The Blank Page

LORJEN VILLARUEL

An Academic Essay Submitted to the College Of International Tourism And

Hospitality Management (CITHM), Lyceum Of The Philippines- Davao in Partial
Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Science in International
Tourism Management

Bachelor of Science in International Tourism Management

2022
 Life recently has been chaotic. War on here and war on there. This leads to anxiety,

or even an unhealthy mental state. As a tourism student I am, I wanted to feel secure and

safe while I am in a particular hotel destination I am into. And I also do not want to be like

a blank page that is clueless and empty, I want to be handled safely by the hotel

employees. In this article you will be knowledgeable about the determine the significant

relationship between the disaster preparedness and level of anxiety among local hotel

employees in Tagum City.

Disasters could create shakiness and menace the security and safety of any

community. According to Sperling & Bierman (2009) disasters are climate related and

human made disasters such as, virus outbreak, war, earthquake, typhoons, bombing, fire,

and financial crisis or any events that can cause insecurity and future uncertainty of an

individual. Hotel businesses as a part of hospitality industry is one of the most vulnerable

to disasters and can be affected by internal and external hazards (Henderson, 2012).

Preparedness for disasters is a measure taken to formulate for and lessen the

effects of disasters. That is, to expect and, where possible, avert disasters, mitigate their

impact on susceptible populations, and respond to and effectively cope with their

significances. Disaster is very important for each individual who is in disaster-prone areas,

both earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, and other climate related and human made

disasters. If each individual has a high level of preparedness, it is certain that each

individual is ready to face the disaster. Moreover, according to Sheriff office Oregon

(2022) disaster preparedness reduce fear, anxiety, and losses. Therefore, individual

should know what to do in the event of fire and many other disasters. Over the last few

decades, the number of disasters in the hotel business has progressively escalated.
Disaster management has become a hot topic in the hospitality industry as major

participants look for solutions to deal with unforeseen catastrophes that pose a threat to

the profitability of businesses and present many issues for both the private and public

sectors. According to Pecl (2017) Disasters can cause loss of life, injury and lead to the

development of psychological problems. In the aftermath of disasters, the spread of

diseases also be promoted due to damaged infrastructure, in particular loss of clean

drinking water and sanitation, such as severe disasters happened in 2011, earthquake

overwhelm New Zealand, an earthquake and tsunami destroy large parts of north-eastern

Japan, and Cyclone Yasi impact Queensland, Australia. In 2016 and 2017, hurricanes

devastated parts of the southern United States and the Caribbean, and in 2017 and 2018

wildfires erupted in southern Europe and in California, USA. Increasingly, individuals will

have to prepare for the eventuality of being affected physically and psychologically by a

disaster impact or warning situation, due to recurring natural hazards, as well as the

effects of anthropogenic climate change. Disasters happen in any region, Philippines as

one of the vulnerable countries to natural calamities, thousands of lives have been lost,

millions of people have been displaced, and hundreds of billions of dollars have been lost

due to disasters in the last decade. The local super typhoon Haiyan struck in 2013 where

more than 300 kph winds triggered four-meter storm surges throughout nine regions and

44 provinces, resulting in 8,000 deaths, 1.2 million destroyed buildings, and PHP 200

billion in property damage (Campanero and Egargo 2017). More recent typhoons like

Vinta and Urduja, which hit the Philippines before the end of 2017, left over 300 people

dead or missing, as well as billions in damage. Before the end of 2018, a similar incident

occurred, with 126 people killed and four billion worth of agricultural crops and
infrastructure were destroyed. To add more 18 floods and landslides, 12 typhoons,

including the disastrous typhoon Sendong, two volcano eruptions, and one earthquake

struck in 2011, resulting in 1,439 deaths and a total of $1 billion in damage. 11.7 million

people have been affected. Typhoon Bopha hit Mindanao in 2012, killing over a thousand

people and destroying billions of dollars’ worth of property, livelihood, and infrastructure.

The foregoing emphasizes the needs to improve disaster preparedness, especially in

more susceptible developing countries like the Philippines where compounding factors

amplify disaster impacts. In addition, preparing for disasters is one approach to reduce

the severity of its consequences.

Therefore, Hassanain (2009) argued that company owners' and employees’ need

to receive sufficient training on how to deal with the different unexpected crises occur in

the company. However, the orientation of organizations and their operational actions in

disasters preparedness are influenced by different features, one factor that many

researchers find out is the individual reason and personal behavior of employees and

business owners. An incident is as important as the nature of the traumatic incident itself,

risk factors for posttraumatic stress include both direct and indirect trauma. According to

Mishra (2012) in her study on effect of anxiety, disaster education and resources on

disaster preparedness behavior, anxiety as a behavioral state affect the level of

preparedness by individuals depending on age and family type. On one hand,

Surbariyanti (2019) on his study on relationship between the level of anxiety with

preparedness, finds out that the preparedness partially has a significant effect on anxiety

level of individual. Moreover, he finds out that to reduce the anxiety of natural disasters,
especially earthquake disasters, high preparedness, and other supporting variables are

needed to reduce anxiety levels.

There is vast extensive literature that explains how employees make decisions in

crises and the different reasons for disaster reduction failure (Karl & Schmude 2017).

However, there is still a scarcity of research into identifying the factors that serve as the

foundation for risk preparedness of an employees. Therefore, it is the aim of this study to

assess the relationship between disaster preparedness and level of anxiety of the local

hotel employees in Tagum City.

In conclusion This implies that being able to investigate the preparedness among

hotel employees can maintain and protect the local environment in general. This is not

just about providing an excellent tourism experience but to maintain safety and healthy

mental health towards everyone.

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