Tourism and the Media - Essay Example

?Tourism and the Media Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 0 Introduction 3 2.0 About Swine Flu 4 3.0 How Swine Flu Affect Tourism in Mexico and the Rest of the World 7 4.0 How Swine Flu Has Been Represented In the Media 11 5.0 Recommendations 14 6.0 Conclusion 15 7.0 References 16 1.0 Introduction Swine flu was a pandemic disease of 2009 which had greatly affected the whole world. This viral disease had occurred by the generic combination of birds, pigs and human flu. This influenza was transmitted from one person to another and therefore the disease was rapidly spread among the people. This disease had been first observed in the US and Mexico and as a result these countries were extremely affected by swine flu. Due to this disease, the business growth was adversely affected and this resulted in declining of economic growth. The travel and tourism industry along with the related business faced challenges during this pandemic period. International tourism industry was a great source of economic development in a number of countries but due to the emergence of the viral disease, World Health Organisation and other health centres restricted people to travel in these areas. The airline and hotel industry also experienced huge loss because several flights were postponed and the booking was cancelled as the people were not allowed to visit the countries. This paper intends to identify swine flu and the reason for its occurrence. It will also discuss how it spreads among the people along with its symptoms. The major focus in this paper is provided to the impact of swine flu in tourism industry in Mexico and other parts of the world. The paper also discusses about the media and social sites that have played a significant role in the pandemic period by publishing several related articles for the public. 2.0 About Swine Flu Swine flu or influenza is a ‘respiratory disease’ of pigs which is caused through ‘type A’ influenza that frequently results in epidemic flu among pigs. This virus is the basis of high level illness but results in low death rate. H1N1 virus is designated under ‘influenza A’ due to its specific protein on their surface. H1N1 and H3N3 virus are severe among the population of pig. IA study was conducted which observed that H1N1 virus is common among pig population in the whole world. 25 percent of animals showed antibody evidence of infection (CDC, 2006). Swine flu is the viral disease which affects pigs. It is also considered as a severe respiratory disease which destroys entire the respiratory system of pigs. According to World Health Organisation, “morbidity tends to be high and mortality low in pigs”. This means that the virus spreads rapidly and kills one to four percent of its victims. The new H1N1 virus has genetic elements of North American swine flu and avian flu. This ‘new strain of swine flu’ is not affecting pigs. The symptoms which arise in Swine flu are fever, cough, muscle pain as well as extreme tiredness along with diarrhoea (The Sunday Times, 2009). The name swine flu was referred because from the testing it was detected that several genes were related to that of flu viruses that existed in the pig in North America. However, later it was tested that this virus is different from the North American pigs’ virus. This virus possessed two genes one from flu virus of pig in Europe and Asia and other gene from influenza virus in human and birds (Johnson, 2009). The virus of Swine flu is constantly changing as other influenza viruses. The influenza virus from different species affects pigs and as a result the viruses swap genes which results in emergence of new virus. The H1N1 virus causes illness to human in several countries. This virus is a generic combination of various viruses from pigs, human and birds. This recent concept of virus becomes challenging for most of the people’s immune system in order to fight against this virus (Toucan ED, n.d.). The name Swine flu is given to a current ‘strain’ of influenza or flu that was affecting the human lives. In the year 2009-2010, the pandemic flu was caused due to this virus. It was also termed as H1N1 due to its H1N1 viral strain. This virus was first observed in the year 2009, April in Mexico. The people were not resistant enough to fight with this new virus and got affected quickly. This flu was not considered as severe compared to other viral flues before. This disease was severe to the patients whose immune system was already affected (NHS, n.d.). The virus was first detected in the people of the US in April in the year 2009. Canada, Mexico and other countries of the world were affected from the new flu strain. This virus was transmitted from one person to another, similar to seasonal influenza. In the US, 30% of pigs had ‘antibody evidence of H1N1 viral infection’ and in north-central US 51% of pig had showed infection with H1N1 virus. There was no way to distinguish the antibody produced related to flu vaccination in pigs from the antibody produced related to pig infections by means of swine H1N1 influenza. The virus had spread from pig to pig by means of infected secretion from mucous. Humans were also infected through direct contact with infected pigs. Various vaccines were available to prevent the pigs from the attack of swine influenza but there was no vaccine to protect human from swine flu. The vaccine of seasonal influenza provides little protection to fight against swine H3N2, but not against swine H1N1 viruses (CDC, 2006). 