Understanding Crisis Management

Introduction:

Definition of crisis:

A crisis is referred as any situation or event that poses potential impact on service and product of an organisation thereby affecting the ability to conduct its normal operation.

Types of Crisis:

Tourism and hospitality industry are vulnerable to man-made and natural disasters such as a terrorist attack, volcanic eruption, tsunamis, economic crisis and earthquake.

Crisis management:

Crisis management can be referred to as the systematic process that assists an organisation as well as its stakeholders to develop effective strategies and tools in terms of preventing crisis to occur.

Aim of the assignment:

Discuss the crisis management process TUI UK, the famous UK based tourism and hospitality company.

Discuss the pattern and relationship of different thematic areas of crisis management.

Analyse the effective communication tools that the PR manager of TUI UK is going to develop in terms of preventing possible crisis for maintaining the operation smoothly

Implement suitable theories in terms of analysing the use of crisis management process conducted by TUI UK.

Relationship or pattern of different thematic areas of crisis management:While it comes to understand the crisis management process, it is important to discuss the type of crisis that can attack the operation of an organisation. In terms of discussing the thematic areas of crisis management process conducted by TUI UK, it important to consider the following themes:

While it comes to understand the crisis management process, it is important to discuss the type of crisis that can attack the operation of an organisation. In terms of discussing the thematic areas of crisis management process conducted by TUI UK, it important to consider the following themes:

Theme 1: The nature of crisis management process is based on the types of crisis attacks the organisation:

There are different types of crisis that can attack any organisation such as man med crisis, technical crisis, economic crisis, natural. Crisis, workplace crisis and operation crisis.

According to Liu et al. (2016) in terms of developing an effective crisis management process, the organisation needs to analyse or determine the types of crisis that can attack the organisation.

In this context PR and marketing department of TUI UK needs to consider different types of crisis to which this company is highly vulnerable in terms of setting useful crisis management tools.

Following are the types of crisis, which can attack TUI UK, based on which the proper crisis management strategies are going to be applied.

Manmade crisis:

Most common man-made crisis, which attacks the tourism and hospitality company most is a terrorist attack.

As TUI UK, is a famous hospitality and tourism company which provides hospitality services worldwide, it has high chances of getting attacked by terrorist due to having millions of customers.

The terrorist attack is a common man-made crisis, which not only makes financial damages to the company but also poses an adverse impact on the overall brand reputation, organisational image and customer base of the company (Mikulić et al. (2018).

TUI UK higher possibility of terrorist’s attack as it has many customers, employees and clients in its outlets at a time.

Civil conflict is one of the most common manmade crises which can damage the international reputation, economic growth and organisational values of an organisation (Yozcu and Cetin, 2019).

Civil conflicts include terrorism, strike, war and demonstrations, which generally develop due to raising adverse political tension between nations.

As TUI UK operates its branches in different countries other than its home country, it has possibilities of facing these civil conflicts.

Therefore, the PR department and management need to focus on strategies that will assist this travel and tourism company to cope with these crises.

Stages in managing the man-made crisis:

Conducting proper communication with staff about managing the crisis

Arranging CCTV cameras in workplace to supervise operation to minimise chances of crisis

Review and monitoring of staff’s performance

Conduct meeting and conference with staffs of organisation

Natural crisis:

Natural crises include flood, tsunamis, volcanic eruption, earthquake and economic crisis (Jiang et al. 2019).

TUI UK has possibilities of getting attacked by these crises as most of the outlets is in the metropolitan cities and urban areas which are prone to natural disasters.

In this aspect’s mangers of the PR departments and management team need to set useful tools and techniques which will provide a high level of support in dealing with these disasters.

Stages involved in managing natural crisis:

Arranging proper sensors for sense the weather condition

Developing risk management board that would has skilled staff who have strong knowledge determining the chances of natural disasters

Developing strong as well as faster information delivery system

Informing about any crisis to the higher officials while sensing the crisis

Consultation and communication are the important factors that enhance quality of crisis management system:

According to Pennington-Gray (2018), communication and consultation are fundamental activities of the risk management process. For setting a useful crisis management system, TUI UK needs to make two ways communication process, external and internal communication, which will assist stakeholders as well as decision-makers to set useful strategies. In this context, the management team and PR department of TUI UK will develop a proper communication plan and set the measures that are needed to implement this plan in an effective manner into their organisational process. For example, TUI UK can use transparent information delivery process through using online mode of communication in terms of maintaining the instant flow of information into each organisational layer.

Monitoring and review are associated with making continuous improvement in crisis management process:

As stated by Prayag (2018), monitoring and review of stakeholders' activities are one of the most important processes in crisis management system which assist an organisational to understand the areas of improvements.

Here the selected organisation, TUI UK needs to conduct effective monitoring and review process through which it can be aware of the possible crises that can attack this organisation, based on these crises the PR department and management team can set effective strategies for dealing with these crises.

For example, TUI UK will develop risk registered computer database that will assist managers to evaluate the performed of stakeholders and the annual economic growth of this organisation. In addition to this, the management team of TUI UK will go for performance management stem, which assists managers in each department to check the performance standard of each staff thereby guiding them in proper way to develop their professional skill.

Measuring progress is one of the important crisis management tools which improves professional standard of stakeholders:

According to Tayeh and Mustafa (2018), measuring progress of the workforce as well as of the entire organisation is one of the most effective and common crises management tools.

