**3. Rural tourism and crisis management in rural Nigeria**

Rural tourism as a concept was briefly considered in the previous subheading as a kind of tourism activity that is motivated by tourism resources in the rural areas. In such tourism activities, the "pull factors" are always from the sociocultural aspects of the people and their natural landscapes, where some natural formations like forests, caves, rivers, rock shelters and mountains, among others, form part of the pull factors. Nigeria as a nation has many rural areas with high poverty level as a result of much public and private sector concentration on the urban and semiurban areas for meaningful development and investments in the infrastructural superstructural base. Also, the incessant rural to urban migration has not helped matters as the constant desire of rural dwellers to migrate to the urban and semiurban areas has contributed to huge instability in the labour and skill force of the rural areas in the country. Agriculture and tourism are being explored to give relevance to these rural communities by boosting their economic base.

Most of the rural communities in Nigeria are blessed with notable tourism resources that have potentialities for socio-economic development if carefully harnessed. These tourism resources in the rural areas in Nigeria are classified into two: natural tourism resources and cultural tourism resources. Natural tourism resources in these rural communities include caves, rock shelters, rock overhangs, waterfalls, mountains, rivers and streams, forests and other natural formations. The cultural tourism resources include the sociocultural aspects of the people like

*Public Sector Crisis Management*

management in rural Nigeria.

and that of visitor experience for nontourists.

factors for the growth and sustainability of the destination.

**2. Concept definitions**

briefly considered.

Various kinds of tourist destinations abound, but emphasis here is on rural tourism which has been defined as a kind of tourism experience that has to do with visits to rural communities or villages that are separated from urban areas. Attractions that motivate such tourism experiences include sociocultural life styles and astonishing natural landscapes, among others [4, 5]. Moreover, Nwankwo et al. [6] informed that rural tourism is a motivation for self-development option for those living in the rural areas. This view was also supported by Tsephe and Obono [7] when they gave benefits of rural tourism to include foreign exchange earnings, creation of employment, opportunities for culture exposition and improved

Many rural communities from various geopolitical zones of Nigeria have made

frantic efforts to benefit from the gains of rural tourism, through harnessing of various tourism resources that have been lying fallow in their localities. Also many relevant academic researches and media documentations have directed the focus of these rural communities to those areas they have comparative advantage, to generate more tourist/visitors inflows to their communities. Despite these, rural tourism in Nigeria has been faced with some problems over the years, thereby depriving most of these rural communities of the opportunity to maximize the gains of rural tourism to rural development and sustainability. Among the critical aspects of these challenges is the issue of destination crisis that have ravaged the growth and sustainability of rural tourism initiatives in rural areas in Nigeria. However, this study is an attempt to seek for ways of tackling these challenges and to check various crises that have huge negative implication for sustainable tourism development in rural areas. To this regard, this study is aimed at considering the application of three-way destination safety solution to crisis

There are some concepts in this study that may need further clarifications to enhance understanding of the basic argument in the study. Some of these concepts include tourist destination, tourist safety, host safety, tourism investment safety and destination safety, among others. Both the general understanding of these concepts and their peculiar understanding for the purpose of this study shall be

First and foremost, tourist destination has to do with a definite location with interesting tourist attractions/motivations. Such locations have the tendencies of attracting tourists and other visitors from different places. Alyward [8], Mannell and Iso-Ahola [9] and Basher and Ajloni [10] in their separate studies see tourist destination as a particular location with active pull factors for tourism experience

Tourist safety is another widely used concept in this study that needs clarifications. For the purpose of this study, tourist safety is defined as all the hazards and their control measures that pertain to tourists in a given tourist experience. From this definition, *tourist safety* is approached from two dimensions. The first looks at all the hazards and threats against the lives, properties and peace of tourists including their causes, while on a particular tourist experience. Measures have to do with all the control measures that have been designed to check those hazards whether sufficient or insufficient, active or passive or efficient or inefficient [11–13]. The state of tourist safety for a particular tourist destination is among the determining

infrastructural and superstructural base, among others.

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traditional dances, notable festivals, masquerading, attractive ceremonies, food typologies, belief systems and ritual practices and traditional outfits or attire, among others.

However, some of these rural communities have harnessed some of their tourism resources for meaningful tourism development that would improve their standard of living. While some of these communities have actualized their rural tourism base and transform their respective communities to *rural tourist destinations*, their counterparts have not been able to achieve similar heights, thereby leaving their tourism resources in a deplorable state.

