Good Stuff from Joan Eisenstodt

As many as 100K tourists are stranded in Thailand, unable to depart.  Airline schedules around the world have been disrupted.  Thailand is both a major (traditional) tourist and incentive destination and is a 'hot spot' for medical tourism - which means that people who took time off to go or those en route also may not be able to get there.  

Airines cut flights into and out of Mumbai, with disruptions rippling across the world and likely to continue to do so for some time until there is a sense that security will be tighter.

If you remember the aftermath of 9.11.01 and how many (of us) were stranded around the world, we know that there are great hardships including but not limited to health (not having medications, extreme anxiety), family emergencies, and financial issues.

This past week, a colleague wrote about  Mumbai and how the Mumbai emergency and security personnel didn't know the hotels' floor plans.    Do you know what the emergency services in the destination to which you are taking a meeting or incentive has for the hotels and venues you plan to use?

I wonder, for Thailand, what plan there was for any shutdown of transportation facilities.   It boggles the mind (except the mind of Julia Rutherford Silvers) to think of all the possibilities these two major events have raised with which any of us might have to deal.  (Have you yet purchased and read her book? Is it on your wish list for someone to buy for you?  )  

What would you have done - or better, what WILL you do now to prepare?

It continues to frustrate and anger me that so many who plan, manage and house meetings and events are so ill-prepared for so much - from the relatively mundane to the potentially catastrophic.

After 9.11.01, our industry took up the cry of contingency planning and risk management .. but only for terror attacks. (Although I wonder how the people hosting groups in Mumbai were prepared or not for what happened there. So very sad.)  We then forgot.

Katrina came and there was some preparation, albeit mostly for hurricanes that might occur in New Orleans.

Rita .. Ike .. and still there was little preparation except for hurricanes in the US Gulf states.

What is wrong with our industry? [Note: I was cautious here - I wanted to use some language that my late mother might have frowned on - I'm that angry.]

The late  great Jim Fausel, a professor at Arizona State University, building on the success of Dave Wiggins who began, 10 years ago, the CA Tourism Safety & Security Conference - the next one is May 7, 2009 -  had the vision to do this for Arizona -- and where were you?  We had one planner in the audience and maybe one hotel sales person and no one from convention services! 

Really!  And in the 2 years before that for the AZ conference, we had a handful of planners and no one from sales/marketing or CS.

Again - where were you?

Will you join us in 2009?

What actions will you take now?

Isn't it well past time that you considered the risk of planning, managing and housing meetings and events?