Tourism crisis support

You may think a crisis will never affect your business, but a crisis event can occur anywhere, anytime. Planning for these disruptive events could be vital to the continuing success of your business.

It can arrive with little or no warning in the shape of flood, fire, disease outbreak, algal bloom or unwelcomed media attention. Even if you think you're not in a disaster-prone area, the tone and scale of the media coverage of a nearby emergency may result in a downturn in clientele to your business.

A crisis event could be:

• destruction of a nearby national park or major attraction
• visitor misperceptions about the extent of a nearby emergency, driven by sensationalist media coverage
• loss of power, water supply or telecommunications that means that you cannot deliver your service
• road closure that prevents your staff or clients from accessing your property
• fire or flood that destroys your property and your computer records
• injury, or in the worst case, the death of a client or employee
• a key supplier going out of business, leaving you unable to deliver your service.

Potential consequences of these crisis events:

• booking cancellations and a decline in forward bookings
• an immediate downturn in visitors
• business closure for an extended period of time, or ceasing to trade altogether
• several weeks or months to return to pre-crisis levels of sales
• limited or no cash flow for an extended period
• legal proceedings against your business
• heightened levels of personal stress.

How prepared are you?

Responding and recovering from a crisis can be stressful, expensive and time consuming, particularly if you haven’t thought ahead and prepared for such possibilities.

Use the simple checklist below to understand how prepared are to respond and recover effectively from a crisis event.

• Tourism crisis support checklist Tourism-Crisis-Preparedness-Checklist.pdf (PDF 109.13 KB)
• Tourism crisis support checklist Tourism-Crisis-Preparedness-Checklist.docx (DOCX 165.87 KB)

Preparing for the unexpected – actions you can take now

There are some key actions you can undertake now to be better prepared for responding to, and recovering from, a crisis event.

Identify and manage possible risks for your business

All businesses operate with some form of risk. Risks can come from within the business or from external circumstances. Understanding your duty of care will help you in managing a crisis.

You need to identify the range of possible risks for your business and how you would go about responding to them.  For further information visit Business Victoria website.

Secure adequate insurance cover

Insurance cover is very useful to help protect your business against risks.  For a small business, adequate cover can mean the difference between a business surviving an emergency or going under.

To understand the type of insurance your business may need, complete the business insurance checklist.

Put systems in place to monitor and receive warnings

Some crisis events, such as a severe weather forecast, an algal bloom moving down a river, or an expected insect plague generally provide adequate advance warning, which allows you time to prepare your business and property.

A warning may come from the emergency services or your Visitor Economy Partnership or Regional Tourism Board – depending on the type of incident and its lead time.  It's important to have systems in place to monitor and receive warnings and information from the emergency services, such as the downloading the VicEmergency app on your mobile devices.

You should also ensure your business is listed with the nearest accredited visitor information centre and your regional and local tourism associations.

Develop an emergency management plan

It is crucial to develop a plan that guides your response to, and recovery from, an emergency. Looking after your customers, staff and yourself when an emergency occurs is your number one priority.

Specific procedures, triggers and activities are needed to prepare for, and respond to, different types of emergencies (e.g. bushfire, flood). Visit Business Victoria’s website for further advice on preparing an emergency management plan.

Plan for business continuity

A business continuity plan outlines the steps to take after a crisis event to get your business up and running as soon as possible. The quicker you can return to regular operations, the faster you can get cash flowing back into the business.

Build up an emergency cash reserve fund

Should a crisis force your business to shut or reduce operating capacity, having an emergency cash reserve fund that you can quickly draw on can help your business stay afloat.

Due to the unpredictability of crisis events, it is important that the fund remains active and intact to ensure there are always adequate funds available.

Prepare protocols for dealing with the media

A disaster or crisis may attract media attention. Understanding how best to work with the media during a crisis is an essential skill in crisis management.  Once a crisis has occurred, it’s often too late to improve your media skills and to put protocols in place.

Establish clear crisis media protocols, including identifying a designated spokesperson to handle media inquiries and interviews and developing pre-approved messaging templates.

Plan to deal with booking cancellations

In a crisis, it's inevitable that some customers will decide to cancel or postpone their bookings.  If this happens, where do you stand?

Understanding your rights and responsibilities in relation to booking cancellations is critical. As is having a documented cancellation policy.

Consumer Affairs Victoria has prepared useful guidelines on booking cancellations.