How can hotel guests be protected during the occurrence of a Tsunami?

Abstract

On 26 December 2004, an earthquake with a magnitude of 9 occurred off the coast of the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. The subsequent tsunami killed about 250,000 people in South Asia. Among the human casualties, there were many tourists who were swept away from their hotels. Apparently, the hotels, especially the resort hotels that were built near beaches, had no safety plans for saving their guests during a tsunami. The tragedy, sadly, shows the importance of responding and reacting to natural disasters as such efforts can reduce, and possibly prevent, the number of human fatalities. A review of published research articles shows an absence of related articles on the issue of tsunamis in the existing hospitality and tourism literature. This paper, therefore, makes an initial attempt to investigate the impact of a tsunami on the hotel industry. It also addresses the issue of crisis management. The paper ends with some thorough recommendations for hotels in general and resort hotels in particular to draw up a contingency plan and implement life-saving systems to protect hotel guests during tsunamis. This paper is expected to contribute to the hotel industry by raising awareness about potential disasters and, hence, about the need to adopt new precautionary measures to protect the safety of hotel guests.