Learning Outcomes
LO1. Develop a basic analysis of the tourism business environment.
LO2. Explain some of the critical success forces for the tourism businesses.
Project Task
You are required to conduct an analysis of the response of recovery strategies by one or more tourism stakeholders to the macro-environmental event.
Task Guidance
Analyse the impact of macro-environmental event on stakeholders of your choosing and evaluate the response strategies of the stakeholders in context to this event.
This module should observe the positive and negative elements of the response strategies utilised, with evidence of how you drive the conclusions.
For instance: How did the strategy facilitate benefits to the organisation in response to the macro environmental event? Conversely, did the response strategy have anticipate negative impacts? How did it not achieve the original objectives?
INTRODUCTION
The present project takes into account the disaster of Machu Picchu floods which had a massive impact over the revenue generated out of tourism industry. Within January 2010, massive rains led to floods which washed away the roads as well as rail tracks to Machu Picchu, captivating approximately 2000 local individuals as well as over 2000 travellers. These people were ultimately airlifted to save their lives (Rodríguez-Pascua and et. al., 2019). This caused temporary closure of Machu Picchu which was opened again on the first day on April 2010. The project includes the overview of this disaster along with the recovery strategies that were utilised by 2 majorly affected stakeholders of tourism.
MAIN BODY
Overview of the disaster
The Machu Picchu line pertaining to PeruRail within the high Andes is a 3 foot gauge, single track line of around 69 mile extending among Machu Picchu Pueblo and Cusco. This line is regarded to be the primary method for accessing the mainstream destination of travellers of Peru, namely, the Inca city of Machu Picchu. 40 passenger trains run by PeruRail on a day by day basis transporting approximately 3.6 million individuals on an annual basis. The working condition is particularly terrible with the northern stopping point being crushed into the limited canyon of the Urubamba Waterway, one of the most significant tributaries of Amazon. Activities utilize locomotion hauled traveller trains as well as DMUs on non-flagged railroad. Toward the finish of January of the year 2010 record precipitation in the Urubamba watershed caused huge flooding which at last lead to high streams in the Urubamba gorge close to Aguas Caliente. The climate disintegrated the railroad arrangement or caused avalanches hindering the track at almost 44 areas. In addition to this, more than 2000 travellers were marooned in Aguas Caliente and were required to be transported out by the government of Peru with the assistance of an airlift (Herity and et. al., 2018). At that time, reclamation of that line was of utmost need as the travel towards Machu Picchu produces more than $800 million every year for Peru and travelling cancellation costed in abundance of $1 million on a regular basis. Suspension of rail services in a roundabout way made 17,000 individuals be put out of work. Introductory evaluations to revive the line were up to one year.
Stakeholders affected by Machu Picchu Flooding
The Machu Picchu flood that took place within Peru had adverse impacts over tourism and its associated stakeholders. In this relation, the stakeholders that were majorly affected by this natural disaster were acknowledged to be public transport as well as railways. Looking upon this, measures or response strategies were taken up by both of these stakeholders to recover from the losses caused by this disaster to tourism sector.
Response strategies taken up by the 2 stakeholders
To deal with the negative effects of Machu Picchu disaster within Peru, a recovery plan was made by the stakeholders of tourism, namely, public transport and railways (Wang, Jiang and Jiao, 2019). This recovery plan is explained in a detailed manner as follows:-
Post the investigation, it was ascertained that the rail line lying in the stretch between Hidroelectrica and Aguas Caliente consisted of 3 places having blockages which could be fixed at a rapid pace. Hidroelectrica was available by unpaved street from Santa Clause Terese which thus was associated by highway to Cuzco by means of Urubamba abet over the highest point of the Andes. PeruRail built up a traveller and cargo transport administration among Hidroelectrica and Aguas Caliente in Spring and the Peruvian government made crisis fixes to the street to allow bus as well as truck traffic to get to Hidroelectrica (Drenkhan and et. al., 2019). The substitute excursion required more than 8 hour contrasted with the 3 hour beforehand via the usage of train.
