The paper presents the preliminary findings that highlight the characteristics of small coastal tourism business profiles, the types of crises and tourism business preparedness measures undertaken by the small coastal tourism business in Semporna, Sabah. The findings show that the crises faced are mainly due to manmade and natural disaster. Limited efforts are taken by the small coastal tourism business operators in term of level of preparedness of measures in dealing with crisis faced. Although these small coastal tourism business operators have experienced crisis events, majority of them do not have crisis management plan. Therefore, it is suggested that more attention should be given on the crisis preparedness and relevant innovative measures and they should be part of the business operations. These findings are part of the findings from a bigger research project on assessing tourism businesses preparedness and resilience to crisis in Sabah coastal destinations.