Disasters create difficult, often tragic, situations for the afflicted area and its residents. For a tourist destination, this period can represent a tourism crisis, which can threaten the normal operation and conduct of tourism related businesses; damage a tourist destination’s overall reputation for safety, attractiveness, and comfort by negatively affecting visitors’ perceptions of that destination; and, in turn, cause a downturn in the local travel and tourism economy, and interrupt the continuity of business operations for the local travel and tourism industry, by the reduction in tourist arrivals and expenditures.