Natural Disaster Effect On Tourism In Madeira Island Portugal

Abstract

Tourism destinations are analyzed based on the frequency of risk factors and other safety requirements. Factors such as natural disasters, terrorism and potential political disputes can drastically influence the image of a suspect destination. The impact can be felt over a short period and can also endure for years if not addressed. Madeira Island was not adequately prepared in the wake of the disaster that occurred in the month of February 2010. The repercussion that followed was a significant drop in the number of tourists that frequented the region. Guided by the importance of destination representation as an ideology to various players in the tourism sector, this research focuses on the importance of addressing safety concerns and the risks that come about with the advent of natural disasters. The research also delves into the strategic approaches that can be implemented in the management of tourist destinations. Measures such as appropriate planning prior to the crisis aided by strategic implementation and consequently offer recommendations that will be of great importance to the various stakeholders.

Introduction

The occurrences of natural disasters have increased in frequency over the years that news channels no longer prioritize them unless they have precipitated destructions of enormous proportions and a large number of casualties. Natural disasters ranging from tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, mudslides, earthquakes and cases of flooding to name but a few often disrupt the daily happenings and routines. However, precautionary measures have been taken in the recent past to limit the effects of the natural disasters on the lives of humans and the disruptions to every aspect of their lives. In spite of this, natural disasters still cause disruptions some of which are of irreparable proportions to the communities and the society at large. Regardless of the causes of the disasters, it is clear that people are more concerned for their safety more so if they are traveling to new destinations as the world becomes increasingly interconnected (Grainger & Crouch, 2006). People have consequently become more concerned and aware of disaster prone areas and those countries that are suspect to the occurrences of crisis (Richardson, 1994). The occurrences of these disasters are a threat and can potentially destroy the competitive advantages that are held by certain countries as tourism destinations. Over the years, the coming to being of natural disasters, terrorist attacks and the unforgettable case of bird flu negatively influenced the tourism industry in the affected countries. The respective players in the tourism industry have come to realize that for continued growth and prosperity of the industry is informed by the existence of global safety and appropriate security measures (Hall et al., 2004). There has been little research done to investigate and analyze the relationship between the occurrences of disasters and their relationship to tourism. The frequency of natural disasters has however prompted the various stakeholders to acknowledge the importance of managing the effects that the disasters have on the tourism sector (Faulkner, 2001). Stakeholders have shifted from a static wait and see approach to a more proactive approach in the management of the natural disasters.

The raging waters and mud that swept away property and caused massive destructions witnessed in the month of February 2010 in the Atlantic Ocean Island with losses going to the billions of Euros, was confirmed by the metrology department to be as a result of excessive rainfall that was received on that day. A significant drop in the number of tourist that frequented the region consequently followed this. The likelihood of repeat occurrences of such events with probably greater repercussions has made stakeholders to be in a constant state of alert. Having established a consensus that the natural disasters cannot be stopped the various stakeholders have however determined that the impact of the said disasters can be limited to a certain extent. This research is meant to understand the management entailed in such incidences and how to improve the management of this crisis through conceptualizing the crisis and disaster management theory.

Background

Madeira is a Portuguese autonomous inward-looking region discovered in 1418. The Island is positioned between the latitudes 35 degrees and 45 degrees north and longitude 17 degrees west, and is about 1000 kilometers from the coast of Portugal, the country the country that has ownership of the Islands, and is about 500 kilometers from the coast of African. The island has been described as a floating garden reflective of centuries of cultivation practices in the region. Madeira Islands are rich in volcanic soils, have a great geographical position that is subject to mountainous relief and the islands experiences a mild climate that has seen the region accustom to receiving plenty of rainfall that have created contrasting landscapes. Madeira Island is approximately 459 square miles. The island offers great walking possibilities for those who frequent the area in addition to activities such as mountaineering, fishing, sailing and surfing (Oliveira & Pereira, 2008). These aspects have contributed to Madeira being a traditional tourist destination in the world. Initially, Madeira Island was mostly in the reserve of wealthy tourist who visited the area until 1963 when the Funchal airport was opened. The opening of the airport necessitated the development and expansion of the infrastructure and constructions of hotels in the region. The construction of hotels in the region however increased in the advent of the Portuguese Revolution in 1974. Currently, Madeira Island is equipped with approximately 29000 hotel beds to tend to of the various accommodation needs of the visitors. According to statistics from Portuguese bureau of statistics, over one million international tourists visited Madeira island annually whereby after the disaster of 2010, the number started reducing by a margin of 15,000 international tourists weekly. Local or domestic tourists were aware of what was happening in the island and therefore the number reduced by a large margin. Before the disaster, a population of between 85,000 and 94,000 domestic tourists used to visit the island monthly but after the disaster of 2010 the number of domestic tourists reduced by more than half with only a population of around 40,000 local visits touring the island. The islands hotels are hailed for their hospitality, exceptional personalized service and are of the highest quality (Barros & Machado, 2010). Madeira Islands are frequented mostly by tourist form Germany, England and several Scandinavian countries between the periods of October all through to the spring season; with the peak seasons registered in the months of March and April during the famous flower festival. Visitors that shy from the islands less intense heat particularly from the southern parts of Europe, frequent Madeira Islands during the summer season. Celebrations occasioned by the welcoming of the New Year also observe the arrival of a large number of tourists. The firework displays over the Funchal skies are said to be among the largest in the world (Barros & Machado, 2010).

