Introduction

This chapter follows on from the previous one and suggests that one of the most positive outcomes from a crisis or disaster can be the generation and sharing of knowledge associated with a tourism crisis or disaster, which can be used in future tourism crisis and disaster planning. The chapter begins by outlining the knowledge management imperative, defines knowledge management and suggests the importance of knowledge for the survival and adaptation of tourism organisations facing a tourism crisis or disaster. This part of the chapter acknowledges the differing knowledge types and the knowledge requirements throughout the crisis or disaster lifecycle for acquisition, storage, distribution, interpretation and action of knowledge. The next section of the chapter focuses on organisational learning and feedback by focusing specifically on the review and reflection phase of the crisis or disaster lifecycle. It suggests that new knowledge enables the reevaluation of currently understood ideas and beliefs and leads to the possibility of future change. However, limited research has been undertaken on the link between organisational learning and tourism crises and disasters. This section outlines the difference between single- and double-loop learning, and notes that double-loop learning facilitates a higher level of knowledge generation and organisational learning as it may challenge existing assumptions and mental models.

The next section suggests that managing the reflection process to encourage organisational learning is needed, including implementing evaluative enquiry and tools to encourage the generation of new explicit and tacit knowledge to challenge existing mental models. The chapter then discusses the role and importance of knowledge brokers and spanners in developing and sharing such knowledge across diverse groups and domains. Potential knowledge brokers and spanners could include DMOs, industry associations and government agencies, who have a role to play in facilitating tourism crisis and disaster knowledge management through the use of boundary objects such as repositories, forms, models and maps.