During a virtual "Lessons in Crisis and Recovery" webinar set up by Discover Puerto Rico late last week, Anne Madison, senior vice president of global marketing and strategic communications, Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), provided insight into CLIA's approach to navigating the crisis and forging a path to recovery.
Right now, "everything that we’re doing is about reputation, regulation and legislation—more so than at any other time," Madison emphasized. Here's what we learned:
DMOs and Cruise Lines
Emphasizing the "special bond" that DMOs (destination marketing organizations) and cruise lines have, Madison said it's critical for cruise lines and destinations to work in tandem to bring back the positive impact the industry can have on destinations the ships visit. In terms of health and safety, "cruise lines and destinations have a shared commitment to safeguarding the health of visitors, passengers. In the case of cruise lines, you’ve got crew onboard and the people in the destinations where the cruise ships visit," she said.
So, what's the solution? DMOs and cruise lines must be "lockstep for messaging and the approach," Madison said, adding that "any kind of resumption has to be holistic” with science and medicine as priorities. But, it's not just those factors and cruise ship arriving and departing that are important. "It’s also that door-to-door strategy," Madison stressed. "So, having the [health/safety] protocols in place—that’s been very, very important.”
CLIA's Enhanced Research and Staying the Course
Previously, CLIA tracked consumer sentiments “maybe once every other year… in some cases, every three years,” said Madison. She added: “That made no sense.”
The good news is that at the beginning of the pandemic, CLIA immediately began to track the economic impact of the suspension of cruise. So, now it has excellent data for sharing with government leaders or the public, when the timing is right. "We knew it wasn’t right to use it at the beginning because it would have been seen as tone deaf," she said.
Instead, CLIA has used the ship analogy of “staying the course,” which Madison termed very difficult in a high-profile industry such as travel/cruising, But CLIA also learned over the past year to not be hurt by what was being said by people or in the media. "Sometimes, the loudest voices do not represent the majority of people," she said. “By staying the course, being positive, being proactive, we were not then distracted by the naysayers."
She stressed: "You’re not going to change those hearts and minds. You do have to find out what hearts and minds you do need to change, and make sure you’re doing the right thing at the right time in order to get to the objectives you set out at the very beginning."
To view the full Webinar and hear insight from other industry leaders, including those from Discover Puerto Rico, Marriott International, Destinations International and Puerto Rico’s Central Office of Reconstruction, Recovery & Resiliency (COR3), visit Discover Puerto Rico's YouTube channel.
For more information on CLIA, visit www.cruising.org.
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