Learning from 2010 and understanding threats in 2011

Christian Cull, Communications Director, TUI UK & Ireland

Private sector PR challenges in 2010

TUI UK & Ireland – Key Facts

• 5.4m customers

• 62 aircraft

• 100 destinations

• More than 870 shops

• 16,000 colleagues

• Differentiated product

• First Choice & Thomson

PR TeamHead of PR

PR ManagerAirline, SD,

Industry Affairs

PR ManagerTour Operating

PR Assistant

PR Officer

Senior PR Officer

Senior PR Officer

PR Officer

Senior PR Officer

Senior PR Officer

Welcome to the world of travel!

• Watchdog (twice)

• Snow on the runway

• Madeira floods

• Volcanic ash (twice)

• Group actions

• Share price plunge

• Snow on the runway (again)

• Strikes in Spain

• Shark attacks on Sharm

• Tunisia

• Egypt

Who’s this?

Andy Sharman from Leicester

Topped Google rankings for “Thomson Tunisia review

So we asked him to come in…

10,000+ 

September 2009

““Rant Blog”

6

Why communicate in a crisis?

• Protect your reputation

• Keep control of the agenda

• Maintain trust in your company

7

The power of the media

• BBC online is the second most visited site in Europe with 14 million people visiting every day

• 70% of UK adults get news from the BBC everyday

• If BBC decides at 8am to broadcast something, by 8:35am 19 million people will have seen it either on TV, radio or online

“Ash-gate”

• Wednesday 14 April– 1000 hrs – the Eyjafjallajoekull volcano in Iceland erupted – NATS monitored the situation all afternoon – Thomson was made aware late afternoon/early evening– 2100 hrs - the Crisis Team is activated - Alert State Yellow declared– 1200 hrs - potential closure of GLA, MAN and NCL– Thursday programme at risk (specifically Cruise)

• Thursday 15 April– 0300 hrs – Alert State Orange declared– UK airspace closing– Despite this, Thomson managed to operate around 18 flights outbound

• Friday 16 April– UK airspace nearly completely closed – but Thomson managed to get 4 aircraft back home – the only airline to do so!– 0730 hrs – Alert State Red activated

28 Aircraft stranded

Spain Egypt PortugalArrecife – 6 Sharm el Sheik – 5 Boa Viste – 1Tenerife – 1 Hurghada – 1 Faro – 1Alicante – 1

Greece India Germany Paphos – 1 Goa – 1 Hamburg – 1Heraklion – 1

USA BarbadosGreensboro – 1 Bridgetown – 1

Customers stranded

• Thursday 14th 8,400• Friday 15th 11,800• Saturday 16th 7,200 (Ski flights operated by road)

• Sunday 17th 10,100• Monday 18th 8,400• Tuesday 19th 11,100• Wednesday 20th 8,200

• Total circa 65,200

So, what did we do?

• The Crisis Centre managed overall co-ordination and repatriation

• All areas of the business were involved in decision making:

Airline – Customer – Distribution – Comms – Commercial –

Cruise – HR – Legal - Group

• BALPA and UNITE support maximum flexibility

• The Ops team was involved in regular calls with NATS to try and open airspace

• The Flight Ops team convened a meeting with CAA and all UK airlines

• The Engineering team co-ordinated with CAA/UK airlines and manufacturers

CRISIS MANAGEMENT CENTRE

Control, Command, Coordination, Communication

CRISIS MANAGEMENT CENTRE

Control, Command, Coordination, Communication

CRISIS DIRECTOR

CRISIS CONTROLLER

COMMS CMC ADMIN

CONTINGENCY PLANNING

Airline & UKI Boards

24H OPERATIONS CENTRE

Flight OperationsCrewing

Customer OperationsSignificant Operational Disruption Plan

24H OPERATIONS CENTRE

Flight OperationsCrewing

Customer OperationsSignificant Operational Disruption Plan

INCIDENT RESPONSE MGR

InflightProduc

t

Airports

Aviation

Planning

CabinCrewMgmt

PilotMgmt

TechnicalOps

Cruise

Change

Control

After Travel Customer

Support

Engineering Legal

Regulatory

Liaison

Holiday

Line

Commercial

Internal

Comms

Facilities

Finance

HR

ITWebsit

eTeam Extern

alComm

s

Overseas

Retail

Pre TravelCustomer

Support

= Crisis Support Unit

Flight Safety

Go Team

Ash crisis – our objectives

• Use the media as an efficient method of communicating with our customers, and their friends and family back home

• Ensure all the hard work undertaken across the

business was recognised by customers and potential customers, to generate positive awareness and feelings about TUI Travel

• Drive awareness of the benefits of the package

holiday and why it is still relevant in today's

fragmented marketplace

How did we deliver these objectives?

• Relevant updates displayed on our web sites and

issued to media• Swift, efficient and effective responses to media requests• Proactive selling-in of key stories as they arose• Arranging easy access to several competent spokespeople

and briefing them where relevant• Advising the business on the impact of their decisions

on the reputation of the business• Seizing opportunities to correct any misleading media

reports and to fill information gaps as they arose• Managing responses to the few cases where we got it

wrong!• …. 24 hours a day!

