As the COVID-19 crisis unfolds, one of the biggest issues is misinformation. Experts of different areas are constantly trying to provide the most accurate and up-to-date data to the media and other communication outlets to assure the correct information reaches the general public.

The COVID-19 crisis brought swift changes in the way our society functions and, unfortunately, has reduced or eliminated the workload of many professionals worldwide. This is not the case for our EFTI Director, Dr. Lori Pennington-Gray, whose expertise is Tourism Crisis Management.

The third round of the ongoing study conducted by the Tourism Crisis Management Initiative, directed by Dr. Lori Pennington-Gray had the results just announced. The group surveyed more than 500 American travelers to understand their travel intentions facing the current COVID-19 pandemic and analyze the changes from previous weeks.

Dr. Lori Pennington-Gray and PhD candidate Danielle Barbe surveyed more than 500 American travelers to understand their travel intentions facing the recent coronavirus outbreak. Two studies were done, one on January 26 and 27 and the second one on February 7 to 9. A third round of the research happened in March 3 and 4 and shows another increase in concerns.

“With the rise in the number of crises globally that are affecting our industry, it is no longer simply enough to look at planning from a crisis management perspective alone.”

Dr. Lori Pennington-Gray recently wrote an article featured in Newsweek Japan about how to safely travel abroad in the age of terror. Dr. Pennington-Gray highlighted the work that the Tourism Crisis Management Initiative has been conducting to help the tourist to be responsible and engage in safe tourism practices and to help the industry to be prepared for terrorism attacks.

From March 16th to 23rd, Dr. Lori Pennington-Gray and Dr. Ashley Schroeder visited Lapland, Finland to present in a one day workshop held at Lapland University of Applied Sciences, Multidimensional Tourism Institute (LUC). Dr. Pennington-Gray presented information on crisis management planning, while Dr. Schroeder presented information on tourism crisis management’s best practices.