In 2010 Madeira Islands experienced the worst year with regards to the revenues generated form the tourism industry. The failure was accredited to the storm that occurred in the island on February of the same year. The floods swept away people and vehicles and were responsible for the destruction to houses bridges and other infrastructure. Approximately 48 casualties were reported about 120 injuries and more than 600 people were displaced. The locals branded the storm as being the worst in their living memory. The magnitude of the effects was reflected in the numerous cancellations that followed the tragedy. In the successive days, cancellations and no new bookings were reported in almost all of the hotels in the region. Ships destined for the islands were asked to seek out alternative destinations as the excursions normally offered were at the time impossible and were to remain so for a couple of weeks. The media coverage of the storm further compounded the damaging of the islands tourism image, with assumptions made on the extent of the effects on the storm. Tour operators and other stakeholders stopped promoting and selling of tour packages to the island with other tour operators offering their clients alternative destinations as a result of the withdrawal of a large number of tourists. This consequently resulted to the stopping of tourism activities for the entire year. The island is now mostly dependant on foreign tour operators who handle tourism packages for European clientele to facilitate the inflow of tourists into the islands. This approach has significantly increased the numbers of the tourist in and those bound for the island. However, accommodation capacities cannot still be compared to those seen before the whole crisis. The stakeholders are continuously marketing Madeira Islands as a safe destination to do away with the negative publicity that the Islands have experienced regarding it safety. Despite the measures that have been taken the stakeholders in the tourism industry have agreed that it is paramount extract learning’s occasioned by the disaster they experienced and that they should develop and put into place strategies and appropriate support systems that would facilitate the implementation of the strategies in the event of another crisis.

Aims and Objectives of the research

The research was meant to evaluate and report on the Natural disaster effect on tourism in Madeira Island, Portugal. The aim is to look into all actions that have been taken and compare with tourist arrivals to the island. Look into the reasons why domestic tourism was reported to increase and the international tourist numbers declined. A look into the role of the media and its potential impact to the tourism industry was also given importance. The research also looks into whether the crisis that affected Madeira Island had any influence on international arrival increase to the main land of Portugal, it decreased, or whether the disaster did not have any effect to it.

The study’s major objectives were:

To evaluate the effects of the natural disasters that affected the country

To expand our understanding on the actions that were taken to deal with the effects of the natural disasters and the roles that individuals played in the successful implementation of the strategies adopted

To look into how the natural disaster effect on tourism in Madeira Island, Portugal prompted new approaches and measures to deal with such crisis and to provide recommendations on the same

I expect that the insight acquired in this research study and the later recommendations to be of great value to the stakeholders in the tourism industry. The research can also be of great help to other researchers, management trainees of tourism related activities and to other countries that are faced with the same predicament and challenges.

Primary Research question

The primary research question was to evaluate and report on natural disaster effect on tourism in Madeira Island, Portugal.

