Helping a Hospitality Business Manage a Crisis and Execute a Sale

Challenge:

A West Coast hospitality company anticipated a highly disruptive and negative regulatory announcement that could damage its brand and unsettle customers. The organization's leadership needed a proactive plan to manage stakeholder and customer communications so the organization could maintain trust in the community.

Strategy:

Fitler Square Strategies worked with the company prior to the regulatory announcement. We developed a proactive crisis communications plan that gave company leadership the map and collateral to manage its response. We worked with the company to understand their relationships and vulnerabilities so we could identify messages, messengers, and tactics.

Execution:

• Drafted holding statements and pre-approved media responses for multiple potential scenarios.

• Conducted message training with company leadership so they were ready to talk with everyone from reporters to customers.

• Built an internal escalation protocol to coordinate rapid response.

Results:

• The company was fully prepared when the outside announcement broke, responding quickly and consistently.

• Owners were able to execute a sale after the successful crisis management kept the business viable and helped return it to regular operations.