Katherine, washed out one day, back on track the next: a post-mortem of a tourism disaster

Abstract

One of the certainties in the evolution of a tourist destination is that, at some point of its history, one of its visitors will be a disaster of one kind or another. Regardless of whether this is triggered by some extreme natural event (flood, cyclone, earthquake) or malevolent human action (war, pathological behaviour), it is also certain that the destination will cope with the challenges the situation presents more effectively if it has a tourism disaster management plan in place. This paper aims to refine a previously developed model for tourism disaster management plans (companion paper) by examining the case of the 1998 Australia Day flood at Katherine. In the process, the potential contribution of such a plan to destination preparedness is illustrated, and valuable insights into the details of such a plan and the more enduring tourism impacts of disasters are provided.