The impact of government legitimacy on the tourism industry during crises

Abstract

Tourism services are particularly vulnerable to crises because of their hedonic and transitory nature. Notably, external crises have destination-wide negative impacts, which require a collective response usually led by governments for a more effective recovery. Despite the consensus on governments’ role and legitimacy in mitigating crises recovery, there is a dearth of research identifying these tools facilitating intervention and their effectiveness. Thus, the paper aims to explore various government crises mitigation strategies for the tourism industry. This research is based on a mixed-method approach. First, it explores government responses to crises through semi-structured interviews with industry stakeholders. Then, we conduct a survey to target industry experts and measure the effectiveness of government responses and their impact on various key performance indicators during crises. From an academic point of view, the research contributes to an understanding of the efficiency of different government recovery intervention methods, which are overlooked in crisis management theory. Based on managerial contributions, the study provides an effective design of the public tools for more crisis-immune businesses, where governments should prioritise managing external crises by establishing processes, standards, support services, information and communication.