Risks to Visitor Health and Safety at Titanic Cove Island Resort - Case Study Example

Risk management report: Risks to Visitor Health & Safety at Titanic Cove Island Resort Internal Assessment. Risk Management Name Course Name and Code Instructor’s Name Date Executive summary This risk management report seeks to identify the risks to visitor health and safety at Titanic Cove Island Resort. The report identifies and analyses risks in the resort. Some of the identified risks include vulnerability to tropical diseases associated with the climatic conditions of the region, risks associated to non-compliance to the legal regulatory systems and lack of implementation of an appropriate emergency response plan. The visitors are also vulnerable to general accidents in the resort, and the lack of staff training on risk management offers a great risk to visitor’s health and safety. The report also analyses how the current management is trying to eliminate or reduce these risks to ensure efficiency. As the report states, these risks should be dealt with in order of priority to ensure that, the most serious ones are dealt with first. Additionally, the report outlines a series of recommendations that are aimed at managing these risks. Their management depends with the type of risk. Some of the risks can be avoided, prevented, risk reduction, sharing and still ensures that the management attains their objectives. Table of Contents Table of Contents 3 Introduction 4 Major risks to visitor health and safety 4 Priority for treatment of the risks, with justifications, likelihoods for occurrence and consequences 6 Recommendations for managing risks 9 Risks that can be avoided 9 Prevention (likelihood reduction) 9 Risk reduction (consequence reduction) 10 Conclusion 10 Appendix1 11 References 13 Introduction Titanic Clove Island Resort is a four star island resort located at the Whitsunday Islands in the heart of the barrier reef. It is approximately 200 km south of Townsville and about 150 km north of Mackay. Brisbane borders it in the north. The resort offers conference facilities, incentives and facilities for weddings. It also provides leisure market to free independent travelers above the age of 30 years, families with children aged between 5-17 years and tour groups from overseas above the age of 50 years. This report seeks at exploring the various risks in the resort, the recommendation for risk management as well as prevention and reduction of risks to it visitors. Major risks to visitor health and safety Visitors in this resort may be subjected to various types of risks. To start with, the fact that no training of any form, whether formal or informal has been provided in risk management to the staff and employees of this resort poses a major risk to the safety and health of its visitors. The resort offers various activities such as horse riding and mountain bike tours, which have the capacity to cause injuries to the visitors. This therefore requires that the staff be fully trained on ways of dealing with such injuries, especially on first aid. Apart from lack of staff training on risk management, visitors are also susceptible to other risks (Wilk and Page 2003). The climate and weather of Titanic Clove Island Resort is tropical, which makes it prone to tropical diseases. Hence visitors may be exposed to risks of contracting tropical diseases. The hot climate experienced throughout the year and the larger amounts of rains provide a conducive environment for the formation of breeding grounds for possible insect vectors. Tropical diseases include malaria, yellow fever, schistomiasis and cholera, just to highlight a few. The visitors visiting the resort during the tropical wet season, which is normally experienced between January and March, may be at risk of being affected by colds, considering the fact that this is one of the resort’s peak seasons. The region is also prone to cyclones, which is a risk to the health and safety of the visitors, as they have the capacity of causing damages to property as well as loss of lives. The fact that there are no formal management systems for food safety, outbreak of illness or infection control, first aid and maintenance or guest education, poses a major risk to the health and safety of the visitors. This means that incase of any disease outbreak, as a result of non- compliance to food safety standards, the resort will not be liable to any legal sanction since it does not comply to set regulatory standards (Wilks and Moore 2005). This also applies to cases of disease outbreak and infection control, whereby the visitors have no capacity of questioning the resort, as it does not have any legal standards governing its management systems. In addition, visitors are susceptible to general accidents and injuries, which is based on two facts. First, the resort offers various activities such as horse riding, tandem skydiving, mountain bike tours and tube rides, among many other activities. While undertaking such activities, visitors may get both minor and serious injuries, especially the physical injuries. The second factor is based on the claim that for over two years, there has been no site inspection to check on the status of the premises, fittings and equipment. Such a condition poses a danger to the visitor’s