An investigation of stakeholders’ strategies for external crisis preparedness: the Nigerian tourism industry perspectives

This research has used a qualitative, descriptive phenomenological approach to evaluate the realities of how government and private sector tourism stakeholders in two Nigerian destinations plan for, and respond to, external crises. The two case study locations - Nigeria’s capital territory, Abuja, and Jos, Plateau State, - have experienced several crises, including terrorist attacks and other disruptive events. The research employed a conceptual framework designed from existing crisis management theories, frameworks, and models for data collection and analysis of findings. The study’s field research was based on semi-structured and in-depth interviews with government and private sector tourism stakeholders to establish the strategies they employ towards crisis management and to ascertain whether their experiences of crises provide opportunities and lessons for future preparedness. Participants included managers and executives of tourism businesses, including hotels and tour organisations, and key government officials of tourism bureaus and emergency agencies, amongst others. The research findings suggest that tourism stakeholders in the two case study destinations were generally deficient in efficient crisis management measures, owing to inadequate resources from the government and, in some instances, a lack of efficient crisis management strategies. Consequently, the main contribution of this research is the development of a crisis management framework, which has been inductively derived from the interview findings, available documents from the study sites, and key extant literature on crisis management. The developed tourism crisis management framework is a refinement of the conceptual framework employed for the primary research and reflects the peculiarities of the study sites. The framework is innovative as it can be adapted by government and private sector tourism stakeholders in other West African destinations experiencing similar crises as the stakeholders of this research. The framework could also be adapted by the individual government and private sector stakeholders in the study sites towards enhancing collaborative and effective crisis management in their tourism sectors.