Tourism in times of crisis: Tour operators' responses to the South East Asian Tsunami

Abstract

Although significant research has been completed in the field of crisis management for destinations, limited research has focused on tour operators. This paper focuses on tour operators as a specific sector of the industry, and aims to identify what form of crisis management strategies were utilised during a large scale natural disaster. An adapted model of Faulkner and Vikulov’s (2001) and Ritchie’s (2004) frameworks have been applied to Australian based tour operators in the context of the Indian Ocean Tsunami (2004). This permitted an exploration of the challenges,actions and strategies employed by these operators.