Crisis has been defined as "…negative changes in the security, economic, political, societal, or environmental affairs, especially when they occur abruptly, with little or no warning" ([15], p. 3). In tourism studies or management, crisis can be said to be unwanted circumstance that come with huge negativities on the tourist destination, host community, tourists, visitors, tourist attractions and tourism schemes or project in a given area. The consequences are better imagined than witnessed as it might lead to the closure or abandonment of tourism projects or schemes in a given area. In most cases huge capital investments and natural resources are lost to this situation. The causes could either intrinsic or extrinsic depending on the nature of the crisis. Intrinsic has to do with those crises that are caused from within the tourism project circle, i.e. the stakeholders and/or natural factors. The stakeholders may include members of the host community, visitors/tourists, tourism project managers, tourism project developers and tourism resources (developed or undeveloped), among others. The natural factors has to do with some unforeseen natural occurrences like earthquakes, erosion, heavy rains, weather conditions, volcanoes, land movements and some other similar natural occurrences that are not within the control of man. Then the extrinsic factors have to do with some other factors that could cause crisis that are not within the list given above. It could be persons outside of the defined stakeholders, intercommunal crisis, invaded criminal activities and legal litigations from outside the community, among others.

Crisis management on other hand has been defined as "…the overall coordination of an organisation's response to a crisis, in an effective, timely manner, with the goal of avoiding or minimizing damage to the organisation's profitability, reputation, or ability to operate and often involves the need to make quick decisions on the basis of uncertain or incomplete information" ([15], p. 3). In tourism management, crisis management can be said to be programmes designed and implemented to check possible crisis in tourist destinations or on tourism projects with the aim of either avoiding the crisis and its consequences or managing or controlling the consequences of both expected and unexpected crisis at tourist destinations. This view was supported by Colpofer [15] in the following lines:

*CM includes the development of plans, based upon an integral approach with internal and external organizations to reduce the risk of a crisis occurring and to deal with any crises that do arise, and the implementation of these plans so as to minimize the impact of crisis and assist the organization to recover from them and restart its normal activities as quickly as possible. ([15], p. 3).*

However, safety issues has been identified as among the major sources of crisis at rural tourism destinations [6, 11, 14, 16–19]. Rural tourism projects in Nigeria of recent have been faced with multiplicity of crisis arising from safety issues. Poorly managed safety issues have given rise to high safety and risk perceptions among major actors in rural tourism projects in Nigeria and in some other sub-Saharan countries. This has sandwiched rural tourism projects in a

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**Figure 1.**

*Exploring the Three-Way Destination Safety Solution to Crisis Management in Tourist…*

**4. The concept of three-way destination safety solution to crisis** 

Three-way destination safety solution otherwise known as TWaDeSS model is a new concept in destination management that is proposed for tackling crisis arising from safety issues at rural tourism destinations. This model is product of long-term field/research experience on rural tourism development in Nigeria. It is anchored on three variables of host community, tourism resources and tourists/visitors to guarantee sustainable crisis management in rural tourism destinations. The TWaDeSS model is expected to be conducted by the developer/investors at the various stages of the rural tourism project. The model has three major stages that are to be followed accordingly by the developers/investors of tourism projects in rural areas to

crisis state with negative consequences on the sustainability of these tourism projects and investments. Untold consequences of crisis at rural tourist destinations in Nigeria are major concerns for the principal actors in this type of tourism. It discourages participation and involvement among these actors who may prefer to be alive and/or unembarrassed than engaging in an adventure or practice that may put his life or properties to avoidable risks. Suspension and/or refusal of rural tourism projects is a major blow for the socio-economic devel-

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89727*

opment of rural areas in Nigeria.

**management (TWaDeSS model)**

yield expected positive results (**Figure 1**).

*The flow chart for TWaDeSS model and its application.*

*Exploring the Three-Way Destination Safety Solution to Crisis Management in Tourist… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89727*

crisis state with negative consequences on the sustainability of these tourism projects and investments. Untold consequences of crisis at rural tourist destinations in Nigeria are major concerns for the principal actors in this type of tourism. It discourages participation and involvement among these actors who may prefer to be alive and/or unembarrassed than engaging in an adventure or practice that may put his life or properties to avoidable risks. Suspension and/or refusal of rural tourism projects is a major blow for the socio-economic development of rural areas in Nigeria.
