a crisis. After the initial shock and under uncertain
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conditions, management teams with well-defined crisis plans can most expediently
and effectively limit the damage and regain control over their operations.