ABSTRACT
A challenging role for destination marketers is leading the tourism community in the development of disaster response planning. No destination is immune to a future disaster, as was evident with the COVID-19 global pandemic, and so every destination marketing organisation (DMO) should consider potential future risks and negative impacts on the tourism industry. Disasters can be man-made or acts of nature, and the effects can be short term or long term. Most disasters are unpredictable, beyond the control of the DMO, and high in impact, often rendering a destination uncompetitive overnight. The level of preparedness for a disaster at a destination will determine the extent to which a management crisis manifests. The topic of destination crisis management has only recently emerged as a research field within the tourism academic literature. Many case studies of disasters at destinations have now been reported in the literature in recent years, which provide a valuable resource for DMOs considering contingency planning. Key activities that DMOs should consider include: the formation of a permanent disaster taskforce, future scenario thinking and risk analysis, coordinated marketing responses, market concentration, 98outsourcing of media relations, and initiatives to support local businesses. Also, there is a dark side to tourism marketing related to facilitating travellers’ curiosity in experiencing scenes of death and disaster. Human curiosity has driven visits to sites of morbid events for centuries. While DMOs lack direct control over commercial and visitor activities at dark tourism sites, destination marketers do engage in the ethical promotion of positive aspects of visits for the purposes of pilgrimage, remembrance and respect.
