It always seems worse when you think you're in the middle of a crisis and believe that everyone is watching and judging. Or, maybe you've been doing this so long that you just know that it'll blow-over soon and leave nary a scratch. Regardless, wouldn't it be nice to have a tool to assess the proper response to a crisis in your destination.
Visit California has developed a Crisis Evaluation Matrix to inform its response strategy in the heat of those situations. And, in a recent blog post, Ryan Becker, VP of Communications at Visit California, explains how they've developed a tool that is pretty cool. It's worth your read.
I like the matrix for determining if nothing or little is to be done. I imagine it also helps them decide if a situation could be made worse by inserting themselves into it when it might not be necessary to link a disaster to tourism. Not overreacting can be a good thing.
One positive thing to remember: Short term memory is one of tourism recovery's best friends. A study by Destination Analysts showed visitors move on pretty quickly from whatever bad news an area suffers.
(Data source: Destination Analysts, Inc. The State of the American Traveler, October 2017 and January, 2018.)
Hitting them with the right message at the right time is be gold. It also goes to why frequency of message is key in normal times. Americans don't retain much for very long...do we?
Posted by: Lee T | November 07, 2018 at 08:18
Years ago, when members of the Duke Lacrosse Team were accused of rape, the DMO there surveyed potential visitors to determine whether the news coverage had dampened their interest in the destination. The vast majority of respondents replied, "what rape trial?" There ya go...
Posted by: Bill Geist | November 07, 2018 at 09:22