Literature review

Madeira is commonly referred to as the main island of a Portuguese archipelago found in the Atlantic Ocean which is located just over 300 miles off to the west coast of Africa. Madeira was said to have been discovered by the Portuguese sailors who were on the service of Infants D in 1419, and later settled after the year 1420 (Garrod, B, Wornell, R. Youell, R. 2006). The archipelago has always been considered to be the first discovery of the territorial in the exploratory time and period of the discovery of the Portuguese Age. The Archipelago was discovered in Portugal in 1418 (Oliveira and Pereira, 2008). It is made of Madeira and Porto Santo islands. Madeira Island, which has commonly been described as to a floating garden due to reflection of the cultivation centuries. Madeira Island is one of the tourist destinations most affected by natural disasters. The island is rich in volcanic soils, good geographical location, mountainous relief, mild climate, hillsides that have terraces and plantations of bananas and vines. Its forest is also primeval and receives enough rainfall due to its contrasted landscapes. Madeira highland has natural habitats that are of high quality and that have widely been categorized as biogenetic reserve full of fauna species and flora. The island offers opportunities for walking, game fishing, mountaineering etc to tourists (Oliveira and Pereira, 2008). The island of Madeira was hit by a storm in 2010 whereby a large damage was witnessed. These natural disasters also affected the countries economy since many visitors and tourists suspended their trips to the island. In that storm, water and mud swept people away whereby also houses, vehicles, trees, bridges were buried under the mud. Hundreds of people lost their lives and several others injured. Thousands of people also lost their homes. Meteorologists described it as a natural disaster whereby they referred the rain that had fallen down as to exceed monthly average (Nevenka, 2002). Many roads were also destroyed and blocked trees, huge rocks, and mud. The village of Curral das Freiras in nearby Madeira had been cut off (Butler, R., 1997). The effects that go with crises and other natural calamities were highly felt in that period. The gravity of the disaster was much and negatively felt in tourist hotels whereby all bookings were cancelled on the spot (Butler, R, 1997). This effect went on in the following days and months whereby more hotel booking cancellations was experienced. Cruise ships that were scheduled to land on surrounding spots were directed to other destination spots. This indicates how a single natural disaster can affect a place. The media reports that were covered on that disaster contributed to damaging the tourism positive image of Madeira Island. Some of the isolated and local events that did occur were seen to have been largely distributed to the whole island which was a false (Echtner, C, Ritchie, J. 2003). The major problems were courses of water that was rising from narrow channels and bringing off the water to mountains. The government of Portugal in its bid to mitigate that impact of the serious disaster reported the disaster was not that serious and claimed there were no effects involving the sector of tourism that did not solve matters (Cawley, M, Gillmor, D. 2008). The large withdrawal of visitors and foreign tourists led to stoppage of sale and promotion of any holiday to the island of Madeira by several tour operators (Nevenka, 2002). Madeira Island today heavily depends on tour operators who are foreign and who mainly control flows of European tourism. This has helped the island in returning to international markets although it cannot be compared with where the island was before the 2010 disaster. The government continued to declare that Madeira was safe and took several measures in trying to minimize the negative perception of the island by releasing updates on the progress surrounding the victims, roads, weather, telecommunications etc. The Portuguese government also released some press statements and videos of testimonies by tourists who were affected by the disaster (Butler, R, 1997). The government was doing all this to convey an image of safety at the island. The government also tried to mitigate this effect by using celebrities in a campaign of marketing Madeira Island as a safe place. However, due to this to this natural disaster and its general effect to the country’s economy, much discussions and strategies on post disasters were put in place. The industry of tourism surrounding the Atlantic islands was to require recovered and fully implemented programme rather than after the natural disaster. The parties involved extracted and retained the lessons and experiences as well as the recovery process from disasters that happened in other parts of the world to be able to put effective strategies and supporting measures that trigger related programmes.

Today, Madeira is a popular and great year-round resort, which is being visited by about one million tourists every year from all parts of the world, it is mostly noted for its famous Madeira wine, landscapes as well as beautiful flowers and embroidery artisans. It is also well known for its celebrations on every annual New Year of the calendar because of featuring largest fireworks that are even shown to other parts of the world making it to be recognized by the award of Guinness World Records in the year 2006 (Correia, A., Oliveira, N., and Butler, R. 2008) Madeira Island is referred to be the second richest region after Lisbon in Portugal as according to statistics. Its capita is 103% of the European average GDP. The average annual occupancy of international tourists was at the rate of 60.3% in 2008 although in the months of March and April, the number of visitors exceeds 70%. After the disaster, the number of tourists reduced very largely. Madeira had fewer foreign tourists by a number of 15,000 one week just after the disaster occurred. There was a cancellation of six cruise ships leading to a loss of 13,000 visiting tourists. A number of 6000 fewer plane passengers were also did not show up, of which 70% would have been tourists (Luiz Pinto Machado, 2011). Before the disaster, Madeira island used to receive around one million tourists annually from all other parts of the world whereby after one week the reduced by 15,000 people and after two months the number of international tourists had reduced by over 200, 000 visitors. Local tourists also reduced by a large number. This is because they were aware of what was happening in the island. Local tourists reduced by a population of 42, 000 people monthly after the disaster. Before the disaster, the island used to receive local tourists at a total population of 85,000 local visitors monthly (Luiz Pinto Machado, 2011).

