Disaster Risk Management for Coastal Tourism - Caribbean Hotel ...

7
Achieving Community
Resilience
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The preceding Chapters presented the arguments for disaster management and risk
reduction at coastal tourism destinations. The fundamental principle of the Handbook is to
empower communities to share in the responsibility of analyzing and mitigating disaster risks
to their livelihoods and communities. The Handbook also lists the steps required for writing,
implementing and drilling the disaster preparedness plan as a collaborative and participatory
process, particularly important for the tourism industry and its cross-sectoral linkages.
Chapter 7 presents the argument for mainstreaming risk reduction practices and creating
a culture of preparedness across destinations, in the face of elevated climate risks that
could potentially amplify the scale of hazards and disaster damages.
7.1 The Imperative for Disaster Risk Reduction
The past two decades and particularly the last, was a watershed period in global disaster
events with high mortality and economic losses from earthquakes, tropical cyclones,
which routinely collates statistics on global disasters has indicated an increase in the
reporting of disasters by countries which partly explains the dramatic increases.
However, the high incidence of disasters with associated high mortality and economic
losses during these years also stem from factors related to the prevailing socioeconomic,
environmental and urbanization conditions at the affected destinations being
exacerbated by these natural events.
As discussed in Chapter 4, disaster risk is estimated by considering the concentration of
vulnerable populations and the range of economic activities in areas exposed to hazards
“Inappropriate land use
practices and increasing
urbanization, together
with inadequate planning
and poor enforcement of
regulations, have served
to exacerbate the impact
of natural hazards on the
[Caribbean] region. These
circumstances have
the effects of such
events.” CDERA, 2007
Figure 7.1: Number of Global Disasters by Category, 1900-2005 (Source: www.
unisdr.org and EM-DAT: The OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database.
UCL - Brussels, Belgium)
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