safety since the equipment and other facilities require constant and regular maintenance to ensure they are safe for use by the visitors. The other risk comes as a result of lack of implementation of the Risk Management Plan. This is a basic guide for providing response to major emergencies. This poses a risk to the health and safety of the visitors because there is no clear guide to risk management in the resort. If for instance, a major risk takes place in the resort, there is no response plan in place, which will give the staff the immediate response to be implemented in order to counter such a risk. Therefore, the risk may advance to a serious state and cause adverse effects to the visitors. The Emergency Response Plan should be designed in an effective manner to coordinate the use of resources in the resort, to protect property and life during and after the occurrence of an emergency (Dorfman 2007). Priority for treatment of the risks, with justifications, likelihoods for occurrence and consequences Visitors at Titanic Cove Island Resort are exposed to major health and safety risks. These risks occur due to various factors that the current management is trying to solve. Some of these factors include lack of formal training plan for the personnel, lack of job descriptions, lack of formal management systems for food safety, outbreak of illness, first aid, maintenance, contactor management or guest education, and premises, fittings and equipments have not been checked for the last two years. Moreover, the hotel management has not put in any measures to deal with such risks as the employees are not provided with any form of training in risk management while the visitors can only purchase insurance from the head office. Due to this, major risks are likely to occur at the Resort and pose major consequences both to the staff, the visitors and the hotel itself. Risks should be dealt with in order of priority (Standards Australia and Standards New Zealand, 2004). First, the management should concentrate with the problem of food safety. In Titanic Cove Island Resort, there is no formal management for food safety, outbreak of illness and infection control, OHS responsible service for alcohol, first aid, contactor management, and maintenance or guest education. Public health and safety is a major factor that should be considered by all outlets such as hotels, milk bars, and shops among others providing services to people (Mansfeld and Pizam, 2006). This is a key aspect that the ministry of health in all countries considers in order to guarantee the health of the citizens. The risk of food safety can lead to outbreak of both food borne and water borne diseases such as cholera, typhoid, and bilharzia. The risk of food safety can result to several consequences which affect the hotel itself, the staff and the visitors in general. The hotel can be closed by the ministry of health as it fails to meet the statutory legal compliance requirement for food safety, a responsible service and OHS. The hotel can also lose its loyal customers therefore facing severe financial loses which can lead to its closure. The staff and the visitors on the other hand will also suffer such illnesses associated with food safety and as a result, the former will offer poor services to the latter. In order to deal with this problem, the current management should ensure that, the problem of food safety is dealt with amicably. . The second risk that the current management of Titanic Cove Island Resort should deal with is injury both to the employees and the visitors. Most of these activities in the resort are not scheduled and can be undertaken by the quest without any direct supervision. Some of the injuries acquired are minor requiring firs aid; others are critical requiring medical treatment, or hospitalization. The effects of injury as one of the major risk in the Resort include fatality, disability or ill health (Dorfman, 2007). The management should ensure that, every service provided by the Resort is time scheduled and well supervised in order to reduce the occurrence of such risk. Regulatory breach is the third risk that should be dealt with by the management. Until currently, the Resort has not achieved the statutory legal compliance requirements for food safety, responsible service and OHS. This is a legal requirement that should be met by any business failure to which can pose such a business to major risks. Failure to meet statutory legal compliance requirements can result to minor and major consequences such as small or excess fines to both the company and individual staff members, disruption of services for a short or long period making the business lose loyal customers, and the executive director can be jailed which can lead to poor management of the business. Besides, operational problems risks should be dealt with. Titanic Cove Island Resort premises, fittings, and the equipments have not been inspected for over two years. Some of these equipments may be in poor conditions leading to disruption and interruption of products and services. Such interruptions can be insignificant, minor or major. If major, they can lead to extended loss or outsourcing of services and products with an extended disruption over subsequent weeks. Environmental risk is the other issue