Toward a Resilience Model for the Hospitality & Tourism Industry

Abstract

The present research examines the impact of natural disasters on hospitality industry jobs and attempts to model job resilience after the industry experiences a disaster. While disasters are increasing at an unparalleled velocity, the hospitality industry has yet to fully appreciate their impact, reach, and consequences. Because the industry is a critical source of domestic economic activity, it is important to understand what happens to industry jobs post disaster and the mechanisms by which industry resilience is achieved. Using systems theory and a capital stock approach, our prior research supports our hypothesis: changes in hospitality industry jobs as a result of experiencing a natural disaster are a function of community resilience. Our regression results suggest characteristics such as creating and maintaining social networks of shared norms and values in a community help explain more changes in industry jobs than does the consequence of anatural disaster. This new model of resilience builds on community characteristics to foster industry jobs sustainability.