Introduction

Workshop regarding disaster management was held in Nassau sponsored by the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (CDERA), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), CARICOM Regional Organization for Standards and Quality and the University of the West Indies. Main purpose of the workshop was to develop Regional Disaster Risk Management Strategy for Sustainable Tourism in the Caribbean. Under the project, a Regional Disaster Risk Management Strategy and Plan of Action will be developed in case any kind of emergency occurs, natural disasters like hurricanes, storms, floods, volcanic eruptions, despises and etc. or in case of man made disasters like terrorism.
Original article by Lindsay Thompson, Bahamas Information Services (Fri, 2 May 2008)

Essay by Borislav Hadzhiev
Master in Tourism Destination Management student 2008/2009

Nowadays when the world is facing all kind of different disasters and every country is affected by different crises, a question how to deal with such events occurs in people’s minds. There is one certain thing about desisted that is for sure, and that is that there is no clear definition what is disaster, is it an event of nature or man made, is it necessary to affects millions of peoples or just a few to call an event disaster? The difference be twin a ordinary natural event like afternoon rain in the tropic and heavy rains causing fluids in North America is not quality but quantity. Further more when we talk about disasters and crises the most dangerous event in recent time is terrorism because it is caused by man and it is aimed against men, with its only purpose to take life.

Now when human technology is so advanced, we still can not prevent crisis form happening. There are still natural disasters like tsunamis, hurricanes, storms, floods, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and etc. killing hundreds of people each year. Advanced technologies mean more efficient bombs for terrorists. Of course we can not prevent all these, natural or man made, events from happening but we can be prepared for them. There are a lot of examples that are showing how lack of preparation can increase crucially the number of human loses. Examples like the terrorists attack in theater in Moscow in October 2002, where the situation was held perfectly from the SWAT team, but where lack of ambulances and medicines caused the dead of more than 100 innocent victims. Also disasters like the tsunami in December 2004 in Asia showed how lack of communication be twin countries can be the reason for tens of thousands of human life loses.

On the other hand now we have countries that are stop ignoring and are facing the problem. Now countries, not just this particular example the Caribbean, but countries like US, UK, Indonesia, Egypt, countries form the EU and of course many others that are suffered major human loses form terrorism and natural disasters, countries like those have Disaster management plans that are showing how should every each one organization or even particular persons should act in case of crisis. Examples are air companies with crisis management departments which are taking control in case of emergency.

Nowadays when tourism is one of the biggest industries in the world, it is seriously affected by any kind of crisis, were they local or global, and safety of the travelers is becoming major issue for the tourism companies. Statistics show that countries, regions or even hotels with Plan in case of emergency are recovering better and faster than the one that don’t have such a plan. Further more tourism is one of the main distributors for the GDP of some countries, and that makes it vital for them to have a Disaster management plan. Of course the main priority of plan for dealing all kind of emergencies is saving life, but as well helps for to the tourism business to recover.

Despite all aspects we can claim that you can never predict a crisis, but you can always prepared for the worst and hope for the best