Tourism in rural areas has an important role of developing and altering the rural communities when it comes to the environment, social and economic structures. Rural areas have high potential in tourism development but the world is continuously experiencing the power of nature. December 2019 the world experienced the beginning of the Corona pandemic that would later affect the whole world in just weeks. The Corona pandemic has caused many problems throughout the world but one sector that was specifically affected was the tourism sector. Even though crises are to some extent random and rare, there is no organization that is immune from such events. Unfortunately, many tourism-oriented organizations have been affected by this crisis and there has been a marginal decrease in bookings from previous years. The purpose of this study is to examinate how different organizations manage, organize and plan for crises in rural destinations in Östergötland county. The focus lies on organizations that are dependent on tourism and that use tourism as their main sources of income. The study has a qualitative research approach meaning qualitative semi-structured interviews with organizations in rural destinations. The main findings were that organizations in rural areas don’t have experience about crisis management and therefore don’t adapt it in their organization. In order for organizations to reorganize and plan for the crisis there need to be guides and routines on how the organization will achieve it. By having different plans for different crises, the organization can be better prepared for the next one. The important steps in the reorganization are communication strategy, controlling resources and collaboration with stakeholders. No matter how big or small the organization is, it is important for each organization to have an organization plan in order to tackle and reduce the consequences of a crisis.

Allmänheten har ett uttalat ansvar vid krishantering, men är sällan medverkande i myndigheters arbete med krisberedskap och krisövning. Allmänheten är oftast den som är på plats där en kris händer och det kan finnas värden i att låta den bli mer inkluderad i arbetet att förbättra samhällets resiliens och minska dess sårbarhet vid en kris. Det här arbetet undersöker vad krishanterare i Värmland i Sverige och Hedmark i Norge anser om att inkludera allmänheten och hur det skulle kunna gå till för att på bästa sätt ta tillvara allmänhetens förmågor till fördel för samhället. Studien är kvalitativ med intervjuer som metod och resultatet analyserades med kvalitativ textanalys. Resultatet har diskuterats utifrån teorin om empowerment som handlar om att stärka den enskildes självförtroende att agera i en kris. Medan myndigheter ser behovet av empowerment så finns det en klyfta att överbrygga som handlar om att myndigheter inte ser allmänheten som en självklar deltagare i krisberedskapsarbetet. Resultatet indikerar att krishanterare ser övning med allmänheten som mestadels positivt, men att de begränsas av resursbrist och föreställningar om allmänhetens reaktioner samt en oro för vad insynen i myndigheternas krisberedskapsarbete kan leda till för negativa konsekvenser. Det viktigaste för att stärka individer och allmänhet sågs vara riktad information och kommunikation som kunde stärka personer att agera på ett bra sätt i en kris, stärka medmänskligheten samt stärka allmänhetens förmåga att ta kloka val samt öka deras tillit till myndigheterna. / The public has a pronounced responsibility for crisis management in Sweden and Norway, but is not a common part of the work on crisis preparedness and crisis training. The public is usually the first responder when a crisis occurs and there may be values ​​in allowing the public to be more included to improve societies’ resilience and reduce its vulnerability. This paper examines what crisis managers in Värmland in Sweden and Hedmark in Norway consider about including the public more and how the public could be included to best utilize the public's abilities for the benefit of society. The study has a qualitative design, with interviews as the main method. The result is analyzed by means of qualitative text analysis. The result indicates that crisis managers see crisis training with the public as mostly positive with clearly beneficial values, but they see themselves as limited by lack of resources and worry about public responses and concerns about how the transparency of government emergency preparedness work can lead to negative consequences such as lack of trust. The most important finding was the importance to strengthen individuals and the public through targeted information and communication. Information and education could strengthen people to act wisely in a situation, strengthen humanity, and strengthen the publics ability to make good choices as well as increase public trust in the authorities. The result has been discussed based on theories of empowerment, to strengthen the individual's self-confidence to act in a crisis. While authorities see the need for empowerment, there is a gap to bridge that is about authorities not viewing the public as an obvious participant in emergency preparedness work. / CriseIT

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