The management team and PR of TUI UK will measure progress of organisation by conducting regular checking of staff's performance, maintaining clear interaction with mangers and staffs regularly, conducting a weekly meeting on official topics and checking the annual performance of the company.

Analysis of communication strategies and tools used by TUI UK to manage crisis:

In terms of managing crisis, the most important things that TUI UK needs to focus on is improving the level of communication among its stakeholders. Two types of communication tools will be used by this company which are as follows:

Online communication tools:

TUI UK is going to install new software which will assist this company to maintain transparent flow of official information among stakeholders.

Through this application program, staff of this company will interact with each other regarding any possible risks, they can update their opinion about the risk, staffs can make their own review for any official decision and managers can communicate with subordinate staffs as well as with the higher official in terms of taking effective decision for preventing the risk.

The PR department of TUI UK is going to install an improved version if Twitter, Gmail and Instagram, in terms of maintaining high-quality information delivery system in the organisation.

This process will assist the managers of TUI UK to provide information about the types of crisis to the company is vulnerable and discuss the strategies about dealing with this crisis.

Offline communication:

The management team of TUI UK has taken effective offline communication tools which include weekly meeting, self-assessment program, performance assessment programs and official conference.

Through this process, it is possible for TUI UK to conduct offline communication among staffs, managers and other stakeholders such as suppliers, dealers and investors.

Offline communication assists higher officials of this company to make efface to face interaction with staff in term of understanding their decision regarding the possible risk.

Moreover, after determining the risk, these offline communication tools will assist the management team of TUI UK to contact with technician, suppliers, clients and investors fort providing proper support to prevent the crisis.

Application of theoretical approaches in crisis management:

In terms of dealing with crisis, the PR department of TUI UK can apply the following theories which will assist them to create relevant crisis management framework.

Plan ahead Theory:

According to Laws and Prideaux (2017), this theory highlights the importance of developing suitable planning before dealing with the crisis.

By applying this theoretical concept, the PR and management of TUI UK nerd to prioritise setting proper crisis management plan, which will assist the managers to use systematic improvement of the overall operation.

On the contrary Orchiston and Higham (2016) argued that crisis is unpredictable in most of the time in which organisational are unable to set aby suitable plan before facing the crisis.

Therefore, the management team of TUI UK needs to determine the possible types of risk in term of setting a plan that will be relevant to the type of crisis that is going to be prevented.

Structural Functions System Theory:

This theory highlights the importance of effective communication and interaction among each staff of organisation.

By applying this theory, the management team of TUI UK will be able to strengthen their communication channel in terms of preventing risks.

Through using proper communication system such as official meeting, conference, employee training, self-assessment tests and communication through online medium, the management team of TUI UK will be able to discuss the type of risk with their staffs and take suitable decision to deal with these risks.

Diffusion of innovation theory:

This theory involves stakeholders and employees of organisation into the decision-making process for preventing risk.

By implementing this theory into work process, management team and PR department of TUI UK can motivate its staffs and managers to represent their own decision about selecting proper ways of managing risks.

In this process mangers of TUI UK will be able to understand not only the strength and weakness of their staffs but also the type of planning and management process that is needed to deal with the crisis.

Conclusion:

From the above-mentioned discussion, it can be concluded that:

Crisis management is the process which assists any organisation to set planning in terms of determining and preventing risks

Crisis or risk can be of different types such as manmade and natural

Manmade crises are civil attack, terrorist attack, political tension, strikes, war and demonstration

Natural crises are flood, tsunamis, volcanic eruption and earthquake.

Reference list:

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Jiang, Y., Ritchie, B.W. and Benckendorff, P., 2019. Bibliometric visualisation: An application in tourism crisis and disaster management research. Current Issues in Tourism, 22(16), pp.1925-1957.

Laws, E. And Prideaux, B.R., 2017. The significance of crisis communication in the aftermath of 9/11: A national investigation of how tourism managers have re-tooled their promotional campaigns. In Tourism Crises (pp. 89-102). Routledge.

Liu, B., Pennington-Gray, L. And Krieger, J., 2016. Tourism crisis management: Can the Extended Parallel Process Model be used to understand crisis responses in the cruise industry?. Tourism Management, 55, pp.310-321.

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Mikulić, J., Sprčić, D.M., Holiček, H. And Prebežac, D., 2018. Strategic crisis management in tourism: An application of integrated risk management principles to the Croatian tourism industry. Journal of destination marketing & management, 7, pp.36-38.

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Orchiston, C. And Higham, J.E.S., 2016. Knowledge management and tourism recovery (de) marketing: The Christchurch earthquakes 2010–2011. Current Issues in Tourism, 19(1), pp.64-84.

Pappas, N. And Papatheodorou, A., 2017. Tourism and the refugee crisis in Greece: Perceptions and decision-making of accommodation providers. Tourism Management, 63, pp.31-41.

Pennington-Gray, L., 2018. Reflections to move forward: Where destination crisis management research needs to go. Tourism management perspectives, 25, pp.136-139.

Prayag, G., 2018. Symbiotic relationship or not? Understanding resilience and crisis management in tourism. Tourism management perspectives, 25, pp.133-135.

Tayeh, S.N.A. and Mustafa, M.H., 2018. Tourism Crisis Management in Jordan: an Overview. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 5(2).

Yozcu, O.K. and Cetin, G., 2019. A Strategic Approach to Managing Risk and Crisis at Tourist Destinations. In Tourist Destination Management (pp. 273-287). Springer, Cham.

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