Tourism business preparedness, resilience and disaster planning in a region of high seismic risk: the case of the Southern Alps, New Zealand

Caroline Orchiston

Current Issues in Tourism, 2013, vol. 16, issue 5, 477-494

Abstract: This article examines tourism business disaster planning in areas at risk from low-frequency/high-consequence natural disasters. It presents empirical findings from a tourism business survey in the Southern Alps of New Zealand, an area with high seismic risk that supports a tourism industry comprising many micro-sized, owner-operated businesses. The Alpine Fault is a 450 km geological structure running the length of the Southern Alps, and is considered overdue for a M7.8–8.0 earthquake. A survey of tourism business operators revealed generally poor levels of perceived preparedness and actual planning for a future earthquake disaster, particularly amongst micro-sized businesses. The presence or absence of business resilience ‘tools’ was investigated, all of which are more common in businesses with higher incomes. The article draws on tourism disaster planning and business resilience literature to outline an alternative approach to disaster planning for small tourism-reliant communities. It describes community-based efforts to prepare in two remote Southern Alps townships, lending support to the concept of collective, community-led disaster planning.

Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13683500.2012.741115 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rcitxx:v:16:y:2013:i:5:p:477-494

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rcit20

DOI: 10.1080/13683500.2012.741115

Access Statistics for this article

Current Issues in Tourism is currently edited by Jennifer Tunstall

More articles in Current Issues in Tourism from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().