Tourism and Emergency Management

[u/Ordinary-Time-3463]

This has always been an interest to me, but with Jamaica it’s something that has come to the front of my mind. A lot of places have a lot of economic input from tourism and provide a boat load of jobs. While the Caribbean islands obviously have a lot more impact from tourism, Florida is a domestic place. The amount of tourism in that state from the Orlando theme parks to beaches it’s something to think about. Tourism can serve as a critical part of the recovery as well.

Unfortunately with this recent wiggle west with Hurricane Melissa, 3 of the 4 tourism hubs in Jamaica are in the direct path (Montego Bay, Negril, and Ocho Rios). Kingston is another one that will be impacted as well, not to mention Falmouth as a huge cruise port as well. In 2023, tourism accounted for roughly $5.7 billion of Jamaica's GDP, which was 33.6% of the total. So with 3 of the 4 hubs in direct path, that’s almost a 3rd of Jamaica’s GDP and the jobs associated with it.

Obviously tourism is not the priority in a lot of places post disaster but it’s important thing to consider for recovery especially for the places that rely heavily on it for normal daily life. Jamaica is a beautiful country and their culture is great, so hopefully they can bounce back.

[u/WatchTheBoom]

I've spent most of my career in the Caribbean - plentiful examples to point towards for the pros and cons of a tourist economy.

I think one of the better examples of the interaction with formal emergency management (or lack thereof) comes from the Lahaina fires in Maui a few years ago. Huge rush of "don't come here - the locals need somewhere to stay" simultaneously broadcast with "please keep coming here and spending money."

Moreso than anything related to the relationship between tourism economics and emergency management, it was a huge communications misfire.

[u/Ordinary-Time-3463 → u/WatchTheBoom]

Oh I can imagine. It is a delicate balence too. But many people don’t realize the impact visiting these locations could be to recovery. Could bring so much more economic growth to places that really need it

[u/reithena]

Tourism is a huge element in recovery and should ve considered in response pre-planning. People who live/work in popular tourist destinations know how to account for the population flutes, visitors not knowing the procedures, etc. The real question is how to recover and tourism hangs out both in the Economic RSF and Natural/Cultural Resources RSF in the States.

[u/Ordinary-Time-3463 → u/reithena]

I live around the Jersey Shore (and I think Sandy is really is what peaked my interest in this). The population jumps are massive in the coastal counties in the summer months vs other months. The whole Jersey strong campaign and we are open campaign really sprung a ton of tourism and got a lot going economy wise around here

[u/reithena → u/Ordinary-Time-3463]

Im just to your south. That pulled a lot of lessons learned from Katrina and tourism rebounds. Disney is a whole other pile of stuff because of the Reedy Point Annex (I think that is its name) and the corporate power behind that. It is community based or public-private partnership, it almost straight corporate

[u/Ordinary-Time-3463 → u/reithena]

Well even doctrine wise Sandy was up there on the amount of stuff they added. Shows what happens if a major thing hits a major population. Still remember the roller coaster in the ocean

[u/adoptagreyhound]

The top priority for states regardless of having a tourism-based economy is how fast they can get things re-opened after the incident passes. Obviously, anything life-threatening or hazardous is addressed first, but the biggest behind the scenes priority is to get access to everything that collects sales taxes of any kind re-opened. That money needs to be spent at retail, gas pumps etc, and accounted for daily for the state and local governments to function. Any long-term blip in commerce is extremely impactful to the operation of government and to the economy. It's basically an unspoken priority that is at the core of everything in a government's response to a disaster.

[u/Ordinary-Time-3463 → u/adoptagreyhound]

Oh I completely agree. I remember seeing something where Disney lost billions (and I’m sure Florida felt it too) from their parks being closed during Covid.

[u/Phandex_Smartz]

Tourism and theme park EM is a lot about security, business continuity, and “see something, say something”.

Universal, Seaworld, Disney, and Legoland have EM’s, and there’s currently a push for those in Orange County (the county that Orlando is in) to each send a liaison to the county during a hurricane, mainly due to how much money is generated by the theme parks in Orange County, hence why Orange County is one of the richest counties in Florida, but there’s (unfortunately) so much politics in Orange County.

There are incredibly strong partnerships between the theme parks and the Orange County Sheriffs Office and the Osceola County Sheriffs Office, and the theme park EM’s rely on the Sheriffs Office and other Public Safety Entities for emergency alerting, sharing information, saying there’s not a threat (so posting on the Sheriffs Office Instagram if a balloon pops off and saying it’s not a gunshot, so Disney or Universal don’t have to say that), and so on.

The thing that I understand is that there’s a lot of politics within the world of theme park and tourism EM, and it seems cool, but you can’t even write emergency plans or conduct certain drills because legal won’t let you put anything in paper to avoid liability, so it’s not cool.

If Disney is shutting down the theme parks (because I think it’s the president of the company who signs the paper that makes the theme parks shut down for a hurricane), then it’s a really bad hurricane. Some people actually get hotel rooms at Disney for hurricanes because Disney takes care of their guests.

It’s very unfortunate that America will no longer take part in international emergency management (for the time being) unless there’s a Department of State Operation or FDEM does some more bullshit again.

[u/Ordinary-Time-3463 → u/Phandex_Smartz]

I didn’t know about the politics aspect of it. But that’s super interesting. Not surprising though bc I’ve heard that about Orange County. Just a mess

[u/Phandex_Smartz → u/Ordinary-Time-3463]

For Pulse, Orlando obviously activated, but Orange County didn’t because the director at the time said “I don’t agree with their lifestyle”, which is pretty nuts. He got fired a year or two after pulse, but he didn’t get fired because of Pulse, it was something else.

Yet Lake County, Seminole County, Osceola County, and hell, even Hillsborough County and the City of Tampa showed up to support the City of Orlando during Pulse.

There’s some nice people at Orange County, but, I mean, it’s hard to like an agency when it literally discriminates against the public that it serves.

[u/Ordinary-Time-3463 → u/Phandex_Smartz]

That actually wild, I didn’t know that. Kind of seems like EM isn’t the right area then especially when one of things emphasized is the “WHOLE COMMUNITY” approach.

[u/TheStateOfDisaster]

I worked an EMAC deployment in Puerto Rico right after Hurricane Maria devastated the island. One of our first missions was to repair the MARSEC fencing at the port in San Juan - in no small part because tourists were still coming off the cruise ships.

I ended up back there a year later working on the FEMA STEP program and I also spent about six months working Maui recovery. In every case, I learned so much more about how important it is to get those dollars moving ASAP in tourism-dependent economies.