It’s astonishing to me, given the volume of harrowing news we’ve had to digest in the past several months, that the hotel industry isn’t in worse shape than it is. Headlines jump from one disaster—some natural, some man-made—to another, any of which in years past would have scared even hardy travelers into staying home.

The botched Times Square bombing incident could have been a deadly event that threw the city of New York and its tourism business into a tailspin. Yet, life in this often-described crossroads of the world continued without hardly skipping a beat. News accounts quoted hotel managers in the area saying business was still booming immediately after the attack and since. The oil spill in the Gulf has the potential to literally muck up the summer tourist season along the pristine beaches of Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. If, as some scientists believe, winds and currents shift, the danger could spread as far as the Florida Keys and then catch the Gulf Stream and head up the East Coast.

And while there have been initial reports of some cancellations along the Panhandle, I bet the hysteria will abate and the region will have an influx of tourists at levels only slightly below what was expected before the spill. (That could change, however, if for whatever reason the oil washes ashore in force and seriously fouls the beaches.)

Neither am I convinced the nasty rhetoric over the recently enacted Arizona immigration enforcement law will ultimately have a significant impact on tourism to the state. Sure, some groups will remove the state from its list of meeting locations, and a few government entities say they won’t let their officials and workers travel to Arizona, but I believe this movement will fade within weeks or months. I also commend the travel industry, the AH&LA and AAHOA in particular, for swift action in informing any who would listen that a boycott of Arizona would mostly hurt hard-working employees of the state’s vast tourism industry. And ironically many of them are immigrants, including some who are in the U.S. illegally.

Of course, disaster can strike just as unexpectedly but with consequences that can’t be shirked so easily. The worst and most recent example is the epic flooding in Nashville that shut down the massive Gaylord Opryland Hotel and surrounding tourist attractions. This catastrophe will put the hotel out of commission for six months or so and put a serious dent in Gaylord’s profits and Nashville’s hospitality economy. From all indications, however, Gaylord’s strong crisis response plan has mitigated some of the effects of the disaster. For one, its network of three other mega-hotels will be able to siphon off much of the large group business booked into the Nashville property. Other smaller meetings may go to hotels in the city unaffected by the flood.

A disaster or crisis of either the natural or man-made variety has the potential to seriously disrupt your business and spook some of your clientele. But as demonstrated by the Opryland response, a well-thought-out, often-reviewed crisis plan can blunt the worst any disaster can throw at you.

Here’s hoping you and your company have a disaster-free summer and rest of 2010. If not, I hope you’re prepared for the worst.