Tourism and Earthquakes. Группа авторов
and providing training and education about aftershocks to both tourists and residents. There is a therefore clear need for better matching of information needs to different audiences/market segments following a disaster, with Becker et al. (2019) highlighting the need to inject empathy in aftershock communication and to ensure inter-agency coordination around communication, among others.
While understanding the behaviour of new segments such as dark tourism is important, there are also issues surrounding whether such segments should be actively promoted (see Wright, this volume). Disaster tourism is a distinctive form of dark tourism in that the local community often becomes the focus of the disaster tourist gaze (Wright & Sharpley, 2018). Often disaster tourism sites develop without the destination deliberately embarking on the development of such sites. Unlike the (re)construction of commemorative sites that can become a new tourism resource that can generate revenue or improve the attractiveness of the destination, for example interpretation of post-earthquake heritage conservation, dark tourism is a double-edged sword for destinations. On the one hand, it can attract a significant number of tourists. On the other, it can become a source of conflict between the tourism industry and residents. The negative narratives of loss associated with dark tourism can cause residents to reject support for the development of such sites but may also prevent psychosocial recovery. It has been argued that the narratives around such sites must be transformed into positive accounts of communal renewal and hope. For example, Lin et al. (2018) coined the term ‘blue tourism’ as a community led approach to postdisaster tourism development. Blue tourism is described as a form of resilience which builds around local place-based practices and traditional community knowledge. This approach, rather than dark tourism, is supposedly capable of achieving sustainable disaster recovery and tourist satisfaction simultaneously and potentially offers a more nuanced understanding of the role of community-based tourism initiatives in enhancing resilience and pursuing a more sustainable form of tourism in post-disaster areas.
Post-disaster recovery very often is focused on removing the tangible evidence and rebuilding of damaged objects, which is understandable and expected from the perspective of affected communities (Migon & Pijet-Migon 2019). The end result can be the gradual disappearance of the event from human memory. Examining selected Italian disasters, Coratza and De Waele (2012) underlined the importance of such sites for earthquake and geological education. Leaving some of the evidence of disasters may have positive effects for learning, understanding, and adding to the recovery of affected communities and can also serve the geo-tourism segment (Migon & Pijet-Migon, 2019). However, Migon and Pijet-Migon (2019) argue that sites focused on the disrupted lives of communities while honouring victims contribute very little to improving understanding of vulnerability and risk. Instead, they propose that the development of thematic trails around the disaster location showcasing various aspects of the disaster linked with source/cause/effect and the topographic context can potentially be a better way to keep the event from disappearing from the collective human memory.
Earthquakes and Resilience
The growth in the human impact of disasters has strengthened a focus in research and policy in understanding preparedness and response to hazard events (Thompson et al., 2017). These are often framed in terms of such notions as a disaster response or planning cycle with each stage informing the next such as that of preparedness, response, recovery, planning post-event (Gurwitch et al., 2004) or rebuilding, redeveloping and renewal to support effective recovery (Blakely, 2012) or the adoption of the four stage approach of mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery (Hernantes et al., 2013). There is often an implicit assumption in these frameworks that once the community goes back to their normal lives or plans have been put in place to mitigate the effects of future similar disasters, then the process ends (Muskat et al., 2015). It is also implied that a community or destination will move from one part of the cycle to the next in a linear fashion and is almost automatic (Muskat et al., 2015). Yet, as evidenced by disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, the Christchurch and Nepal earthquake and nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, systems, cycles, and plans can fail and there is a need to build adaptive capacity and resilience (Hall et al., 2018).
Resilience has been conceptualized as the capacity for communities and their members, including businesses and societal institutions to respond to crises and disasters (Paton, 2008). The resilience literature is grounded in an understanding of the dynamics of change, complexity, the potential role of transitions and the possibility of crises providing windows of opportunity (Brown & Westaway, 2011; Hall et al., 2018; Amore et al., 2018). These are some of the underlying premises of social-ecological systems. Adaptive capacity, resilience and vulnerability are related and entwined in different ways (Engle, 2011). Resilience is commonly explained through an adaptive cycle. This cycle does not converge to a state of equilibrium but rather moves through states of growth, conservation, collapse and re-organization (Holling & Gunderson, 2002). This enables a system to harness transformative or adaptive capabilities to address change and maintain a cyclical process (Bec et al., 2016).
Resilience frameworks in tourism have generally been adapted from those in other disciplines (Cochrane, 2010). Irrespective of the frameworks, it is clear that pro-active tourism policymaking, planning and implementation of disaster risk reduction are likely to enhance the sector’s ability to recover from crises and disasters (Khazai et al., 2018). Understanding the vulnerability of a destination is the starting point for resilience building activities. Examples of destination vulnerability include limited disaster preparedness, access to resources, being ecologically sensitive and hazard prone and suffering from institutional inflexibility, among others (Calgaro et al., 2014). Amore et al. (2018) use a multilevel perspective to argue that destination planning frameworks, and hence destination resilience building, should encompass ecological, socioecological, sociopolitical, socioeconomic and sociotechnological dimensions that reflect the embeddedness of resilience among heterogeneous and potentially complementary destination stakeholders. They highlight that a resilience approach to destination planning offers destinations not only the possibility of coping with sudden changes such as disasters but also incremental changes, which is part of a business as usual approach. For example, participatory approaches in crafting a disaster management plan where stakeholders beyond the tourism industry understand and are willing to share resources, knowledge and information, can lead to quicker response following a disaster. Also, efforts to build organizational and community resilience can contribute to destination resilience and vice versa (Hall et al., 2018). As Cutter et al. (2013) suggest, disaster resilience is very much linked to collaborative engagement across organizations. Recovery, in particular, requires multi-agency partnerships and collaboration. Therefore, participatory approaches improve the chance that a disaster management plan has stakeholder buy in, which improves the likelihood of the plan working following a disaster. Several studies have highlighted how organizations can become limited within their silos or lack networked communication practices for sharing best practice (Seville, 2018), which impede not only emergency services as first responders after a disaster but also the tourism industry to initiate, for example, the evacuation of tourists (see Subadra, this volume).
In a resilient socioecological system, disturbance has the potential to create new opportunity for innovation and development (Folke, 2006). Appreciating the dynamic and cross-scale interplay between abrupt change and sources of resilience makes it apparent that the resilience of complex adaptive systems is not simply about resistance to change and conservation of existing structures. It is also about the opportunities that disturbance opens up in terms of the recombination of evolved structures and processes, system renewal and the emergence of new trajectories (Folke, 2006). It is not about returning to normality but about positively adapting to a changed reality. For example, the local economy in Kaikoura, following the 2016 earthquake was revitalized and regional resilience enhanced through diversification, capitalizing on the region’s natural, social and cultural capital (Cradock-Henry et al., 2018). In the case of Kaikoura, food security emerged as an important concern for the community post-quake. This led to greater levels of self-organization, in which individuals, households, businesses and rural and urban communities, harnessed local opportunities and connectivity to become food self-reliant (Cradock-Henry et al., 2018). This is an example of building community resilience by capitalizing on the new opportunities presented by