Earlier this week, I taught two classes at the TTIA’s Tourism College at Texas State University. The program, in its second year, will lead students who participate all three years to a certificate called “Certified Tourism Executive” or CTE.

While teaching the sophomore class this week, we examined a mock crisis in small groups.  Our scenario was a historic hotel fire.  Each group of 5-7 assumed three things: 1) the fire had been reported; 2) the hotel was occupied; and 3) all members of staff and management were present when the fire began.

Their task was to figure out who should do what in a crisis. During the course of the activity, each group thought of additional things that would need to happen during their scenario—like what to take out of the hotel and who should write a statement.  As a communicator who has participated in numerous crises during her career, it was gratifying to see the groups thinking innovatively under pressure.

After the scenario, each group shared one role that they devised and what the responsibilities were for each role.  Here’s what they shared:

• Command Center – needs to include communication and operations components and use a hub and spoke approach
• Monitor – someone to monitor dialogue in all media spaces and report misinformation.
• Liaison – someone needs to be the go-between for fire, EMS and other first responders because in this scenario, they will be in command.  Someone in a maintenance or engineering role would be best suited to this task.
• Public Relations – Someone to serve as spokesperson, create statements and interact with media requests, preferably someone who is bilingual.
• Records – Since this was Tourism College, the group naturally knew that the occupancy list and other business records would need to be retrieved and that someone from the financial area of the leadership team would be most suited to do that.
• Sales – This function could serve by working with partner hotels to help relocate guests displaced by a fire.
• Housekeeping – One group thought that the housekeeping team could calm guests and assist them with blankets, water, etc in a café across the street.
• Leader – Last but not least, this function would most likely be performed by the General Manager who would be briefed throughout and most likely serve as spokesperson.

Other Roles determined by the team included the Front Desk Manager who could assist with guest evacuation, particularly special needs guests, and someone to do Vendor Outreach to get the supply chain restored.

This group activity highlighted the flexibility that small organizations might need during a crisis. It’s easy to assume that the role you perform each day is the same role you would perform in a crisis, but in small organizations, each member of the team often wears several hats.

Is your team ready for its next crisis? What roles will you assume?

Part 1: First Advice in a Crisis: Do No Harm

Part 2: 6 Mistakes Organizations Make During a Crisis

Part 3: Crisis Planning Includes Packing a Bag

This series is to support the 100 tourism professionals from around the state that I worked with earlier this week who attended my session on crisis planning. They are attending Tourism College,  a week-long educational opportunity which is an initiative of the Texas Tourism Industry Association (TTIA) and is now in its second year.