3.0 How Swine Flu Affect Tourism in Mexico and the Rest of the World In the year 2009, several influenza-like illnesses as well as respiratory illnesses had spread all over Mexico. This virus had gradually spread all over the country and in the US along with rest of the world. However, the economy of the US was greatly hit compared to other developed nations’ economy. The travel and tourism industries in Mexico had been greatly affected as well (Oxford Economics, 2009). World Health Organisation along with other health organisations restricted the people to travel to the US and Mexico. They were not restricted to travel to any other affected countries except the US and Mexico. Several passengers suspended their flights to Mexico and as a result it had a negative impact on the country’s economy. The airlines and hotels in Mexico were badly affected due to swine flu. Along with these, several businesses associated with the travel industry was badly hit. It was published by National Business Travel Association that 61% of travellers cancelled their programme of trips in Mexico only due to outbreak of disease. Mexican shopping centre, bars, cinemas and churches were closed and the people were warned to travel to the affected parts of Mexico (Atkinson, 2009). The deadly virus triggered a drastic fall in the share prices of airlines as the tourists continuously cancelled their tickets to Mexico. Low confidence in the passengers had a bad impact on the business related to travel and tourism. International air traffic was having huge experience of slowdown of the growth rate in March, 2009. According to International Air Transport Association (IATA), the demand of passengers was declined to 11.1% as compared to 2008 in the same month. The flights of North America saw a decline of 13.4% and in Europe the demand for flight was reduced to 11.6%. Thus, the travel industry suffered due to global pandemic flu. During that time, TUI Travel and Thomas Cook cancelled their flights and holiday to Mexico. The entire flights which were travelling to Mexico from Argentina and Cuba also remained halted in the month of May (Smith, 2009). There was a bad impact on Cruise ships in Mexico due to severe outbreak of Swine flu in this country. Centre for Disease Control and Prevention issued a warning for travelling to Mexico. The travellers of the US avoided unnecessary travels to Mexico (Schretter, 2011). Several airliners had reduced flight to Mexico extensively and also cruise liners did not travel towards the ports of Mexico. The country’s luxury hotels’ business was slowed down and only 4% of their room were booked during this period and others remain unused. Up to the month of December, 2009, there was no chance of large number of visitors to Mexico. The tourism business was not improved till the month of December. The government of Mexico had tried effectively in order to bring their tourist back to the country. They assumed that as the virus was spread all over the world, it would help Mexico to gain their visitors again because the visitors might visit the place in stead of staying in their own country which had been affected by swine flu (Gibbs, 2009). In Mexico, in the year 2008, the arrivals of international tourist rose by 5.9% to a figure of 22.6 million. While, spending of US dollars by all the visitors for travel increased by 3.4% to US a figure of $13.3 billion. According to WTTC, travel and tourism economy of the country increased its contribution to 13.2% of Mexico’s GDP which was raised by 3.8% against America (WTTC, 2009). In Mexico, after oil exports and revenues from foreign exchanges, tourism is considered as the third largest source of revenue of the country. Due to global economic crisis in 2008, the country lost its revenue from petrol and remittance and in 2009, the swine flu also affected the entire tourism sector of the country. Cancun, which is a place in Mexico, greatly depends on the revenue from tourism industry and thereby faced huge loss. The country faced economic loss of millions of dollars and as a result 22 hotels stopped their operations. Several waiters, maids, cooks in the hotel lost their jobs. The tourist spots of the country remained unused for several months. According to the tourism minister of the country, the revenue from tourism industry had declined by 43% in 2009 due to swine flu. The hotels were occupied of about 75% before the outbreak of the disease but after news spread the occupancy rate was declined by 20% (Beaubien, 2009). Along with Mexico, the global tourism industry was also badly affected which resulted in economic downturn. Global travel and tourism industry was also affected by swine flu and as a result there was GDP loss of the US $ 1,073bn to the travel industry providers and a higher of about US $ 2,190bn related to worldwide tourism industry. There was a loss of global value added of about US $15.1bn and to the providers of tourism industry as well as US $25.2bn to the tourism economy (WTTC/Oxford Economics Research, 2009). Certain Regions were Adversely Affected by Swine Flu: Source: (WTTC/Oxford Economics Research, 2009). The above table clearly showed the percentage of economy and GDP rate in a few countries during the epidemic period in relation to travel and tourism industry. 4.0 How Swine Flu Has Been Represented In the Media Importance of tourism is based on the experiences of the tourists during the period of holiday and the role played by the people in managing the sustainable development of a nation. Tourism is related to the economic activity and any place which cannot bring economic gain, cannot be regarded as a tourist place. Tourist is the main actor for sustainable development of the place (Tourismtheories, 2010). Marketing related to travel and tourism industry is structured by nature and level of demand from the tourist along with the operating feature in relation to supplying industry. The structures of promotion as well as distribution that are utilised in related products of travel and tourism possess definite characteristics. This trait differentiates tourism industry from other industries and this characteristic is based on travel and tourism marketing. The distinctive characteristics on which tourism is based include ‘inseparability and intangibility’ which is performed to a certain extent than it is produced. Perishability is depended on predetermined ability in the short run as well as inability to develop product’s stocks which facilitate the tourism industry to