According to some data from the office of the Portuguese National Tourist Office and Portuguese Chamber of Commerce in the London, UK relating to health and wellbeing of tourism, it is noted that tourism is rising with a high margin across Europe and it is also predicted that it will continue to increase by 5-10% by year 2015 (Echtner, C, Ritchie, J. 2003). This is indicated a significant role as at a major conference held to discuss its matter and how it was to be solved. Madeira Island has been largely highlighted for its potential in the increasing market on tourism. The key resources as well as main attractors of a destination serve as a primary element any appeal of destination at the same time being a core motivation source for frequent visits (Ritchie and Crouch, 2003). Those factors are highly considered by several scholars to be falling under seven important categories which are history and culture, climate and physiographic, ties of the market, mixed activities, tourism, travel and entertainment; and special activities. The portrayal of different parts in news can lead to change of the places image (Kim and Richardson, 2003). However, according to media observers and the news they expose, it seems most people live in a disaster prone world without knowing (Faulkner, 2001). In 2003, Beirman provided an analysis that was strongly detailed of major man-made as well as natural disasters and crises together with their effects on tourism. The disasters as well as crises in several parts have become very important due to media coverage and the preparedness of some tourism consumers in avoiding to visit the perceived unsafe destinations (Grainger and Crouch, 2006). Risks are seen to be a cost of choice since concepts of risks were introduced in 1920s in economics (Knight, 1948). The concept of risk was also used in decision-making theories surrounding finance and economics (Dowling and Staelin, 1994). There has been some interest in the field of tourism as numerous statitistics from different nations show perceived risks been increasingly associated with some decreased visits (Sonmez et al., 1999) although in 1998, Somnez claimed that some destinations were evaluated as according to their risk and safety factors in regard to terrorism possibilities and political problems. This was proved in practice by Sonmez in 1999 although he stressed that tourism setbacks as a result of negative occurrences require more strategic efforts rather than traditional efforts. The media coverage on disasters is of larger concern to different destinations whereby the events that are negative occur. The consequence to this situation is that several destinations are referred as to be unsafe and dangerous. Madeira Island is best described as one of the most tourist destinations all over the world. Despite this fact and the number of tourists who tour the island every year, the number could be much higher if not for some circumstances that make the area to be seen as unsafe (Barton, 1994). The government officials of some countries advice tourists not to visit some places whereby these crises and disasters do occur. When a disaster occurs, flights, hotels and other reserved services are called off. (Bigne, J, Sanchez, M, Sanchez, J. 2001). A places reputation as well as its positive image is largely built up over a short period. It can take few moments on reaching a state of disaster that can largely damage the image of the area, tourism industry involved as well as even the entire countries economy (Abrahams and Ketter, 2008). In Madeira Island, studies have analyzed processes and dynamics of disaster and proposing management as well as planning models. Although disasters evolve at high speed in affected areas, they are not identified in advance. The problem of predicting the events that are unpredictable shows that responsible authorities are not prepared fully where as they shoed be the ones to respond to these disastrous situations. Handling disaster in Madeira Island has been a challenge for those working in tourism industries. Customers and other visitors face several personal inconveniences when these kinds of crises occur as well as risking their lives and physical well-beings (Henderson, 2005). A holistic and multi step model of restoring positive image of Madeira Island was proposed by Avraham and Ketter in 2008. Natural disasters nowadays have increasingly become so common to an extend that media has been full its reports in different parts of the world. This goes on with a several casualties. Tsunamis, volcanoes, mudslides and floods are examples of natural disasters that strike from one day to another all over the world and these disasters cause a lot of destruction to affected places (Luiz Pinto Machado, 2011). People around Madeira Island as well as in other disastrous places have to learn on how to prepare for these natural disasters and other possibilities of earthquakes and wildfires although the preparation cannot help reduce the effects that natural crises and disasters carry on all aspects of society (Frochot, I. 2005). The visible impacts of these natural disasters are immediate as well being felt strongly. The surrounding communities could also be directly or indirectly get affected. The incidence of natural crises and disasters has been increasingly having several devastating impacts. Majority of people have become aware of how to ensure their physical safety in places that are complex where adverse events usually generate shock waves in the global world. (Grainger and Crouch, 2006). This contributes to making prone or awareness of disasters (Richardson, 1994). These disasters lead to negative events that threaten and destroy or weaken competitiveness of tourist destinations (Ritchie and Crouch, 2003). The 2000 decade is recognized as the period whereby several negative effects surrounding Madeira Island and including natural disasters influenced the tourist destination. Other many tourist destinations were also affected by such disasters in that decade.

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