Abstract

Since the tourism industry is usually a prominent victim in crises (Dahles and Susilowati, 2015) and is characterised by high susceptibility and vulnerability to them (Vassilikopoulou et al., 2009), a destination’s crisis management capabilities should be of such quality that can quickly resolve an evolving crisis and prevent it from spreading (Racherla and Hu, 2009). For example, during periods of crisis the industry should increase its marketing activities in an effort to remain attractive by increasing the visibility of its products (Pearce II and Michael 2006; Alonso-Almeida and Bremser, 2013).

This attention to marketing during a crisis applies also to economic crises and current research has shown that, for example, during and after a recession period, destinations that increased or focused on marketing activities have achieved an increase in sales, income, and market share (Candemir and Zalluhoglu, 2011). Nevertheless, when an economic crisis hit, the risk is that marketing expenditure is reduced and, in general, price reductions are sought at all costs (Lilien and Srinivasan, 2010l; Papatheodorou et al., 2010).

Although crisis management literature stresses the importance of marketing while dealing with a crisis, studies tend to focus on the external marketing activities that are carried out in order to attract visitors to a destination. While, to the best of authors’ knowledge, the internal functioning of destinations when an economic crisis – like the recent recession – spreads, has not been thoroughly taken into account. Hence, this research tries to partially fill this gap by studying the internal marketing and governance changes that happen within tourism destinations as a consequence of an economic shock.