become highly vulnerable. Tourism industry is totally based on seasonable time. High fixed cost determined several marketing methods in this industry in order to manage demand particularly the discounting prices so as to gain last moment sales (Middleton & Et. Al., 2009). In travel and tourism marketing, the consumers possess three vital components such as stimulus, processing and response. The tourist is the buyer who receives stimuli from the outer environment and then the collected information get processed by the buyer with the help of social, personal as well as psychological characteristics. In addition, ‘responses’ that means set of choice of tourism products include ‘destination attractions and environment’, ‘destination facilities and services’, ‘accessibility of destination’, ‘image of destination’ and ‘price to the customer’ (Middleton & Et. Al., 2009). A report was published by President’s Council of Advisor on Science and Technology that the viral disease had infected 20% to 40% of the people of the US, about 1.8 million people were hospitalised and 30,000 to 90,000 people were dead (Brainard, 2009). A research conducted assumed that advertising and media coverage regarding swine flu decreased public concern for the disease and increased the uptake of various protective behaviour measures, for example, hand-washing. When the governments had suggested the people to carry tissue, only a few people gave importance to this matter. The people who were much exposed to media were engaged in protective activities and were less concerned for swine flu. Due to their exposure to media, the people raised observed effectiveness of behaviour which includes holding tissue and other hand gel. However, they decreased the strategies to evade public transport. The media and advertisement had positive results on the behaviour of people (UCL News, 2010). In the entire media coverage, there was rise of debate regarding the outbreak that whether the threat was over-exaggerated. There were several questions in the minds of the public and the media was reported to be responsible to the mass. BBC Radio conducted program where several listeners had various queries regarding the outbreak of pandemic disease. The media in order to satisfy the audience, have conducted their program and the sites with various questions and answers. The people were in a thought that the media and government were just over reacting. They were not sure whether swine flu is a serious disease or only nonsense (Hockaday, 2009). There was a rise of controversy regarding Swine flu in social sites such as Twitter. The debate took place as how the people would get information regarding their health when the news sources had become decentralised. In Twitter where various people post large number of messages with different subjects, might create unnecessary publicity (CNN Tech, 2009). The media and social sites published various articles related to the Swine flu across all over the countries. In certain situation several vague article was published which created negative effect on the tourism industry in Mexico in the eyes of the public. As a result the image of the tourism industry was adversely affected and faced huge loss of dollars. 5.0 Recommendations From the overall observation, it was found that the people were much related to the newspaper and social sites regarding such outbreak of epidemic disease in their country. Thus, it can be recommended that the people in order to get complete and viable information regarding such deadly disease and their protection instead of consulting this confusing media and sites, requires proper consultation from medical person. The people must judge properly before visiting any place during this time. As there was global attack of this disease, the restriction was developed only for Mexico and the US; thus the tourists cancelled their trip only to these places but other places remained unrestricted. The people visited other countries as there was no restriction from the media but did not go to Mexico. Proper information need to be collected by the people about such disease. In the present scenario, people become more fascinated towards social sites and media. Thus, this may be the reason for shortage of viable information among the people. Though they are accustomed to such sites and media, they must understand the main reason for such disease and whether it is a fake or a genuine one. 6.0 Conclusion With reference to the above observation, it was observed that the whole world was affected extensively by the pandemic disease named as Swine flu. Along with all the countries, the US and Mexico faced huge challenges and difficulties during this period of outbreak. The countries were suffering from economic slowdown as the major business sector of the country was in great loss. The tourism industry as considered as the major revenue outcome of Mexico was declining its business growth. Along with the tourism industries and related business, the hotel industry’s growth also slowed down. Various luxury hotels in Mexico remained unoccupied as the number of visitors postponed their trip to Mexico. The airline industry was in economic hardship because the numbers of flights in Mexico were reduced. The country was affected due to economic downturn in 2008 and in 2009 this epidemic disease had a tremendous affect upon it. The government of the country developed various steps in order to bring their visitors back in their country. The media and advertising campaign also influenced the people regarding the Swine flu. The people were highly exposed to the media campaign about the disease in the country. This deadly disease had a major impact upon the image of Mexico and as a result the tourists were scared to visit such place. There was no improvement in tourism business and visitors arrival up to the month of December in the year 2009. 7.0 References Atkinson, S., 2009. Five New UK Flu Cases Confirmed. BBC News. 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