Crisis, which public relations counselor James Lukaszewski once described as “unplanned visibility” can strike anyone at any time. As no sector of society is immune from this “unplanned visibility”, it is a need for attempting to “manage” crises. By thinking logically and responding thoughtfully and quickly in a crisis, like how Hong Thai Travel Service Ltd reacted to the Manila hostage crisis, can possibly solidify a positive reputation and build up an immense goodwill for an organization.
The 2010 Manila hostage crisis occurred on August 23, 2010, in front of the Quirino Grandstand in Rizal Park, Manila, Philippines.Like everyone in Hong Kong, the company did not have sufficient information of the crisis. Differ from other hijack cases, all television channels in Hong Kong broadcast devoted significant coverage to the hijacking, and its aftermath. Wall-to-wall live coverage made it the single incident with the most live television news coverage in Hong Kong. It greatly increased outside scrutiny, the media wanted response and customers must know what was going on. In this case, we could see how Hong Thai reacted intelligently and promptly in the crisis.
Once receiving the news from the tour guide, Masa Tse, Hong Thai took a prompt action to it. This hijack case last 10 hours long by starting at around 10 am, after obtaining the phone call, the company convened an internal conference and formed a specific crisis management team in no time. On the other hand, they informed the Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong and Tourism commission at once. Through the Tourism commission sending notification to Security Bureau. Surely, there was nothing for it but to form a team to handle this.
Yet, as activating the support from other objective party with credentials could help in the case, the company took this step immediately. It is apparent that the company was being highly prepared and acted appropriately when crisis came over. Accordingly, the key to crisis management is being prepared, without a quick and comprehensive plan, it is inadequate to handle a crisis like this like what Hong Thai did. The first step to be taken when recognizing potential crisis is gather as much information about the situation as you can.
For this case, the company also did their best to collect much more information from the hijacking. They tried to contact the family members of the coach member, get in touch with outside areas reception travel agency by assigning task for them to store up real time condition. Nevertheless, the most admirable step that taken by the company was establishing an onsite presence. Not only this can collect more information in that area, it also showed corporate concern from the company.
I believe Hong Thai Travel has already implemented a exhaustive search for information as they could since the result could be seen when they were communicating with publics. “A crisis is a major occurrence with a potentially negative outcome affecting the organization, company, or industry, as well as its publics, products, services, or good name. ” Once the issue or imminent conflict reaches a critical level of impact on the organization, the public relations professional must react to events in the external communication environment as they unfold.Hong Thai kept positioning the organization for the time when the crisis was occurring. The spokesperson, Susanna Lau, the General Manager of Hong Thai Travel Ltd, concentrated on communicating the steps that the organization would take to deal with the crisis. We could see the company quickly focus on what they were doing rather than what went wrong.
In any crisis, a communications point person should be pointed and a support team established and it was all done by the company after the crisis happened 2 hours later. According to Fraser, there are 5 planning issues paramount in a crisis.In the Manila hostage crisis, referring to the press conference held by Hong Thai with the spokesperson, the general manager at that time, she respond to the media in a calm and firm tone in a strategic way. At first, she defined the risk and the situation of the crisis for the publics.
Then, she clearly stated that the actions have been taken to help mitigating the risk. The publics were likely to accept as she identified the cause of the problem and made definite that the company would quickly remedy the problem.The coverage of the crisis was likely to be more balanced when all of these were learly stated. Nonetheless, Susanna Lau also demonstrated responsible management action that convincing the publics with showed corporate concern and proper actions done by the company. It apparently that all steps taken by the company involved top management, it was also one of the appreciate way as management should not only be involved but it must also appear to be involved. By referring Fraser, letting publics know that the organization has a plan and it’s implementing it helps convince them that you are control.
Through the entire press conference, it can be seen that a appropriate spokesperson has be chosen for disseminating one voice for the organization with stating situation and all proper action has been done. Handling the media is the most critical element in a crisis. Actually, it is difficult to say the crisis management of Hong Thai Company was in an all-round manner without any comparison. Therefore, to show how well the company was, a comparison with the Philippines Government would be taken. At that time, the Philippines Government could not handle the media reports appropriately.
Normally, at general rule, when rumors are gets out quickly, it never stopped. Actually, refer to the Fraser, we should put the public at a first priority and take responsibility. Yet, for the Philippines Government, they tried to cover the bad news from the crisis by only stating how successful of the Philippines police. When crisis occurred, the spokesperson should be speak to the media in a concerned, truthful and cooperative mind, but for the president of Philippines Government, it seemed that he had no concern about the crisis.Compared with the General Manager, Susanna Lau, the president of Philippines Government even looked disinterested on the crisis.
Even the councilor of the Philippines Government critic the president failed to protect the image and restore the credibility of the government by inappropriately respond to the media. Indeed, not only organization should take responsibility fro solving the problems but also for the government need to do so. Apart from being responsible, being honest is also a major factor when communicating with publics. It is unsuitable that obscuring facts and trying to mislead the public.
Thus, it is obvious why Hong Thai Travel succeed by getting support from the publics on one hand and the Philippines Government lost its credibility on the other. Apart from Philippines Government, there is another real case that failed to conduct a proper crisis management comparing with Hong Thai Company which is The Board of Octopus Holdings Limited. Under the Octopus Rewards Program, co-operation agreements have been signed with CIGNA and CPP whereby customers' personal data is provided to CIGNA and CPP for marketing purposes, given that consent had previously been obtained from Octopus Rewards members.Although MTR Corporation Ltd held a press conference stated that all associated marketing activities carried out under the co-operation agreements have already been discontinued in view of the heightened public concerns. However, the difference between Octopus Holdings Limited and Hong Thai Travel Ltd is that Hong Thai has clearly defined the cause of problem but Octopus Holdings Limited did not.
Actually, the concrete situation that violating the customers' personal data of Octopus Holdings Ltd should be defined as clear as possible to ease the anxiety of impacted audience but not only saying the only action that has been taken.Indeed, the demonstration of responsible management action should be stated by appropriate spokesperson, Chan Pik Wa but not by MTR. It somehow likely the Octopus Company did not want to admit the problem and take the responsibility. Hence, similar to Philippines Government, the Octopus Holdings Ltd fail to restore the credibility and getting support from the publics. How an organization handles itself in the midst of a crisis may influence how it perceived for a years to come.
Poor handling of events can cripple an organization’s reputation and cause it enormous monetary loss. Crisis happened at once, it is difficult to get sufficient information, and thus, containing much information is useful for communicating with media and publics. Communicating effectively and efficiently also depends on the judgment and experience of the public relations professional. To conclude, crisis management must be a growing area in the coming years of the public relations professions.
