When should tourists return to a crisis-hit country?
Thursday, 16 February 2023
Josh Martin is a London-based journalist who writes across business and travel topics.
OPINION: It wasn’t so much a joke, as a radio DJ’s brain fart: Turkish expats in London (or just anybody with basic decency) were left aghast when a London radio presenter suggested that “now actually is the best time to start looking at some cheap flights away to Turkey over the next few years. Get your teeth done as well while you’re over there”.
The same day the official death toll for this month’s earthquake in Southeast Turkey and Northern Syria surpassed 40,000.
Ill-advised, crass, but perhaps not incorrect. A drop in demand for holidays to Turkey – even if the destruction is more than 1000km from the main tourist region of its Aegean Sea coast – may likely put a lid on prices, and the country’s currency could further weaken, but to celebrate this side effect is, at best, tone-deaf and, at worst, exploiting a country’s disaster.
A swift apology came from the radio DJ after a listener backlash, and one I’m sure would have occurred in New Zealand if some foot-in-mouth shock jock had “joked” about cheap flights to Hawke’s Bay or discounted holiday home rentals in the Coromandel following the destruction caused by recent storms.
As supplies of everything from basic food, fuel and electricity become fractured and transport links prove hazardous, the demands of tourists (even with deep pockets) rightly fall way down the priority list of a destination in emergency mode, even if they are in far-flung parts of the same country.
And that’s before considering the people power needed in a disaster recovery situation – is it right that staff members feel compelled to wait tables, drive speed boats or clean rooms for the tourist class when they could be freed up to help volunteer with disaster efforts?
Also, there’s the threat that your demand for plane seat 24C could have out-priced a person that is delivering vital skills, support or services.
In short, if your newsfeed still has people marking themselves as “safe” following a disaster, yes it’s too soon, and your presence could hinder recovery efforts.
However, the situation changes as the disaster falls further down news bulletins, given the amount of jobs and levels of foreign currency that tourism brings to economies. The question then, is not if tourists should return to a crisis-hit country, but when will we be a benefit, and not a drag on the local economy?
The wineries and boutiques of the Esk Valley certainly don’t want tourists arriving in the immediate aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle, but once the clean-up is underway and the shockwave of a national emergency dissipates, tourism dollars will be vital for paying for the Hawke’s Bay’s (and wider New Zealand economy’s) recovery.
Like the myriad of Covid-ruined vacations, the would-be hosts plead for a “reschedule, don’t rip-up” approach from hopeful arrivals. This requires flexibility and understanding too from a local tourism industry possibly in the grips of a natural disaster that may be more inclined to hold on to what cash it has banked. This is, of course an art rather than a science.
Recovery from natural disasters has some very obvious physical markers that foreign tourists can get hold of (live weather cams or local news reports will indicate roads and homes being rebuilt or reopened, for example).
Economic or political crises, such as recent examples in Sri Lanka, Myanmar or Lebanon, offer fewer physical signs that everything is in recovery mode and it is safe to cross the border once more, so reading up on where you wish to head to is vital.
To state the obvious, an International Monetary Fund bailout is usually a sign that the return of the tourist dollar will shortly be very welcome.
The most obvious sign, of course, is when the advertising begins. Even then, there can be caveats and exclusions. I ventured to the Caribbean nation of Antigua & Barbuda in 2017, about two months after Hurricane Irma had decimated the country, invited by the tourism board.
Roads were fixed, roofs re-fitted, the sun shone again. But, when enquiring how to get to the pink sandy beaches of neighbouring island Barbuda, my host told me it remained a ghost town after the entire population had been evacuated and many homes abandoned. No coral-coloured dunes for me.
“Give it a year, more likely two, but it will bounce back.” Thankfully it has, and the tourist dollar will be vital for resilience against future crises, hurricanes or otherwise.
That’s true whether it’s Antigua, Istanbul or Auckland.