scholarly journals Responding to Hurricanes Irma and Maria: An Exploration of Puerto Rico Tourism's Image Repair Efforts

Author(s):  
Allison Wiseman

Tourists’ perceived image of a destination, including perceptions of safety and risk, play important roles in deciding whether or not to visit a destination. When crises strike a tourist destination, tourism organizations must work towards restoring their images to a favourable state. In the fall of 2017, hurricanes Irma and Maria swept through the Caribbean with devastating consequences. Puerto Rico, whose tourism industry plays a vital role in its economy, was particularly devastated by the hurricanes. In the wake of hurricanes Irma and Maria, Puerto Rico’s tourism sector was in a state of crisis whereby its economic health depended on tourism revenue. Since image plays a vital role in the health of Puerto Rico’s tourism industry, this Major Research Paper (MRP) seeks to analyze the use of image repair strategies employed by Puerto Rico’s official tourism organization, See Puerto Rico, across multiple online platforms and across varying stages of the hurricane crisis. Drawing from image repair theory (Benoit, 1997), texts and images found on See Puerto Rico’s website and Facebook page were analyzed by identifying the presence of denial, evading responsibility, reducing offensiveness, corrective action, and mortification strategies with the addition of informational and suffering strategies. Findings indicate that See Puerto Rico primarily employed bolstering, informational, corrective action, minimization, and suffering strategies throughout its website and Facebook page. Puerto Rico strived to restore its image by providing tourists select pieces of information regarding the status of Puerto Rico’s tourism industry and by showcasing the positive attributes of the islands. Part of See Puerto Rico’s image repair efforts involved ignoring the hurricanes and minimizing their seriousness and impacts to reassure tourists that they could still travel to Puerto Rico. The application of image repair theory in this study suggests that it can be used to help understand tourism organizations’ crisis responses to natural disasters.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison Wiseman

Tourists’ perceived image of a destination, including perceptions of safety and risk, play important roles in deciding whether or not to visit a destination. When crises strike a tourist destination, tourism organizations must work towards restoring their images to a favourable state. In the fall of 2017, hurricanes Irma and Maria swept through the Caribbean with devastating consequences. Puerto Rico, whose tourism industry plays a vital role in its economy, was particularly devastated by the hurricanes. In the wake of hurricanes Irma and Maria, Puerto Rico’s tourism sector was in a state of crisis whereby its economic health depended on tourism revenue. Since image plays a vital role in the health of Puerto Rico’s tourism industry, this Major Research Paper (MRP) seeks to analyze the use of image repair strategies employed by Puerto Rico’s official tourism organization, See Puerto Rico, across multiple online platforms and across varying stages of the hurricane crisis. Drawing from image repair theory (Benoit, 1997), texts and images found on See Puerto Rico’s website and Facebook page were analyzed by identifying the presence of denial, evading responsibility, reducing offensiveness, corrective action, and mortification strategies with the addition of informational and suffering strategies. Findings indicate that See Puerto Rico primarily employed bolstering, informational, corrective action, minimization, and suffering strategies throughout its website and Facebook page. Puerto Rico strived to restore its image by providing tourists select pieces of information regarding the status of Puerto Rico’s tourism industry and by showcasing the positive attributes of the islands. Part of See Puerto Rico’s image repair efforts involved ignoring the hurricanes and minimizing their seriousness and impacts to reassure tourists that they could still travel to Puerto Rico. The application of image repair theory in this study suggests that it can be used to help understand tourism organizations’ crisis responses to natural disaster.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison Wiseman

Tourists’ perceived image of a destination, including perceptions of safety and risk, play important roles in deciding whether or not to visit a destination. When crises strike a tourist destination, tourism organizations must work towards restoring their images to a favourable state. In the fall of 2017, hurricanes Irma and Maria swept through the Caribbean with devastating consequences. Puerto Rico, whose tourism industry plays a vital role in its economy, was particularly devastated by the hurricanes. In the wake of hurricanes Irma and Maria, Puerto Rico’s tourism sector was in a state of crisis whereby its economic health depended on tourism revenue. Since image plays a vital role in the health of Puerto Rico’s tourism industry, this Major Research Paper (MRP) seeks to analyze the use of image repair strategies employed by Puerto Rico’s official tourism organization, See Puerto Rico, across multiple online platforms and across varying stages of the hurricane crisis. Drawing from image repair theory (Benoit, 1997), texts and images found on See Puerto Rico’s website and Facebook page were analyzed by identifying the presence of denial, evading responsibility, reducing offensiveness, corrective action, and mortification strategies with the addition of informational and suffering strategies. Findings indicate that See Puerto Rico primarily employed bolstering, informational, corrective action, minimization, and suffering strategies throughout its website and Facebook page. Puerto Rico strived to restore its image by providing tourists select pieces of information regarding the status of Puerto Rico’s tourism industry and by showcasing the positive attributes of the islands. Part of See Puerto Rico’s image repair efforts involved ignoring the hurricanes and minimizing their seriousness and impacts to reassure tourists that they could still travel to Puerto Rico. The application of image repair theory in this study suggests that it can be used to help understand tourism organizations’ crisis responses to natural disaster.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison Wiseman