Thomson Airways huge rescue package is complete - 70,000 customers brought home

Our messages…

• We are a caring company

• We excel in customer service

• We provide accommodation for customers overseas during the disruption, free of charge

• We are the UK’s leading tour operator

• We are providing repatriation via alternative means of transport to get customers home asap (ferries, cruises and coaches)

• Customers are in safe hands with tour operators who take complete responsibility when something goes wrong (unlike low-cost airlines)

Physical Environment

During Crisis

Post Crisis

Blogs

YouTube

TwitterWeb Dashboard

ListeningSMS

BlogsFacebook

Resort notice boards

Resort Representatives

Flip Cameras content

Video storytelling

Internal PR

External PR

Retail Stores

Email

TUI Crisis Management

Centre

Resort Reception Head Office teams

VideoTwitter

Digital Environment

Touchpoint Map

Online Comms was vital

“I just wanted to say…. Thomson's website, informing customer of the situation, has been excellent.  Any time I have wanted an up-date I have received very clear guidance as to the situation at that time.  As a result of such clear reporting, it has made the situation more tolerable. Many thanks to those responsible.”

Kathy Edwards (Customer)

Twitter in a crisis

Hudson River plane crash, Jan 09• Twitter users broke the news of the

emergency landing around 15 minutes before the mainstream media

• First Tweet four minutes after crash

• Picture (right) taken and uploaded with mobile phone ten minutes after takeoff

• Tweets documented the incident and reassured friends and families

• During crises, we direct people to our

website for updates, and we use

Twitter and Facebook to direct people

there

• Valuable source of information into

business

• Opportunity to put problems right

• Way of communicating with customers

overseas

Social Media

Things that make me go yuk

Dynamic Markets research:

•3/4 (+) of in house communications professionals say they expect agency staff to be more knowledgeable than they are on new media

– Shame on you, in house comms professionals!

Key PR Skills

• Writing

• Selling – In

• Thinking

• Media

• Networking – social or otherwise

Things that make me go yuk

Dynamic Markets research: •3/4 (+) of in house communications professionals say they expect agency staff to be more knowledgeable than they are on new media

– Shame on you, in house comms professionals!

•“targeting (influential bloggers and commentators) through social media can be a powerful way of gaining credibility”

– have a conversation with them: they are people, not targets

Who is this?

Marshal McLuhan

“The medium is the message”

Yes, if it’s a light bulb

But no…

It’s the message, message, message 

 Date Page Views Unique Visitors

Weds 14th April 88 65

Thurs 15th April 20,081 9,823

Fri 16th April 83,297 36,677

Sat 17th April 91,048 46,012

Sun 18th April 102,080 57,299

Mon 19th April 162,918 75,565

Tues 20th April 198,356 83,067

Weds 21st April 244,589 77,995

Total alert page views – 902,457

Volcanic Ash Crisis Wednesday 14th – Wednesday 21st April 2010

Peak day/time – Wednesday 21st April at 10am, approx. 11,000 views in the hour.

The customer isn’t always right...

“Personally I think Thomson’s should be applauded for their response to a very difficult situation there are thousands out there that would have liked the same level of

care.”

“A FURIOUS Weymouth mother has demanded an apology from her holiday company after her daughter fell ill on a 48-hour coach journey from southern Spain to France. Angela Smart and her daughter Courtney, eight, had to return to Britain on coaches and a ferry after flights were grounded during the volcanic ash crisis. Mrs Smart said holiday company Thomson failed to provide her and her daughter with water during their two-day coach journey. Little Courtney became dehydrated and fell ill during the trip……..”

“Yawn! Another sob story that does nothing more than demonstrate what a spineless bunch of moaners this country is so rapidly becoming... Did the rep not clean your teeth, wipe your bum, tell you bed time stories.....diddums!”

How did we do?

• More than 1,000 pieces of editorial coverage (print, online and broadcast)

• The value of this coverage alone in excess of £9million in terms of advertising equivalent

• Almost 3 hours worth of broadcast coverage• More than 40 interviews with our spokespeople• 22% of all press/broadcast pieces were strongly

favourable, compared with 14% for Thomas Cook. • 49% of coverage conveyed a key message.• Winner of the PRCA Crisis Management Award

2010

 Date Page Views Unique Visitors

Weds 1st December 31,096 7,974

Thurs 2nd December 45,688 11,594

Fri 3rd December 23,171 9,140

Sat 4th December 23,652 9,766

Sun 5th December 12,471 6,421

Travel Alert was on the website from Wednesday 1st December.

From this time until Sunday 5th December, the page received 136,078 views. 

1st December 2010 Gatwick Snow Crisis

1 December 2010 Gatwick Snow Crisis

 Date Page Views Unique Visitors

Friday 14th January 21,381 17,368 

Saturday 15th January 17,299 13,063 

Sunday 16th January 14,650 12,476 

Monday 17th January 13,173  10,395 

Tunisia Alert

Total page views for the alert during Friday 14th – Monday 17th January 67,767

Why communicate in a crisis?

Egypt

• Destination by destination

• Cairo

• Luxor and Aswan

• Calm in Sharm

• Foreign and Commonwealth Office

• Sound on the ground

Priorities

• Identify the opportunity

• Get moving immediately

• Get on the front foot

• Update, regularly and often

• Track key influencers

Thank you - Any Questions?