Crisis Management for Tour Operators: 4 Tips to Prepare for a Crisis

29 Jan

Without fail, all businesses face a crisis at some point in their lifetime. Unfortunately, the travel industry is among the first to feel the impact of disasters and disruptions like financial shocks, health crises, natural disasters, political unrest and severe technical faults. Do you find yourself thinking back to the upheaval of 2020? You’re not alone. The COVID-19 pandemic was a particularly stark reminder of just how exposed the travel industry is to crises—and how important it is to be prepared.

Preparing for a crisis

It’s safe to say that most business owners spend substantial time reflecting on the effectiveness of their response after a crisis is resolved. For example, PwC’s 2021 Global Crisis Survey revealed that 84% of organisations believe there are lessons to be learned from their responses to the pandemic. More recently, a crisis hit the travel industry once again. The CrowdStrike IT outage in July 2024, which led to thousands of flight cancellations globally, revealed how quickly things can go wrong. Travel providers must always be crisis-ready.

However, preparing for a crisis is far easier said than done. Critical events come in many shapes and sizes, and being fully prepared for all eventualities is impossible. But don’t fret because it’s far from inevitable that a crisis will sink your business. It’s possible to prepare for a wide range of crisis events by doing the following:

Create a crisis management plan

Benjamin Franklin said, “By failing to prepare, you’re preparing to fail.” Effective crisis management begins and ends with a crisis management plan comprising a crisis management team, risk assessment, response and recovery plan. The crisis management team is responsible for developing and implementing the crisis management plan in response to critical events.

We’ve already established that the travel industry is fraught with risk. After the crisis management team is assembled, the next step is to create a risk management plan to help the team identify potential critical events that could impact the business, how likely they are to occur and their possible severity.

Next, create response plans that detail the steps the crisis management team will take to respond to a range of critical events, such as natural disasters, data breaches and technical issues. The response plans should also clearly outline the team's roles to ensure everyone knows what is expected of them should that specific crisis occur.

The final element of a crisis management strategy is a recovery plan. The plan outlines the steps to recover from a crisis event and get the business functioning as usual.

The best time to prepare for a crisis is before it happens. A robust crisis management plan will ensure you and your team are equipped to respond swiftly to critical events, minimise disruption where possible and learn from your experiences.

Remain calm

Being thrown into a crisis isn’t pleasant, whether an all-encompassing global pandemic or a technical issue that grinds operations to a halt for a few hours. However, as a leader, it’s your responsibility to demonstrate calm and optimism during difficult times, regardless of severity.

Your people will look to you for guidance to steady the ship. Making the deliberate choice to feel calm and collected during a crisis is a skill that takes time to learn, but it will serve you well in the workplace and beyond. A leader who reframes threats as learning opportunities will be better positioned to stay positive, even during a critical event.

Communicate clearly and regularly

Clear and regular communication is integral during a crisis. Depending on the nature of the crisis, several stakeholders, including customers, suppliers and employees, will likely be desperate for information. It’s your responsibility to ensure they receive the information they need.

Clear communication in a crisis has three core elements:

Delivering essential information quickly and clearly.
Sharing what you don’t know as well as what you do know.
Demonstrating that people can look to you as a leader for guidance.

These three core elements of crisis communication are supported by other best practices, including communicating repeatedly through multiple mediums to ensure all stakeholders are in the know. Additionally, document all communications to maintain transparency and monitor social media to identify potential issues your customers are having.

Last but not least, show empathy to those affected. For example, if you’re communicating with a customer, give them your full attention and validate their feelings. Offer them reassurance that you and your colleagues are doing all you can to resolve the situation.

Crisis management plans hinge on communication. Without clear, consistent and empathetic communication, even seemingly watertight plans will fail in a real crisis.

Prioritise employee training

While the crisis management team may feel prepared, they’re not the only ones dealing with the fallout from critical events. Your employees also need to know exactly what to do should a crisis occur. Crisis response training helps your team prepare for a crisis and equips them with the necessary skills to react swiftly and consistently.

Crisis response training will help team members prepare for various crisis scenarios, giving them the confidence to navigate challenging situations. You have several options for delivering crisis response training. If your company has in-house crisis management experts such as operations managers or health and safety officers, they may be best suited to training their colleagues.

Alternatively, you may prefer to work with external specialised training providers or industry associations with extensive crisis management training experience. In October 2024, for example, ABTA will host a Destination Crisis Management and Operational Response for Travel training day, providing practical guidance on preparing for, managing and recovering from a crisis.

Crisis management for tour operators

Crises are inevitable, especially in the unpredictable travel industry. Critical events may vary by severity, but they all require a robust crisis management plan supported by employees with crisis response training, clear communication and the ability to remain calm. Whether a natural disaster, political unrest or business insolvency, it pays to be prepared.

Trust My Travel financially protects your customers from a crisis we hope never happens: your insolvency. It’s unpleasant to think about, but financially protecting your customers from this unfortunate situation builds trust and is a legal requirement under the UK Package Travel Regulations and the EU Package Travel Directive.

But that’s not all we do—our pay-as-you-process travel payment solution combines a merchant account, financial failure insurance and supplier payments to help you better manage your business so you can weather any storm.

Learn more about our travel payment and protection solution, or contact us to discuss your requirements.