Introduction
Risk communication in tourism is the significant exchange of information about risks between the parties involved. It is essential in making the decision in the field of tourism. Communication is critical during the process of decision implementation by explaining rules and regulations, passing information or when advising the stakeholders about certain risks facing the industry for them to exercise caution. Risk management gives a formal framework within which the managers need to identify, classify and investigate risks using a logical and transparent rule (Sheldon, 1997). It is to appreciate that the objective of the risk communication management process is not meant to reduce risks to zero but to guide them to acceptable levels and then to make sure that stakeholders are aware of the residual risks. In this paper, I will examine the risk communication and management strategies in tourism industries and further discuss risk communication strategies in the beach resort.
Tourism is one of the largest industries today in the universe because it employs many people as well as the amount of money spent on travel annually. The risk communication in the tourism sector is a complex concept that requires deep understanding to understand the industries dynamics. The risk communication analysis involves the technical means of risk communication management, gathering information about the potential and actual risks that face the tourism industry and the impacts they have on the sector. A comprehensive risk analysis involves conducting an environment scan in the social, political and economic context that influences the tourism industry.
The beach resort has the role in creating awareness of the risk communication that can affect their business. The resort has to identify the cause and effect of the risk communication and come up with ways to minimize the risk. To raise the community awareness of the risk communication, it can educate the stakeholder on the potential risk communication threats and how to manage their occurrence.
Beach visitor is aware of the problem that faces the society at the beach, but they have no idea on how their visit influences the coastal economy and environment after their visit. The beach resort derives economic benefits from the tourists, but their activities at the cast might affect the environment. However, the existence of the policies, rules and regulation within the country’s law are not doing enough to risk communication. The set international standards rules are too general to address problems at the beach in every country. The role of creating awareness of the risks that are left behind by tourism should be made public knowledge that relates to the tourists experiences and interests after travelling.
The stakeholders of risk communication include the tourism industry, government, and the NGOs who have the mandate to create awareness, prevent, regulate and remedy the risk communication. Communication is an essential medium on which different stakeholders pass information, share, educate and train on the strategies of risk communication management. Risk communication can be considered as lack of proper coordination among the players who are in a similar sector and share a mutual interest. However, the risk communication that faces the tourism industry must be separated from one another and comprehensively addressed.
The tourism sector faces the emergency risk communication, and the emerging perspective of corporate social responsibility focuses on the liability towards stakeholder rather than on maximization of profit for the shareholder. The organization has realized that it is more profitable to work together with the NGOs and the government to solve the current problems so that they can feel the benefit of the new market opportunities.
The beach resort has been working with the transport industry to develop convenient road network which makes the beach more accessible and raises it revenue generation capacity. The resort offers transport services to the tourist t make their visit and stay worthwhile. Road network is important to connect the places of interest and poor road network, and poor road poses risks to the adventuring activities along the beach.
The tourism industry has introduced various standards to control risk communication to enhance stakeholders’ participation in developing risk management strategies. The purpose of risk communication management is to enable tourism industry to communicate in the time of crisis management. The tourism stakeholders have been trained in risk management to enhance their preparedness during crises and how to protect the for the organization properties. The staffs are encouraged to talk to the clients and the general public to raise their awareness on the possible risks and seek ways on how to manage the risks. The training on risk communication management helps the industry to develop it cooperates social responsibility and protect its global image during the future disaster. The tourism industry has an obligation to enhance its image in disaster preparedness and mitigation. It makes their customers aware of the place they are going.
Objective risk communication management is to improve the level of disaster preparedness capabilities of the communities who live in the along the coastlines which are prone to natural calamities and serves as the tourist destination. The destination will remain attractive if it can respond to emergency and manage them effectively. The visitors who come to the beach resort are informed of the possible risks they can face while at the beach, and they are assigned a guide to assist them and minimize incidences of accidents occurrence at the beach
The beach resort management has a responsibility to involve the local authorities, residents and the tourists in raising the risk awareness and preparedness on how to respond to natural disasters and prevent the occurrence of man-made hazards.
The beach resort management works with all stakeholders to improve the risk management in the region. The resort management cooperates with the local authority in planning the coastal cities that are frequently hit by natural disasters. They design a regulating framework to control the areas with high risk and set up prevention measures. The inclusion of the local business owners, residents, and tourists who are exposed to the disasters improves the quality of risk management strategies that enhance disaster preparedness. This disaster level of readiness builds the confidence of tourists in the country tourism industries. Mostly, it is done to give a tourist a clear view of the place he/she is going to visit.
The beach resort has a role in assessing risk communication vulnerability. It involves a checklist of the vulnerability of different kinds of the natural disaster such as tsunami, industrial accidents, e.g., food poisoning and internal events like a terrorist attack. This may help in setting potential risk management issues so as to be in a position to overcome them without bringing a big effect to the resort (Vellnagel, 2010).
The beach resort prepares the employees by training them on a regular basis, so as to equip them with the ability to adjust to any disaster and thereby ensuring safety and security in the resort and guest houses. The beach resort assists the customers in finding the space and accommodation based on availability to the families who visit the resort, and we provide the logistical support to our clients.
Obstacles to Risk Communication Effectiveness
The first obstacle is derived from uncertainty, incompleteness and complexity of the environmental statistic.
