Abstract:
This article examines tourism business disaster planning in areas at risk from lowfrequency/
high-consequence natural disasters. It presents empirical findings from a
tourism business survey in the Southern Alps of New Zealand, an area with high
seismic risk that supports a tourism industry comprising many micro-sized, owneroperated
businesses. The Alpine Fault is a 450 km geological structure running the
length of the Southern Alps, and is considered overdue for a M7.8–8.0 earthquake. A
survey of tourism business operators revealed generally poor levels of perceived
preparedness and actual planning for a future earthquake disaster, particularly
amongst micro-sized businesses. The presence or absence of business resilience
‘tools’ was investigated, all of which are more common in businesses with higher
incomes. The article draws on tourism disaster planning and business resilience
literature to outline an alternative approach to disaster planning for small tourism reliant
communities. It describes community-based efforts to prepare in two remote
Southern Alps townships, lending support to the concept of collective, communityled
disaster planning.