Tourists’ perceived image of a destination, including perceptions of safety and risk, play important roles in deciding whether or not to visit a destination. When crises strike a tourist destination, tourism organizations must work towards restoring their images to a favourable state. In the fall of 2017, hurricanes Irma and Maria swept through the Caribbean with devastating consequences. Puerto Rico, whose tourism industry plays a vital role in its economy, was particularly devastated by the hurricanes. In the wake of hurricanes Irma and Maria, Puerto Rico’s tourism sector was in a state of crisis whereby its economic health depended on tourism revenue. Since image plays a vital role in the health of Puerto Rico’s tourism industry, this Major Research Paper (MRP) seeks to analyze the use of image repair strategies employed by Puerto Rico’s official tourism organization, See Puerto Rico, across multiple online platforms and across varying stages of the hurricane crisis. Drawing from image repair theory (Benoit, 1997), texts and images found on See Puerto Rico’s website and Facebook page were analyzed by identifying the presence of denial, evading responsibility, reducing offensiveness, corrective action, and mortification strategies with the addition of informational and suffering strategies. Findings indicate that See Puerto Rico primarily employed bolstering, informational, corrective action, minimization, and suffering strategies throughout its website and Facebook page. Puerto Rico strived to restore its image by providing tourists select pieces of information regarding the status of Puerto Rico’s tourism industry and by showcasing the positive attributes of the islands. Part of See Puerto Rico’s image repair efforts involved ignoring the hurricanes and minimizing their seriousness and impacts to reassure tourists that they could still travel to Puerto Rico. The application of image repair theory in this study suggests that it can be used to help understand tourism organizations’ crisis responses to natural disasters.


Author(s):  
Inês Carvalho ◽  
Carlos Costa ◽  
Anália Torres

The purpose of this chapter is to reveal women top-level managers' gender awareness in relation to two aspects: 1) perceptions of discrimination and 2) views of what could be done towards gender equality (by the state, organizations, and women themselves), so that more women can advance their careers. Women top-level managers in the Portuguese tourism sector were interviewed. The interview data suggests that discrimination might still be pervasive in the Portuguese tourism industry. However, many women do not perceive it as “real” discrimination and have contradictory discourses about it. Informants were also asked what could be done so that more women advance in their careers. They place the solution to the problem of gender equality mostly in women's hands. While some of the strategies proposed by women confront the gender order, others align with the status quo by ensuring that women “fit in” without challenging existing structures.


Basic characteristics of contemporary tourism development of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its administrative-political organization units are essentially linked to still insufficient infrastructure and legislative-institutional tourism organization. Regardless of the fact that in most development strategies of all administrative and political-organizational units in Bosnia and Herzegovina tourism is recognized as one of the basic strategies, the development level of tourism industry towards all indicators is significantly lagging behind at the level of the entire European tourism market. According to data from the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Bosnia and Herzegovina is only 113 out of total of 136 countries, according to tourism traffic, out of a record number of 1,235 billion. Of international tourists’ arrivals, which were taken worldwide in 2016, Bosnia and Herzegovina has averaged less than 0.1%. The total number of tourist arrivals was around 1.149 million in 2016, of which international arrivals accounted for about 62.6%, while the remaining 37.4% were domestic arrivals. The total number of nights spent in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the year 2016 was 2,377 million. In relation to the above mentioned indicators, positive trends in the number of tourists have increased in the past 10 years with an average annual rate of about 2.5%. These data indicate that Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the improvement of institutional and infrastructure capacities, should significantly improve the overall tourism traffic and achieve a significantly better position within the regional European market in the next ten year period.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Larson

This case study focuses on New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s response to the Bridgegate crisis. This paper presents a case study of a political individual’s response during a crisis across three distinct texts. Building on Image Repair Theory (Benoit, 1997a), differences across texts are identified and compared by observing the presence of Denial, Evasion of Responsibility, Reducing Offensiveness, Corrective Action and Mortification. The three distinct texts are analyzed through qualitative textual coding. These consist of Governor Christie’s prepared press conference response, his responses to reporter’s questions, and messages sent publically via Twitter January 9th 2014. Findings suggest that Image Repair Theory is useful for supporting a comparison between texts within a political image repair effort. Corrective action, as well as mortification strategies, were found to be used most prominently across the texts. The application of image repair theory in this case study led to the recommended addition of two new subcategories (Repentance and Taking responsibility) within the strategy of Mortification from Benoit’s (1997a) Image Repair Theory.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 283-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenon A. Brown ◽  
Breann Murphy ◽  
Lindsey C. Maxwell