The second stage of the laid down recovery plan encompassed the measure to fix the tracks between Piscacucha and Aguas Caliente to permit a rail transport activity for meeting buses towards the finish of dirt street (Von Daniken, 2018). The evaluation done by PeruRail stated that they could have these services working within a time span of about two months. In this relation, the services were acknowledged to have begun 3 days in front of the one scheduled on 29th March by making use of diesel rail automotive vehicles which had been secluded in Aguas Caliente on 26th of January (Restoration of the Machu Picchu Railway Line after the January 2010 Floods, 2015). Majority of these repair mechanisms were impermanent in nature and the diesel rail vehicles had lighter pivot loadings than trains to encourage a solid beginning. The Cusco territorial government built a brief rail platform along with the parking space to encourage such service.
The third stage of this recovery plan was the repairing of blockages underlying among Poroy as well as Ollantaytumbo for materials movement and to become ready for thorough passenger services once the working at KP79 was executed.
The objective was to have overall assistance re-established by the beginning of the travelling season on the 1st of July in the year 2010. At a significant number of the areas, the roadbed was flooded or immersed with landslides that needed uncovering materials from the high side of the slant and saving them on the stream slide. Huge stones were recovered from the stream to develop protection or gabion dividers were produced utilizing local material. Whilst the working was acknowledged to be continuing, there was as yet extensive downpour and extra stone falls made further cleanup vital (Siebeneck and Richardson, 2019). Within several of the areas, it had even become immensely crucial to do realigning of track to new bench cut into the slope because of stream erosion as well as scouring.
At KP 83, the rail line runs before a high Inca built wall. For securing the track as well as foundation of Inca wall, the slope underneath the track was canvassed in coverings to forestall further disintegration till the time extra fill could be put thereby.
The greatest test was the washout that took place at KP79 among Ollantaytumbo as well as Piscacucha. Within this area, the waterway had cut well before the center line of track. The fixation strategy that was chosen was to build a designed fill encountered by gabions (Wagner, 2019). Such kind of new fill was identified to be 600 feet long and nearly being 30 feet high. This filling was strengthened with geo mesh plastic network mats and tiebacks to anchor the gabions. The base of the wall was shielded with cement and rocks to decrease probability of futuristic scouring.
Before the resumption of overall services, the revised territories were altogether surfaced with the assistance of the new stabilizer (Cathcart, 2018). The work associated with the steps to execute the recovery plan was finished on the 25th of June. Post the examination done by the OSITRAN authorities, the re opening of the track took place on the 2nd of July in the year 2010. The opening occurred in July permitted PeruRail to hold practically the entirety of its traveller traffic for the year 2010 through meeting the beginning of the essential travelling season and taking into account the inflated demands as a result of the closure of 5 months.
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CONCLUSION
On the basis of above discussion, it can be inferred that Machu Picchu Flooding has severe impacts over tourism industry and its stakeholders. In this regard, the most affected stakeholders were acknowledged to be public transport and railways. The response strategy undertaken by these stakeholders was to execute a recovery plan which consisted of 3 stages. This recovery plan was successful in dealing with the aftermath of this natural disaster and thereby the rail track was reopened after the closure period of 5 months.
Other Related Sample:-
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
- Cathcart, R. B., 2018. Galvanic Tripartite Amazon River Basin Macro-Imagineering. CALIBRE-Revista Brasiliense de Engenharia e Física Aplicada. 3(2). pp.1-8.
- Drenkhan, F. and et. al., 2019. Managing risks and future options from new lakes in the deglaciating Andes of Peru: The example of the Vilcanota-Urubamba basin. Science of the Total Environment. 665. pp.465-483.
- Herity, J. and et. al., 2018. Global business practices for mainstreaming biodiversity. Biodiversity. 19(3-4). pp.198-205.