DESTINATION BRANDING

PLACE IMAGE CRISIS

Chryssa Skodra

What is a ’crisis’?Crisis is an undesired, extraordinary, often

unexpected and timely limited process with ambivalent development possibilities. It demans immediate decisions and countermeasures in order to influence the further development again positively for the organisation/destination and to limit the negative consequences as much as possible.

Types of crisis Crime-related Terror-related Political unrest Natural disaster Epidemic-related

Crisis Management (phases)1. Precaution2. Planning-Prevention3. Crisis Coping4. Post-crisis

1. Precaution 1. Precaution - In accordance with its name, during

the precaution stage most actions taken by organizations and places have nothing to do with a specific crisis situation but mainly concern preventive measures. This ongoing stage is used to create a strong and favorable image for the place through activities such as social contribution, community relations, allocating resources to PR, and creating good media relations

2. Planning-Prevention2. Planning-Prevention - In the second stage of

crisis communication management, the place's main goal is to prepare for future crises and to try to prevent them before they get out of control. The main tasks in the planning-prevention stage are the preparation of issue management plan (risk management), and the creation of a communication response strategy (also known as emergency response and action strategy).

3. Crisis Coping3. Crisis Coping - Crisis coping is a highly complex

task in which a wide variety of measures are taken to contain the crisis, reduce its scale, and bring it to an end. As in the preceding stages, a correct, professional, and proactive use of crisis communication techniques can ease the perception of the crisis and prevent long-term damage to the place's image. On the other hand, places that do not succeed in gaining control of the crisis coverage and delivering the right messages might find themselves facing a long-term image crisis.

4. Post-crisis4. Post-crisis - In every crisis there is a post-crisis

stage, starting once the smoke has cleared and lasting months or even years after the physical crisis has faded. From the perspective of crisis communication management, this stage is used for PR, advertising and marketing campaign aimed at altering the place’s image and re-attracting tourists, visitors and investors.

Crisis Communication techniques part 1.Respond quicklySpeak with one voiceOpennessExpress sympathyKeep the message simple

Crisis Communication techniques part 2.Stick to your messageProvide as much information as possibleEmpathizeCreate personal relations with journalistsUpdates your employeesUpdate your websiteSpotlight positive aspects in the crisis

Methods for evaluating a place's image1. Attitude surveys/ Questionnairesa) Unstructured survey (open-ended)b)Structured survey (closed-ended)2. Focus groups3. Interviews with experts

Individual assignmentFind a crisis that has struck your destination (the one

you have chosen in the previous assignment). Write an unstructured and a unstructured survey of 10 questions each that reflects the potential image crisis issues.

Example of question of an unstructured survey: "What comes to mind when you hear the word 'Stockholm'?"

Example of question of a structured survey:Trait grading: "Grade a list of traits from 1 to 10

regarding the city of Athens." Athens is safe.Deadline for uploading in Moodle: Sun, 6th March

at 18:00