Abstract
The 2018 Eastern Iburi Hokkaido earthquake in Japan caused infrastructural damage and tourism disruption within a natural-hazard-prone country. This research advances the theoretical foundation and development of natural disaster management through a series of in-depth interviews with the local tourism stakeholders on the investigation of how the role of tourism across the pre-to-post earthquake period is considered by the stakeholders. These local tourism stakeholders have performed or expected a range of actions related to the disaster-management process and contributed to destination resilience. The qualitative analysis discovers, firstly, the multi-functionality of tourism resources, spaces, and industries for disaster preparation; secondly, the evacuation and emergency arrangements during the prodromal and emergency phases; and moreover, more possibilities of restoring the affected destination to a state of long-term (re)development during the post-disaster phases. Information and communication barriers are the major difficulties to be tackled for disaster preparedness. Product creation, image improvement, local knowledge enrichment, and, more importantly, people-to-people and people-to-place connections all contribute to the result of sustainable tourism development. From the destination resilience perspective, collaboration is the key determinant of an improved Hokkaido region. This factor could integrate stakeholders through shared local values, experiences, and memories of disaster risk communication and strategies for preparedness.
Highlights
The Relationship between Natural Disasters and TourismA natural disaster refers to any natural event, which could be sudden or progressive, causing hazardous impacts on the affected area in which the local communities must take exceptional measures in response to cope with the event [1,2]
The pre-disaster phase often refers to the period of impact prevention and mitigation planning, which is deemed more superior to post-disaster recovery [33,93], when the risk of natural disasters is unavoidable in those hazard-prone destinations
It has been criticized that the absence of centralized information coordination for the tourism disaster management process is undesirable in the case of Hokkaido (A07a)
Summary
The Relationship between Natural Disasters and TourismA natural disaster refers to any natural event, which could be sudden or progressive, causing hazardous impacts on the affected area in which the local communities must take exceptional measures in response to cope with the event [1,2]. The Relationship between Natural Disasters and Tourism. With continuous development in tourism activities, academic studies have focused much attention on the tourism industries and destinations that have countered these large-scale natural disasters [7]. Until a recent global analysis, the effects of natural and man-made disasters on the international tourist flow were evaluated with statistics [8]. Compared with other engineering-related disciplines, public management, and geophysical sciences, the study of tourism has still received smaller coverage in disaster-related research in recent decades [4,16]. Many earlier studies were largely destination-oriented and focused on how tourism industries could recover from natural disasters [6,17,18], they tend to give lesser attention to the overall contribution of tourism to disaster recovery and management [19]. The recent global outbreak of coronavirus has clearly shown how a globalized world has reciprocally led to the spread of disease and, at the same time, been detached by the cease of travel and mobility during the pandemic period as both a kind of natural and man-made disaster [20,21,22]
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