Disaster Risk Management For Coastal Tourism Destinations - DTIE

Disaster Risk Management For Coastal Tourism Destinations Responding To Climate Change
A Practical Guide For Decision Makers
To increase the capacity of coastal tourism communities to better prepare for
and respond to natural disaster emergencies;
To mainstream disaster risk reduction into coastal tourism destination
planning and development; and thereby,
To support local climate change adaptation efforts.
The term “risk” is used extensively in this handbook. Risk is most commonly held
to mean something to be avoided; in everyday usage, risk is associated with the
as “the probability of harmful consequences, or expected losses (deaths, injuries,
property, livelihoods, economic activity disrupted or environment damaged) resulting
from interactions between natural or human-induced hazards and vulnerable
conditions”. Risk may also be computed as the product of a disaster’s probability
multiplied by the vulnerability and divided by the capacity to adequately respond.
Risk = (Probability of a Disaster x Vulnerability) / Capacity
The larger the capacity to respond the lower the risk. Therefore two main and
Decreasing vulnerability
Increasing capacity.
Based on the above, it is generally agreed that the impacts of disasters can be
substantially reduced if vulnerable communities are fully informed about possible
hazards and have participated in the formulation of risk and crisis management plans
– that is their capacity to respond is greater. Community awareness and involvement
are key tenets of the APELL process. The Handbook is therefore premised on the
fact that these are also key factors for reducing risk.
Although it is also recognized that tourism is vulnerable to other categories of
disasters (e.g. terrorism, technological disasters, global diseases etc.), the scope of
the Handbook is purposefully targeted to the risks posed by climate induced natural
winds.
16 | Introduction