Essay Sample on Wildfire Resilience: Navigating Challenges in California Tourism Destinations

Introduction

The growing climate change impacts are being continually experienced through severe weather seasons, potentially leading to natural disasters (Amore, 2016). The harsh weather changes potentially threaten greater devastation, including great structural damages, economic costs, death, or personal injury (Basurto-Cedeño & Pennington-Gray, 2018). The fury and the rate of disasters have thrived across the last decade, hence directly impacting tourism as the augmented availability of information relating to these incidents has led to the escalation of disasters that affect the tourism sector (Hoogendoorn & Fitchett, 2018). Climate changes significantly impact tourist destinations as a result of the growing number of crisis incidents. The image of a tourist destination is an indispensable concern during and after a crisis since when disasters occur in a destination: its reputation can be severely impacted (Amore, 2016). Tourism organizations should give special attention to promoting their destinations or corporate image. A disaster can influence the perception and the choice of a visitor's destination (Spandre et al., 2019). Further, suppose an image is smeared through media coverage during the disaster's event. It can take quite a long time to repair it, and competing destinations can utilize these weaknesses to gain during the extended recovery period (Dube & Nhamo, 2020). Tourism destination stakeholders should make coordinated disaster management responses during and after a disaster in order to increase the resilience and sustainability of the tourism industry in the future.

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Problem Statement

California is a popular domestic and international tourist destination registering more than 50 million visitors in 2019, and nearly over half of them visited natural, protected sites (Bauman et al., 2020). However, over recent years, especially in 2017, 2018, and 2020, drought situations have resulted in wildfires that hit large regions of the state (Schweinsberg et al., 2020). The most significant challenges encountered as impacts of the increasing wildfires encompass alerts on air quality and the closure of interstate highways by smoke (Bauman et al., 2020). These conditions have emerged to be of significant concern for leisure and recreational travelers, not forgetting destination managers and promoters. In 2018, California's tourism industry was harshly hit as nearly 158,683 acres burned, mostly in Sonoma, Solano, Lake, Napa, and Lake counties, leading to forced evacuations (Bauman et al., 2020). Over the last decade, devastating wildfires in California have severely destabilized the tourism industry, although they have not sternly affected the number of visitors to the state (Liu et al., 2016). Rather, the fires have entirely transformed California's image, making it hard for tourism investors and employees to live in the state (Basurto-Cedeño & Pennington-Gray, 2018). The unprecedented wildfires, most of them burning through the prestigious Sonoma/Napa wine region and national forests. Tourist marketers in California have been wrestling with other drawbacks, most of them aggravated by the wildfires, including the inadequate affordable housing to host service workers and the need to drive wine tourism apart from the prevalent, fire susceptible, fall harvest season (Hoogendoorn & Fitchett, 2018). The wine tourism destinations are greatly grappling with the aftermath of the Sonoma County wildfire that ravaged more than 77,000 acres in 2018, dangerously edging the popular destination Healdsburg and ruining the prominent Soda Rock Winery (Cred, 2019). The county had not yet healed from the widely disastrous Atlas and Tubbs fires of 2017, which scorched whole neighborhoods of two prestigious Santa Rosa hotels and several wineries across Napa County and the adjacent Sonoma County (Domínguez & Yeh, 2020). Despite the Tubbs wildfire being the greatest in the history of California wildfires, it was outdone by the Camp Fire of 2018, which devastated Paradise, a town in Northern California (Spandre et al., 2019). The traveling rate started increasing after a substantial marketing campaign conducted in 2018 to revitalize the adversely hit tourism sector, only for the Kincade Fire and a few days of power outages to occur across the county hence reversing the efforts (Bauman et al., 2020). Till today, the number of fires in 2020 has increased and has become of greater concern to the tourism sector as continued severe economic effects do not portend well for California's widely tourism-dependent economy (Hoogendoorn & Fitchett, 2018).

