Tourism in crisis: Managing people in crisis, a case from Iceland during the COVID-19 pandemic

• Main Author: Florentina Tudoran 1983-
• Other Authors: Háskóli Íslands
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: Ferðamálafræði; Iceland
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1946/38382

The theory indicates that crisis are a reoccurring events across all sectors of industries and crisis in tourism always seem to be happening around the globe. Crises are characterized by unpredictability, as hard to control events and unfolding at fast pace but crisis management through planning can mitigate and minimize the effect of a crisis on the organization and the employees. The crisis management planning, internal communication and the wellbeing of the people of the organization should be the focus of management teams in time of crisis the theory suggests. The research tries to investigate if through the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic any crisis management planning was used in regards to staff employment and how the internal communication during a crisis was perceived by the employees. Semi-structured interviews, as qualitative research method, were used for this study; the respondents of the interviews were individuals with extensive experience in the hospitality industry and had years of experience in Iceland. The findings indicate that the organizations had no crisis management planning and the decisions and measures were taken with short notice following government response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The employees perceived communication as missing, hectic and unreliable. The COVID-19 pandemic and the crisis for tourism industry by the impact and length cannot be compared with any theory in crisis management. The management team measures and solution in Iceland points forward that the Icelandic government steered the organizations response during the crisis. Keywords: Crisis management, Internal Communication, COVID-19 pandemic, Tourism, Iceland.