Conclusion
This paper has outlined the importance of crisis management, and in particular crisis
communication for tourism organisations. Tourism is highly susceptible to external crises
and disasters, yet even after the foot and mouth outbreak few lessons appear to have been
learnt by some parts of the industry. At the national level a greater number of changes
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have been implemented and the BTA are constantly refining their crisis management
strategies and plans. The BTA did the best they could under the circumstances, yet the
nature of the FMD meant that recovery marketing was considered wasteful until after the
outbreak had been defeated and a lack of a crisis management and communication
strategy prior to the outbreak hampered recovery.
The absence of a crisis communication or management strategy at the local level was
evident and yet it appears doubtful if one will be created at all due to the perceived
uniqueness of individual disasters and crises. Yet as Kash and Darling (1998) and Beeton
(2001) note all organisations and tourism organisations suffer from external or internal
crises of varying magnitudes. In particular, this paper has noted that a lack of crisis
management strategy combined with a slow response time, inconsistent communication
strategies and poor access to information limited the effectiveness of crisis
communication for the tourism industry. In particular, access to information was critical
for consumers, industry and local regions. Recovery marketing has been implemented,
and in the case of the local level recovery was rapid as they appear to have benefited at
the expense of other regions. Yet, at the national level recovery marketing is still
continuing and the success of which is yet to be evaluated. The FMD outbreak was
chaotic as noted by Fink (1986). The fragmentation of the tourism industry did little to
alleviate this confusion with decisions being made in the heat of the crisis, illustrating the
need planning before such incidents occur.