When natural disasters, health epidemics or accidents occur in the state, it’s imperative that affected areas preserve their critical tourism economies and continue to inspire visitation. During such times, community leaders are called upon to take action and assess the scale of a response plan.

The first priority in responding to crises is to ensure the safety of both residents and visitors, and once the immediate situation has stabilized, prioritize the promotion of “open for business” messaging. Not only does the economic support from tourism unify a community during healing, but it also restores the destinations’ place on the world stage.

Of course, every crisis is unique and requires a dynamic recovery plan. For this reason, marketing organization Visit California and the state’s travel industry work diligently to build bridges back to distinct regions’ core brand message.

To better understand crisis-affected communities’ needs, Visit California developed a Crisis Evaluation Matrix. Deploying the matrix allows the crisis team to evaluate and quantify a situation through a tourism lens to provide better support.

The matrix is divided into four main categories:

1. EVALUATION inputs include basic facts about the crisis, including longevity of crisis, population impacted, geographic scale and breadth of media coverage.
2. The IMPACT TO TOURISM category is completed by the Crisis Team with input from stakeholders in the region. Factors include scale of affected region, cancellations, damage to tourism infrastructure, recovery timelines and destination marketing programming impact.
3. NEWS COVERAGE tracks the number of news hits covering the crisis across all relevant markets, as well as sentiment, accuracy, visuals, frequency of media coverage and breadth of coverage.
4. Finally, the SOCIAL MEDIA SENTIMENT uses social media monitoring tools and tracks the number of mentions and conversations across social media channels, as well as their sentiment, visuals and passion intensity.

Visit California began beta testing the matrix in 2018, deploying it for official use during 2018 wildfire season. As a result of the matrix development, Visit California has shared more proactive messaging strategies, educating the media and consumers on the safety and accessibility of affected destinations.

The immediate crisis may be ongoing, but having a reliable tool to assess the situation has already proved invaluable.

Download the Crisis Evaluation Matrix.