Knowledge Management for Tourism Crises and Disasters

Tourism is especially vulnerable to disasters and, being fragmented, often its response is difficult to initiate and coordinate. It is also information intensive and when in chaos its information needs are exacerbated. The paper aims to develop a knowledge management system for disasters in a tourist destination in terms of a knowledge framework for tourism disaster management at the public sector level. Knowledge is a powerful resource to help governments, organisations and communities prevent, mitigate, plan for and recover from disasters and crises. Destinations need knowledge in the three stages of disaster management pre disaster prevention and planning, disaster situation management and post disaster phases of resolution and return to normality. The paper creates a tourism destination’s public sector model of a knowledge management system for the first two stages of preventative planning and management of disasters knowledge framework for disaster management in a learning destination. It includes recommendations about the various types of knowledge and information needed and the specifics of the information system architecture.