Lipstick comes late on this pig
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I’m sure some of you could care less about the swine flu crisis, but wouldn’t you know it I have plans to travel to Mexico in June so the potential pandemic directly effects my travel plans. We are booked on a Carnival cruise with three ports of call along the famed Mexican Riviera, and of course we’re concerned about the status of our trip (and more importantly, our deposit).
It took Carnival several days to address the issue, and even now after the CDC has warned Americans about traveling to Mexico through July 27 it was hard to get updated info from the cruise line — until this morning.
If you go to Carnival’s web site it’s as if there is no concern at all. However, if you call 1-888-CARNIVAL there is an option to hear a statement about the swine flu. Ironically, Carnival is using Twitter to keep passengers updated. You can follow the latest at http://twitter.com/carnivalcruise and there’s even a link to a statement on Carnival’s web site (though I couldn’t find the statement directly off the home page). Bottom line, Carnival should have been ready sooner with a statement and made it easily accessible on its web site. Surely it has a crisis communications plan?
As for my travel plans, if the cruise gets cancelled we’re going to Maui!
Lipstick comes late on this pig
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Comments
April 28th, 2009 at 9:51 am
Hi Len,
I am getting married in 18 days in Mexico!!! I have been planning our wedding for over a year. My fiancee and I met at a volleyball tournament in Rocky Point and we wouldn’t dream of having our wedding anywhere else.
While not my specialty, I have taken on a role of crisis PR for my wedding destination and have unwittingly become the spokesperson on the drug cartel impact on Rocky Point (none) and on swine flu cases in Rocky Point (none).
There is a lot of fear media out there but I do also blame the public for the inability to read past a headline, and then in-turn spread the misinformation.
April 29th, 2009 at 10:20 am
Rachel, Good comment. I have the same problem with misleading headlines, but turning this into a pandemic story, which it is not. For what it’s worth I have logged my protest here: http://ow.ly/4pDh even though I may get a lot of flack for it. Yesterday I complained to CNN for ramping up the fear factor. Information without context is just hype.
April 29th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
On a local level – a kid in NW PHX got the swine and now the school is closed for a week – that’s a very real deal for parents, teachers and 800 students in the school – perhaps it’s too soon to shoot the media?
April 29th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
There is always a lag time between the suspicion of infectious disease and the 100% verification. Legitimate media outlets are often provided off the record information in the period in between in order to prepare their content more accurately and to disseminate it more rapidly. The behaviors of all media will be interesting to watch in the weeks ahead.
April 29th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Oh for Pete’s sake, am I the only one who’s old enough to remember times when absenteeism at school hovered around 40-45% from the regular flu? Do we need to do what we can to stay healthy? Of course. But we’ve seen much worse spread of the flu than this. Of course back then we didn’t have 24/7 cable news networks trying to fill air time.
Quotes for the week ending 2 May, 2009 « Says:
May 2nd, 2009 at 12:47 pm
[...] Len Gutman, Editor of ValleyPRBlog, on the the potential cancellation of a crusie to the Mexican Riviera [...]
Valley PR Blog » Blog Archive » Next on your ‘To do list’ — SM crisis plan Says:
June 2nd, 2009 at 4:28 pm
[...] thanks to social media. Other examples such as KFC and Oprah, Motrin and the Motrin moms and Carnival’s response to the swine flu bring about the real need for social media crisis [...]