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Reputation Management

Decent Essays

Recently several events in the world have damaged countries ' reputation. The riots in England, or also the « Arabic revolutions », have had commons consequences, in damaging the reputation of these countries and creating instability on the public opinion. The concept of reputation is more commonly associated with company and Dalton and Croft (2003) define it such as “the sum values that stakeholders attribute to a company, based on their perception and interpretation of the image that the company communicates over time”. But we can also extend this definition to country, and Lewis (2011) explains that the reputation is “what people says about us” and raises the problem of reputation 's vulnerability. The impact of the reputation seems to …show more content…

Consumers in general will choose a safe-secure destination and will evaluate the risk such as a cost. A safe secure destination will be more attractive, “Arabic 's Revolutions”, for example illustrate as well this phenomenon. In several countries which were very busy, like Tunisia or Egypt, recent political turmoil lead to decrease by 11% the international tourist arrivals between January to April, according to the UNTWO (2011). In Egypt, where tourism represents 11% of employment, there is a real crisis. In these countries, tourism is an economic motor, and for example according to Grangié (2011), the decline of the Egypt GDB was about 7 % in the first term of the year. Sonmez (1998) quote Edgell vision (1990) and says “tourism decisions to stay home or choose safe destinations are translated into significant looses for the industry of the country suffering from terrorism”. But that it is more problematic, it is the fact that tourist do not choose these destination currently, even if the country is calm and safe. Nevertheless a new tourist 's range appears, as Sonmez (1998) called the “tourism of war”,and sometimes instability become a source of interest. The image is therefore a major criteria of choice, but it 's also important to underline the perception can differ according to the customer’s origin (Sonmez, 1998). At this stage it is also important to bring up the role of the media, because of its involvement in the information circulation.

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