Write a 7 pages paper on national and regional tourism planning. The Minister of Tourism for example, or only one group, the Ministry of Tourism for example. Implied is the need for cooperation from as many quarters as possible because disasters, by nature or by man, can strike anytime. This may be what people mean when they say tourism can never be planned. As a complex multi-faceted industry really, any effort at control, direction and guidance are beyond the efforts of any one individual or team of individuals.

Cooke (2005) defines tourism as a movement or philosophy, not an industry. The correct use of the term ‘tourism’ is to describe the phenomenon of mass travel, he said, therefore, tourism identifies a social movement and it is not a logical name for an industry. For example, he said Impressionist artists do not say that they work in Impressionism, nor do Conservative politicians say that they once worked in Thatcherism. He explains that Impressionism, Thatcherism and other ‘ism’s such as vegetarianism and chauvinism are names of movements or philosophies, not industries.

Another input from Cooke (2005) that tourism is still evolving and is not yet fully developed. Some people, therefore, lump it with the Leisure department as a service to be provided. Others place it under Economic development or planning development as a strategic planning issue. Meanwhile, others place it with Industry as a human economic activity.

Can Tourism be planned

Discussion boards from Neowin (2005) view tourism as having so many external factors that can never be predicted yet hugely affect tourism. For example, the London bombings. Obviously that had an effect on tourism as did the Bali Bombings, the Tsunami, the Twin Towers bombings more known as 9/11, the New Orleans hurricane, bombings in Dubai.

According to Mason (2003), it is the tourism impacts that are multi-faceted and therefore are difficult to plan for and manage. Many unplanned events, e.g. terrorism and natural disaster, go with tourism. Also, no matter what plan you have as tourism minister if your capital gets bombed, you’ll see a decline in visitors until people forget or get over with it (Neowin 2005).

Tourism is based on people wanting to go somewhere. You can market and promote until you drop dead, but if people don’t like what you are trying to sell, they aren’t going to come. That goes double if people are afraid to come to your place because people keep blowing it up, or because its geographical location is ‘unstable’. Because of these events that come from behind, some strategies are needed.

Coping Strategies

Hindle (2005) warns that anyone working in tourism will have to face a crisis that can attack anytime or any day, respecting no holidays or sleeping hours. Therefore, she says, one has to plan ahead. Hindle (2005) gives four areas of crisis management: 1) Partnership before a crisis, 2) Partnership during a crisis, 3) Recovering from a crisis, and 4) How the lessons from these three stages of a crisis can be applied (see Appendix A).

A crisis, Hindle (2005) says, is something that hits us unexpectedly, that requires instant attention, huge investment in time, people and resources, and yet requires management. But a crisis is not “owned.” meaning no one entity holds the responsibility for the problem that arises, therefore some talking and&nbsp.linking up is needed before a crisis strikes or else the whole country, as in negative report to the whole world, will feel the negative impact (Ibid).