Hotels in crisis – are they ready to communicate in an emergency?

‘Six found dead at Grand Hyatt Bangkok.’ 

‘Detectives investigating devastating Glasgow hotel fire’ 

‘Woman found dead at five star Surrey hotel – man suspected of murder.’  

‘Hilton hotel in Paddington evacuated after laundry fire.’

These headlines from the BBC website and major newspapers, all from within the last three months, are a reminder of how often hotel owners and management suddenly have to communicate with the press, customers, owners, staff and neighbours in response to a crisis while in the media spotlight – at the same time being swamped by dealing with the practical consequences of the emergency.

It is in such moments that hotels that don’t have a crisis communications plan think ‘We would struggle to cope with that’ and put it close to the top of the To do list. Too often it is too late.

Preparation is key

Being well-prepared and everyone knowing what to do is the key to handling crisis communications. In fact, many leading hotel groups and independent properties update their crisis communications plan annually just as they check that the fire extinguishers work properly and that all the fire marshals know their roles. That is best practice in both crisis preparations and in crisis communications.

Those organisations fully understand the benefits of being well-prepared and of having an up-to-date crisis communications plan. In emergency response, the first 60 minutes are the ‘golden hour.’ Issues that are assessed quickly and handled well create a good start. The way the fire brigade prepares and responds demonstrates the value of preparation. 

These hotels understand that the consequences of handling a crisis badly can be huge – loss of business, severe damage to the brand’s reputation and loss of trust. By contrast, communicating calmly and appropriately in a crisis is vital in alleviating concern, even panic, especially when there is a lack of information, misinformation and rumour. Maintaining control of the story is crucial.

They also appreciate that the disruption caused by a crisis to day-to-day management can also be immense – one property calculated that a major incident took away 50 hours of senior management time from day-to-day work.

What is a well-prepared hotel?

When auditing the crisis preparations of a property, the overall questions we explore in detail include; 

• Does the venue have a well-defined plan for leadership and key roles in a crisis? For instance, what if the general manager was unavailable – who is the designated deputy and does he/she know their role? What if the crisis occurred at a weekend or during a public holiday?
• Is the property ready and resourced to cope with a flood of incoming enquiries and to communicate promptly and efficiently to each of its audiences?  For example, are contact details of everyone that might need to be contacted up to date? Easily accessible? Are there enough phone lines in and out? How quickly will the switchboard responders be briefed with the official response to callers? 
• Who will draft or approve a press release, social media post or message to customers? Who will monitor the press and broadcast coverage and social media?
• Who will communicate with customers with imminent bookings? With contractors?
• Who will record when actions are taken in case there’s an insurance claim or legal defence?
• Does the property have a crisis plan and manual with up to date databases? Kept off-site? Paper copy? External hard drive?  – remember the recent global IT outage when many organisations had to revert to paper lists of customers.
• Has the venue identified key potential scenarios and prepared for them, including templates of press releases and emails to customers and suppliers?
• Has the crisis plan been tested in a desk-top ‘fire drill’?

These are just a few essential elements of crisis communications.

If you would like to know more about what needs to be done to be prepared for Crisis Communications please visit  www.crisiscommunicationsaudits.co.uk 

Chris Lewis is a highly experienced PR and crisis communications specialist who has worked with the hotels, conferences and meetings sector for more than 35 years.