Crisis Management in Tourism ? A Literature Based Approach on the Proactive Prediction of a Crisis and the Implementation of Prevention Measures

Increasingly, crisis situations are affecting the globalized tourism industry. Especially, unfavorable news about the political, economic or social situation at a destination are distributed all over the world through numerous media channels. This paper is aimed at providing a literature-based overview on how a decline in visitor numbers due to the influence of a political crisis can be avoided through proactive crisis management. Generally, the key to success is creating a problem-solving action plan including prevention measures that combine all stakeholders’ interests and activities. However, in the tourism industry one problem is, that the equal integration of all stakeholders is mostly complicated. The paper provides a literature-based theoretical foundation about crisis management in general and the application of crisis management within tourism. Based upon this foundation an overview of the different stages of crisis management is developed, integrating all stakeholders and influential interest groups.