Investigating State-Level Determinants of Crisis Preparedness in the Egyptian Tourism Sector

Abstract

As vital as it is, tourism is considered as a highly vulnerable industry with so much complexities and interdependencies among its sectors which makes it more prone to crises of all types than other industries. The Egyptian tourism industry is no exception; despite the important role tourism plays in the Egyptian economy, it has been suffering tremendously for the past decade due a series of critical incidents such as political misfortunes, major airline disasters, terrorist attacks, bombings and other crises that made it very difficult to tourism businesses to perform appropriately. In spite of the various reform endeavors taken by the Egyptian formal tourism authorities, the Egyptian tourism industry –based on the views of the research participants- has been lacking the ability to prepare for such crises. Therefore, crisis preparedness was the starting point for this scientific investigation as the main question was: What are the main state-level determinants of crisis preparedness in the Egyptian tourism industry? To answer this question, a hypothesis was developed and tested through the use of structural equation modeling. The final model produced in this scientific investigation could be useful to tourism formal authorities in Egypt as it could help them assess their crisis-preparedness competencies. Therefore, the outcome of the study could be considered as a diagnostic tool for crisis preparedness.