Chapter 13 Crisis Management and Resilience – The Case of Small Businesses in Tourism

Purpose Crisis management has developed as an established field of scholarly research in tourism over the last three decades. More recently, the concept of resilience has emerged within this body of literature as a longer-term planning process. However, important knowledge gaps remain, especially with regards to the strategic responses of small tourism businesses in destinations prone to repeated crises. Design/methodology/approach This chapter reviews the literature related to crisis management and resilience in tourism. Findings Key knowledge gaps are outlined and discussed in the context of tourism research related to crisis management and resilience, with a specific emphasis on research related to small tourism businesses. Originality Although crisis management and resilience are fields of research that continue to generate a considerable amount of scholarly enquiry in tourism, particularly with studies related to the impacts of terrorism on tourism destinations and, more recently, the short- and longer-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism, there is very little research related to the role of small tourism businesses in this context, in spite of their key role in the tourism system of destinations around the world.