Japanese Tourism and the SARS Epidemic of 2003

SUMMARYThis paper chronicles and analyses the reactions of the Japanese tourist industry and tourists towards one of the major crises affecting world tourism during 2003, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). Secondary sources are used to build up a picture of the impact of the SARS event on tourist flows to and from Japan during the period of the crisis and its management. The material is also framed, for both theoretical and practical purposes, within the existing tourism disaster management literature. In this way a more systematic attempt can be made, in the aftermath of the SARS outbreak, to place the impact of this event within a wider context.