that the current management should deal with. The region experiences varying weather and climate conditions. Cyclones also occur in the region and they are associated with landfall, heavy rains, large storm surges and strong winds. These can affect the physical and biological environment leading to serious and irreversible offsite environmental effects. Such effects include destruction of infrastructure leading to poor communication and transportation. Many people lose their lives globally due to tropical cyclones (Frappier et al., 2007). Recommendations for managing risks ISO 31000:2009 is a generic risk management standard. It presents generic guidelines and principles that can be adopted by any public or private organization, community enterprise or individual. Any type of industry or sector throughout its life to promote uniformity of risk management plans and frameworks can therefore use it. This standard identifies options that can be implemented to manage risks (Hubbard, 2009). These include removing the risk source, to avoid, risk reduction through minimizing the consequences, prevention and sharing. Risks that can be avoided In this resort, some of the risks that can be avoided include those that have to do with non-compliance to the statutory legal requirements. This will help reduce susceptibility to risks that are caused by improper food safety rules and help control disease outbreaks. Major risks that take place as a result of lack of implementation of an Emergency Response Plan can also be avoided by developing an appropriate plan that suites specific needs of the resort (Crockford, 1986). Prevention (likelihood reduction) In everyday activities, people are exposed to various risks some of which can be avoided while others can be prevented. In our case, the likelihood of occurrence of injuries in Titanic Cove Island Resort can be prevented. The management should ensure that every activity or service offered by the hotel is scheduled and that such activities are under direct supervision. The management should also ensure that premises, fittings and equipments are inspected frequently to ensure that, they are fit for visitors and staff use. Risk reduction (consequence reduction) In the case of environment, the management can only reduce the consequence caused by the risk. The varying weather and climate conditions and the occurrence of cyclones in the region results to major negative outcomes such as, destruction of infrastructure and flooding. The management can only ensure that such standing waters are pumped out and that infrastructure is well maintained in order to maintain the hotels loyal customers. Conclusion A risk can be defined as the potential that any given activity will lead to an undesirable outcome. Almost every human undertaking carries some risk, though others seem more harmful than others. The study above proves the resort poses various risks to the health and safety of its visitors. The study has further highlighted the sources to such risks and measures that can be implemented to manage the identified risks in accordance to the standards provided by ISO 31000:2009. It is therefore important that Titanic Cove Island Resort develops its own Emergency Response Plan to be implemented in case of an emergency. Appendix1 Risk Action Plan Type of risk Risk Owner recommended response and impact Proposed Action Barriers Resource Responsibilities timing reporting injury Visitors and staff prevention Emergence response plan Funds First aid The resort and the visitors one month environmental Visitors, The resort Risk reduction Create awareness Lack of training facilities Training facilities The resort one year regulatory The resort avoid compliance Poor government initiative Appropriate government policies Government one month operational Visitors and staff avoid compliance Poor inspection policies Appropriate inspectional policies Government one month Prepared by Date Reviewer date References Bennett W. and Leo M. 2000. Risk management: approaches for fixed income markets. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Crockford, N. 1986. An Introduction to Risk Management (2 ed.). Cambridge, UK: Woodhead-Faulkner. Dorfman, S. 2007. Introduction to Risk Management and Insurance (9 ed.). Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice Hall. Frappier, A. et al., 2007. "Stalagmite stable isotope record of recent tropical cyclone events", ' Journal of Geology' ', vol. 35, no. 2, pp. 111–114. Hubbard, D. 2009. The Failure of Risk Management: Why It's Broken and How to Fix It. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Mansfeld, Y. and Piza, A. 2006. Tourism, Security and Safety. From Theory to Practice. London: Elsevier Butterworth Heinemann. Michel, C., Dan, G. and Robert, M., 2001. Risk management. New York: McGraw-Hill. Standards Australia, and Standards New Zealand. 2004. Risk management guidelines: companion to AS/NZS 4360:2004: handbook; 3rd ed. Sydney: Standards Australia International. Wilks, J. & Moore, S, 2005. Tourism Risk Management for the Asia Pacific Region: An Authorative Guide for Managing Crises and Disasters, CRC for Sustainable Tourism. Amsterdam: Pergamon. Wilks, J. & Page S. (eds), 2003. Managing Tourist Health and Safety in the New Millennium. Amsterdam: Pergamon. Read More