Political instability and tourism in Egypt: exploring survivors’ attitudes after downsizing

Political unrest, framed within an array of terrorists’ attacks and large demonstrations against the regime, has been considered a mainstay of the tourism collapse in Egypt since 2011. The number of tourists visiting the country has drastically declined, mainly in response to international travel alerts and warnings by many Western governments. As such, several tourism and hospitality organizations have applied downsizing strategies in their attempt to cut labor cost. Both employees who lost their jobs (victims) and who remain in the organization (survivors) have been experiencing a great fear of the future and incremental feelings of job insecurity. While a review of literature clearly shows the harmful influence of political unrest on tourism destinations, little is known to suggest such influence on employees’ reactions. The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of job insecurity on the attitudes of survivors (i.e. trust, organizational commitment and turnover intention) in downsized hotels and tourism companies in Egypt. The results indicate that survivors’ perception of job insecurity within an unstable political climate has a strong positive relationship with survivors’ turnover intention. The results suggest that this relationship is more likely to be weakened by survivors’ high perception of trust and commitment in their organization. Additionally, it is found that survivors who intend to leave their organization target to entirely change their career or seek to work abroad. Losing qualified survivors to other industries or countries may become a significant risk for the Egyptian tourism industry. The implications of the results are discussed and elaborated.