This study expands the empirical study of Benoit’s image repair theory by serving two purposes using a sports context. First, this study will specifically examine criminal transgressions by comparing the effectiveness of image repair attempts by athletes facing domestic violence charges compared to other crimes. Second, this study will look at the effectiveness of using the mortification (apology) strategy in combination with other predominant strategies used by athletes in order to repair one’s image. Using a 3 × 8 factorial experiment involving 490 participants, results showed that athletes facing domestic violence charges are perceived more negatively regardless of their response to the transgression. In addition, results also showed that using mortification in combination with corrective action is the best response for athletes, regardless of the crime. Finally, using the mortification strategy in combination with other strategies is more effective to repair an athlete’s image, suggesting that it may be better to use combination strategies to respond to transgressions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 108-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nimesh Ulak

The aim of this paper is to explore and illuminate the preliminary impacts of novel coronavirus disease (COVID- 19) in tourism industry of Nepal. The spillover impact of pandemic has been seen in almost every sector globally. Many scholars and practitioners have already started rethinking and researching in different disciplines based on issues regarding COVID-19. Some of the disciplines are International tourism, health sector, international economy, global politics, human civilization, sustainability and so on. The United Nation World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and World Health Organization (WHO) are closely cooperating for understanding the severe impact of escalation of coronavirus on the human health and damage in the world economy as well as tourism sector (UNWTO, 2020). There are uncountable job losses recorded in tourism industry due to stranded traveller’s mobility after many nations including Nepal declared lockdown as a strategy to control the spread of virus Therefore, devastating Airlines, shuttered borders, halt of transportation means and cancellation of rooms in hotels have a vigorous impact on tourism industry than the COVID-19 outbreak itself. It is obvious to experience changes in tourism industry; tourist’s behavior and their reluctance to travel for few years. However, travel of humans for any motives will provide spectrum to tourism mobility. The epidemic has drastically turned into pandemic as the virus has transferred to almost all the nations of the globe without visa so far.


Author(s):  
William Benoit

In April 2017, United Airlines had a passenger removed from one of its airplanes. Video of the bleeding man being dragged off through the aisle went viral the next day. United’s initial response attempted to downplay this offensive act (relying primarily on differentiation and mortification, but not really apologizing for this offensive act). This stance provoked outrage and ridicule. This study applies image repair theory (Benoit, 2015) to the discourse in this case study. United’s CEO, Oscar Munoz, was forced to offer a “do-over,” stressing mortification and corrective action that were actually directed to the offensive act. United finally arrived at the proper response, but it came too late to realize its full potential. This essay argues that corrective action can be an important strategy in crisis communication theory; it also explains that social media have changed the crisis situation (with nearly instant and widespread criticism) and compressed the time in which those accused of wrongdoing can respond.


2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 435-439
Author(s):  
Baki Koleci ◽  
Redon Koleci

Tourism in developed countries, but also in some transition countries, is an important export product and a generator of employment. It includes a wide array of phenomena and relationships that arise during the touristic journey, while in its realization it comes to the economic, but also the ecological, social and cultural aspect of life. Tourism in Kosovo is an important economic branch. The Tourism Industry of Kosovo has realized 10-12% of the domestic social product, depending on the year in question and whether all the direct factors (hotel industry, gastronomy) or indirect factors (agriculture, construction, etc.) have been taken into account. The large turnout of the tourism economy in the local social product reveals, in the first place, the weaknesses of other sectors of the economy, while the tourism potential has not been utilized as well. Intensive development is largely spontaneous and uncontrolled in post-war hotels, accompanied by imbalance in the environment and territory. These consequences are detrimental to the interests of the two groups: local residents and respective tour operators. Quality planning of space is one of the most important preconditions for the long-term and sustainable development of tourism in Kosovo. It is appreciated that after defining the status of Kosovo, the interest of investors to invest in the tourism sector is greater, but also in other sectors of the economy that directly or indirectly influence the development of the tourism sector so that the government most works for the development of tourism in different regions of Kosovo, is now in the final stage the international tender for the privatization of Brezovica, where according to the information there are a number of interested persons appearing in the tender for privatization of the tourist complex of Brezovica. Today's modern tourism does not ask where we are going but what we will do where we are going. Kosovo institutions are seriously involved in managing tourism firstly to build conditions to attract foreign tourists and to convince citizens themselves that there are conditions in their country, the money they spend in other countries can help the economy of Kosovo. However, the conditions and nature that nature has created in Kosovo requires a more serious approach to elevating it to a higher level given the conditions to be met to keep up the turret. Tourism is an industry characterized by intensive labor involvement. Human resources for this industry have been rated as "raw materials" or are anticipated by experts as the most important factor to be faced by this industry over the last decades and onwards the Kosovo government has set up a university education school for tourism which can be said that there are many well-prepared frames. Starting from this apparent tourism site, infrastructure and building up of incomparable units is progressing day by day. It is time to evaluate the motivation of visitors who pay for a couple of days of summer or winter in one place.


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