Index
ATLAS Special Interest Group
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Index
IntroductionAlexandros Paraskevas
Oxford Brookes University
aparaskevas@brookes.ac.uk
New SIG launched
At the dawn of 21st century, the tourism industry has been rocked by a series of events that forced it to completely change its perspective on crises and disasters. 9/11, SARS, tourism-targeted terrorist attacks in Bali, Jakarta, Amman and Sharm-el-Sheik, the Southeast Asia tsunami, the hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma in the US are only some of the events of the last six years that apart from their horrific death and destruction toll, they have had a dramatic impact on international travel and tourism. The World Tourism Organization and the International Hotel and Restaurant Association have taken a series of initiatives aiming at increasing industry crisis and disaster preparedness. Seen from a broader perspective, the majority of the proposed measures are quite effective with regards to destination image recovery and are of a more reactive nature.
The question raised here is "how can academia help?" Disaster management research is a well-developed field in social sciences and business management (particularly with regards to IT) and has had a significant contribution in national and local level disaster and emergency planning. Nevertheless, as researchers in this field are usually concerned with local businesses and communities in general, they tend to ignore the particular characteristics that are unique to tourism industry and its markets. Tourism-specific research has covered a number of areas from impact to recovery but there is a shared feeling among the researchers for a more co-ordinated attempt for a research agenda that will reinforce the multi-disciplinary knowledge and associated expertise that is required for the industry to respond to crises and disasters and to meet the needs of its stakeholders and markets in addressing vulnerability and disaster response. The set up of a "Tourism and Disasters" Special Interest Group under the wings of ATLAS was deemed an appropriate move towards this direction.
As the terms 'crisis' and 'disaster' are quite broad and may include an endless list of gruesome events the SIG will particularly focus on three areas: natural disasters, terrorism and epidemics. Whilst the shaping of the research agenda is one of the core aims of the SIG, during the discussion about its formation a number of ideas have emerged and will be the basis for further debate and refinement: While the formulation of a theory-informed agenda for the study of the interface of tourism and disaster ought to be one of the main purposes of the proposed program, a preliminary agenda of such issues can be sketched out: ecological and social vulnerability of a tourist area to disaster; preparedness of tourist areas for disaster; the rescue, evacuation and repatriation of tourists in the wake of disaster; victim and trauma management in the aftermath of a disaster (the issue of "trans-national death"); destination recovery (operational and image recovery) etc.
The over 20 (thus far) members of the group come from 13 different countries around the world and offer a quite diverse academic and professional background promising an exciting and constructive debate on disaster-related issues and research.
If you would like to join this SIG, please send a message to ATLAS at admin@atlas-euro.org to be included in the "disaster"-discussion list.
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