But established preparation and recovery models now outdated, Resilience Summit told

Countries are getting better at handling the aftermath of political unrest and terrorist activity, delegates at the fourth Global Resilience Summit in London were told.

However, the established model for crisis preparation and recovery is now severely outdated, according to experts.

The Global Resilience Summit is an annual event organised by the Global Travel and Tourism Resilience Council and designed to share best practice within the public and private sectors.

Gloria Guevera, Chief Executive of the World Travel & Tourism Council, presented a report which showed that the average time for a nation to recover from political unrest has fallen from 22 months in the recent past to just 10 months in 2019.

The average recovery rate following terrorist activity is typically eight weeks, she added.

However, Kirsi Madi, Director of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, urged governments and tourism-related businesses to collaborate to update traditional models and ensure they are fit for purpose.

Madi called on all stakeholders to proactively plan their crisis response by understanding risks they are exposed to and identifying effective risk-reduction strategies.

She also reminded delegates of a UNDRR initiative known as the SENDAI Framework, which recognises that states should play the primary role in reducing disaster risk, but responsibility should be shared with other stakeholders.

The four priorities of the initiative – understanding disaster risk; strengthening disaster risk governance to manage disaster; investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience; and enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response – must be priorities for all governments and tourism-related businesses, she added.

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The next Resilience Council Summit will be held in Berlin, March 2020 at the ITB.  For more information, please contact:

About the Global Travel and Tourism Resilience Council (RC)

The Resilience Council was created following the success of the International Travel and Tourism Crisis Management Summit, which hosted its first event in London in 2016. ITCMS grew from 2016, becoming a yearly event and paving the way for regional efforts that started with the Resilience Through Tourism Summit, held in Amman, Jordan in 2018.  These events provide benefits for all sectors of the travel and tourism industry, ranging from aviation to tour operators and destinations, providing valuable real-time advice and information through comprehensive partnership programmes. The goal of the RC is to engage with not only the corporate travel and tourism industry, but also the leisure sector, proactively partnering with industry suppliers in order to become the quintessential resilience strategy platform which leads to improving the confidence of travellers worldwide and sustainable stakeholder resiliency. resiliencecouncil.org