The risk manager conducts a risk assessment that helps them make sound decisions that are well informed of the potential health hazards, threats, and tourists’ safety. The risk assessment is conducted to identify the gaps in the tourism industry and to understand the environmental risk.
The communication distrust is the second challenge to effective communication in the tourism industry. The main distrust issues arise from the different opinions of the experts in the industry; they lack proper coordination in the management of potential risks. The inadequate training of the spokesperson is a threat to risk communication. It leads to insensitive communication which distorts the history of a place and the culture of people. The risk communication has several arisen due to neglect, exaggeration by the information providers which ruins the reputation of the site when the truth is discovered.
A third obstacle is a challenge that is posed by the media which conducts selective reporting that misrepresents the facts. The media is an important tool in the tourism industry that is expected to present information to the public without bias. Journalist are can be blamed on the risk communication that faces the tourism industry at the beach because the selectively report the unusual report that the present the coastal culture in a negative way. They report on the dramatic incidence at the coast about immorality and possible natural disasters that can face people while at the beach resort. The portrayal of the beach by the journalist changes the emotions of the tourist who are willing to spend time at the beach.
The fourth obstacle to risk communication is based on the social factors on how people process and decode the risk information that is communicated top them. The beach hotel manager has to choose the best way on how to express the possible risks at the coast because people perceive risk in very different ways. Managers should use the best process to be followed in the processing of risk communication networks.
Stages of Risk Communication management strategies
The first stage of managing the risk communication is ignoring the general public opinions. The approach construes that most people in the society are hopeless and irrational, and they can give misleading information concerning the beach. As a resort manager, the best thing one can do is to ignore their misleading information and concentrate on developing a way to change their thinking. The director of the resort has a role in protecting the health and environment by not allowing the ignorant public to be a part of risk policy making who can end up messing the entire tourism industry.
The second stage is the actual risk communication. This stage involves learning how to explain risk data in a better way within the tourism sector. The beach resort is still struggling with this issue until today. However, we are making progress on the risk communication issues among the stakeholders and developing simple ways on how to communicate with an aim of informing people on the minimized risk level. The industry has adopted techniques that have improved the ways on explaining the numerical aspect that might seem trivial but paramount such as the taxing system in the country, the dollar exchange rate with the local currencies.
Proper communication on these issues has enabled people to avoid overspending and end up regretting why they took that vacation. The risk communicator’s strategists have realized that is important to manage the media, oh how to stop misrepresentation of facts and reduce the use of jargon that may adversely affect the tourism industry. The beach resort is hiring the media service for the advertisement that will portray the tourism Industry in a positive way.
The third stage is to create room for dialogue with all stakeholders in the tourism community starting with the interested development partners. The recent publication of the Risk Communication Rule as a policy guidance document found it as an important stage event; it's considered the people desire to reduce the risk communication that arises from the different opinion issued by the industry experts. Tourism risk communication management has adopted a systematic approach that will be used in the making decision on sensitive and uncertain problems in the industry. Therefore, dealing with the total risk communication within the beach resort by anticipating the possible opportunities and accidental losses, and designating and implementing the procedure that minimizes, the occurrence of loss and the environmental impact the potential losses that do occur (Pease, Rowe & Cooper, 2007).
Tourism risk communication management process
The first step is the risk identification. This involves making identification of all risks that which can be controlled those that cannot be easily controlled by the beach resort management and the local authorities. The risk communication environment affects the assets that are developed for the purpose of tourism and hence, communication well-being is essential to be maintained for the volatile industry. The risks management has to address the stakeholders’ desires assess the political climate in the country and business legal framework that limits the tourism sector has to be identification (Hodges, Turner, & Kimball, 2012).
The risk analysis involves the process of doing a study on managing the risks related to nature tourism that may occur.
Conclusion
The growth of the tourism sector has been tremendous within the last five decades, and the growth is projected to continue due to diverse interest to visit the nature around the world. Effective management of the local ecology will enable further development of the tourism industry. The main challenge to the tourism is on the conservation strategy of the pristine environment, and the population is increasing hence demand for more land for settlement. Tourism is important sectors since the local people can derive economic benefits that proceed of tourism as the human coexist within the natural environment.
The locals conserve the environment while obtaining money from tourism in a symbiotic relationship. Therefore, the beach resort must share the accrued benefits with the locals in the management of the potential risks to enhance the beach reputation and global image.
The effective risk communication management strategy starts with understanding the risks that the tourism industries face. The risks are analyzed and evaluated on the impacts they can cause to the industry. All the tourism stakeholders must be involved in development risk communication management. Tourism will become a significant source of income to the country is the risks are effectively managed.
Reference
Hodges, J. R., Turner, L., & Kimball, A. M. (2012). Risks and challenges in medical tourism: Understanding the global market for health services. Santa Barbara, Calif: Praeger.
Pease, W., Rowe, M., & Cooper, M. (2007). "Information and communication technologies in support of the tourism industry". Hershey, PA: Idea Group Pub.
Sheldon, P. J. (1997). Tourism information technology. Oxon [u.a.: CAB International
Vellnagel, C. (2010). Intercultural Communication within the Tourism Industry: Cultural Differences, Misunderstandings and how to reduce them. München: GRIN Verlag GmbH.
