As a final project for my crisis communication course I will be constructing a comprehensive crisis plan for the Best Western Travel Inn. The Travel Inn is a small family owned motel in Southern Utah.
During my initial study of crisis communication I thought that catastrophes only hit and damaged large institutions. After a talk with Dr. Payne I realized that crisis plans are critical for small firms because interest is often invested solely into that one business. If it fails, the owner has nothing to fall back onto. Small businesses rarely have the deep financial pockets necessary to weather the unpleasant consequences that can surface from crises.
So what can really happen? What consequences might befall a small business?
“Diminished sales as a result of unfavorable publicity, boycotts, etc. are the most widely recognized of these blows, but others can have a significant cumulative impact as well. Added expenses often come knocking in the areas of increased insurance premiums, recall/collection programs, reimbursements, attorneys' fees, and the need to retrieve lost customers through additional advertising” (http://www.enotes.com/small-business-encyclopedia/crisis-management).
Often managers believe that crises only hit other organizations. I believe that it isn’t a matter of if a crisis will strike, but when.
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