Destination Disaster Recovery - summary of best practices

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 Photo: WNC Times

 

The recent hurricane disaster in Western NC led me to examine academic and technical scholarship about measures that allow tourism destinations to recover.  I shared some of these insights in this 10min video:


From this work, I identified three activities that DMOs should address in a very timely and active manner.


DMOs should actively communicate with the popular media, promoting factual and positive content about the recovery process.  Media platforms have the tendency to sensationalize accounts of misery and destruction to draw the attention of their public; so DMOs need to counteract this negative information, or even misinformation, through proactive PR efforts.

This effort will likely require the gathering of accounts and digital content (i.e., photos and video) from local residents, businesses and rescue authorities. For example, during recent fieldwork in WNC destinations with whom I am collaborating I capture this quote from a local fire chief:  "In some places the roads were cleaned before we got there, because our communities help each other and are very self-sufficient." (Terry Horn, Chief Ellenboro Fire Department, personal communication November 3rd, 2024).

 



DMOs also should consider developing "temporary servicescapes" - a social and physical space developed to be active during a limited period of time while a more permanent structure is being rebuilt.  In the case of Western NC destinations, these spaces might consist of tiny home villages with commercial spaces, art studies and food trucks, housing the unique small businesses that made now destroyed mains streets desirable places to visit.  As the destination centers are  rebuilt, these tiny homes can be sold at affordable prices to local farmers interested in offering this form of short term rental; boosting their involvement in tourism microentrepreneurship and the counties' occupancy tax earning potential.

 

Lastly DMOs should consider that disasters in highly desirable tourism regions is frequently associated with the displacement of local people with more vulnerable livelihoods (e.g., tourism service workers), the failure of small tourism businesses, and the invasion of external high-end real estate and tourism developers; paving the way to the loss of the destinations' special character.


I hope these insights are helpful as destinations in Western NC and elsewhere struggle with recovering from disasters and other unavoidable shocks to their desired direction.  Please add your thoughts as comments, and feel free to reach out if interested in discussing further.


Duarte B. Morais    11/07/24





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