Asia Pacific`s tourism leaders needed to pro-actively engage the health sector to help combat future threats, such as…
Asia Pacific`s tourism leaders needed to pro-actively engage the health sector to help combat future threats, such as avian influenza, travel industry delegates to the 54th Pacific Asia Travel Association Annual Conference were told.
Director Professor of the University of Queensland Centre for Tourism and Risk Management Jeff Wilks urged the industry to prepare for future health crises. It`s a matter of when, not if, the next health threat strikes our region. We can`t sit on our hands and hope that someone else protects tourism, he said.
Prof Wilks said inaction would lead to poor destination image, economic loss, potential law suits and business failures. We need to build a genuine partnership with health ministries and agencies, which includes information sharing and crisis management procedures, he said.
Prof Wilks commended PATA on its recent crisis management programmes and suggested it could work with other tourism agencies, such as the World Tourism Organisation, to build networks with health community.
Prof Brian Kay, of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, had earlier warned delegates there was a very real chance that avian influenza could mutate into a strain that was easily transmitted between humans.
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