The way people respond to crisis events illuminates the intricate natural and human connections system and influences the destination's sustainability, described as the triple cornerstone of environmental, economic, and social factors (Becken et al., 2020). The response of a community during a crisis is influenced by the decisions made and the procedures of disaster management that ensue. The social effects of a disaster most affect the local society on a wide scale (Spandre et al., 2019). After a disaster, sustainable long-ranging redevelopment relies on integrating environmental, local economic, and social considerations into the regaining approach. Moreover, tourism communication and communication are imperative in the process of recovery (Amore, 2016). Nevertheless, disasters can never be linear; thus, qualitative research is acceptable to explore disasters on an in-depth level. There are several significant contributions of research on procedures and processes of crisis management associated with tourism, particularly, Spandre et al. (2019) explored crisis management and tourism and the process of resilience. Additionally, an influential book by Hall et al. (2018) provides more insights into resilience during a crisis. Nevertheless, further investigation of the association between disaster management in tourism, sustainability, and destination management and development from the viewpoint of resilience is required (Becken et al., 2020). More particularly, further research is required that investigates a disaster incident as it directly influences the phases of the course of resilience. Furthermore, a diverse scholarship is necessary to enhance the destination's disaster management while, concurrently, helping the California tourism industry to mitigate disasters both before and during times of need (Hoogendoorn & Fitchett, 2018). While the growing interest in resilience is still in its early stages, research on tourism management associated with disaster management and the resilience of a destination is still narrow (Spandre et al., 2019). There is inadequate research associating the reaction to crises with the responses, including flexibility, and the durability of a local tourist community.

Need for the Study

This research aims to determine the resilience of California tourism destinations despite the overwhelming wildfires in the region. This qualitative case study will provide further understanding and equip interested tourism stakeholders with the necessary information as they seek approaches to overcome disasters that can impact the industry in the future and remain sustainable. The study will provide similar counties, scholars, and entrepreneurs with insight into how disasters affect the tourism industry and the strategic response measures employed to keep the industry sustainable despite the wide-ranging impacts. Also, other local tourism sectors within other states including Florida, Colorado, and even other countries that are highly vulnerable to wildfires, such as Australia that consider remaining resilient after experiencing such disasters, will be able to understand and avoid the pitfalls of their response program by knowing the perceptions of experienced, resilient stakeholders from the California tourism industry (Ruble, 2018). The knowledge can be incorporated into other vital sectors of the economy to help them stay resilient despite the challenges of wildfire disasters.

This study also explores the gaps identified in the literature above by determining the connection between disaster management processes and California and its resilience reactions. The aim of understanding these connections is to determine how California's disaster management process of decision-making would influence how the state reacts to a wildfire. Utilizing the crisis incident of Camp Fire, Sonoma, and Napa, in 2018's summer, privileging a similar resilience perspective and using a significant constructivist lens, it is projected that the resilience of a community is influenced by the practices of decision-making concerning the minimization of the impact of a disaster (Armijo, 2018). This paper will explore whether or not wildfires in California affect the economic future of tourism in the state. However, it is identified that each event of a crisis is confined to a specific setting; wildfires are among the predominantly climate-related crises that have severe effects on tourism destinations. The study aims to understand California's probable resilience process by reviewing the Camp Fire crisis to showcase the impacts of the sustainability of a community.

Objectives of the Study

This research aims to evaluate the resilience and changing aspects of tourism destinations in California to the effects of wildfire disasters. The researcher's task involves a wide range of variations, considering the considerable uncertainty in both wildfire disasters and management. The researcher compares business-as-usual response disaster management to alternative approaches to management that may enhance tourism destinations' resilience.

Questions and Hypotheses

Specifically, the researcher will address the following hypotheses and questions in the subsequent chapters of the study: How can wildfire disasters under the current response management from stakeholders impact California tourism destinations' resilience and the relationship between destination image and the region's economic productivity? Hypothesis: The connection between tourism destination image and economic productivity will be more positive with the decline of productivity. How can scorched tourism destinations and revived natural resources affect the image of the destinations? Hypothesis: Scorched tourism destinations and reviving destinations will undermine the image of a destination. How can disaster-sustainable integrated stakeholder response affect the destination's resilience and improve the brand and image of a tourism destination? Hypothesis: Disaster-sustainable integrated stakeholder response will increase the improve the brand image of a destination. How can wildfire management affect the resilience and sustainability of tourism destinations? Hypothesis: Wildfire management will increase, and the resilience of tourism destinations will increase.

The researcher will examine these questions in California since it is vulnerable to regular and frequent wildfire disasters. Additionally, the Sonoma and Napa counties represent suitable areas with high tourism appeal and are widely affected by wildfires, affecting natural tourism resources such as wineries (Becken et al., 2020).