Business 21C - Published by UTS Business

Tourism is Australia’s second largest industry, but it is exposed to all sorts of complex and interrelated risks. What happens when SARS breaks out across Asia, a tsunami destroys a beach resort, or an oil slick wipes out the beach-side economy of the Gulf of Mexico? How do the millions of people who make their living providing leisure environments cope?

Insurance is one way. Karl Sullivan of the Insurance Council of Australia walks us through the insurance products available to tourism operators before the event, in particular ‘loss of attraction’ cover. Suffice it to say that, had the inhabitants of the Gulf of Mexico been aware of the existence of such cover, they might have avoided the financial losses they are suffering from now. As a former risk manager at Qantas, Karl talks about the myriad risks faced by the airline industry, from mechanical delays through hijacking and the GFC, and how they go about managing them.

David Beirman, Senior Lecturer in Tourism at UTS Business, adds the recovery perspective – once a tourism destination has suffered a loss, how can it turn its attention to the future and develop strategies to bring its business back to life? David was manager of the Israel Tourism office for 12 years, with first hand experience of dealing with twitchy tourism customers and volatile destinations.

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